US EPA proposes testing of pesticides on children

Former Member

Now can you see how EVIL the USA is?

The US Environmental Protection Agency has put forward a proposal to allow pesticide testing on orphaned and mentally handicapped children:

http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-GENERAL/2005/September/Day-12/g18010.htm

http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/epa_allow_pesticide_testing_on_orphans.htm

http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1532

Former Member

It looks like just the opposite to me.

Former Member

How does this

EPA proposes and invites public comment on a rulemaking to ban
intentional dosing human testing for pesticides when the subjects are
pregnant women or children, to formalize and further strengthen
existing protections for subjects in human research conducted or
supported by EPA, and to extend new protections to adult subjects in
intentional dosing human studies for pesticides conducted by others who
intend to submit the research to EPA. This proposal, the first of
several possible Agency actions, focuses on third-party intentional
dosing human studies for pesticides, but invites public comment on
alternative approaches with broader scope.

become this

The US Environmental Protection Agency has put forward a proposal to allow pesticide testing on orphaned and mentally handicapped children

Former Member

Blagsta wrote:

It looks like just the opposite to me.

Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children. But the EPA's newly proposed rule, misleadingly titled "Protections for Subjects in Human Research," puts industry profits ahead of children's welfare. The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations:

1. Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.

2. Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.

3. Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.

Former Member

How utterly unsurprising. Just another in an ever growing roster of hypocrisies from those who brought you: "We have to invade Iraq cause Saddam gassed his own people".

Nope, nothing new to see here! :no:

Teh_Gerbil

Well. This guy once again talks toss, no supprises.

I am not sure why you left the "Not" out of "US EPA proposes testing of pesticides on children". Please enlighten us, did Sollog tell you to do it?

Former Member

NDC777 wrote:

Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children. But the EPA's newly proposed rule, misleadingly titled "Protections for Subjects in Human Research," puts industry profits ahead of children's welfare. The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations:

1. Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research.

2. Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused.

3. Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable.

Source?

Former Member

The section on parental consent waivers is sec. 26.405 isn't it? This section refers only to tests that fall under the following definition -

EPA will conduct or fund research in which the IRB finds that more
than minimal risk to children is presented by an intervention or
procedure that holds out the prospect of direct benefit for the
individual subject, or by a monitoring procedure that is likely to
contribute to the subject's well-being, only if the IRB finds and
documents that:

-so whilst I wouldn't necessarily agree with this viewpoint they're not talking about open testing on people without parental consent, their talking about only allowing testing if it could provide direct benefits, though with risks. They define it as -

a. the risk should be justified by the accepted benefits
b. the possible benefit should be at least as equally likely to benefit the test subject as all other alternatives
c. adequate consent is gained from parents or guardians.

The actual section on consent then goes on to define the sub clauses you're talking about - in the case of people where parental consent may not be appropriate (abused children whos legal guardian may be an abuser without their best interest in mind) then the following applies (under 26.408(c)) -

- an alternative method of protection of the children must be found
- an waiver of consent must be not be inconsistent with any other state, federal or local law.
-the alternative found would depend on the nature and purpose of the activities involved, risk and benefit balance, their age, maturity, status and condition.

So you're actually campaigning against children being able to be involved in testing that can provide them greater benefits that what is available now. You're also suggesting that abusive parents should always be consulted about what happens to their child, even if that child has been removed from the family for their own protection.


Blagsta, the post is just ripped from the email on the second link - and to be honest I've no doubt the American government does some dodgy things but this is the classic example of people who can't read commenting on law. I've little doubt that the sections on other complaints are just as innacurately represented by this post.

Former Member

Jim, I caution you to look deeper than the wholly non-specific assurances of the EPA itself before emulating Blagsta's typical derisive dismissals. You should be aware that this is far from a new issue, but one which most certainly stems from the current administration's recomposition of the Agency with the political appointments of numerous chemical and pharmaceutical industry cronies.

Most ostensibly, the intent to subject third country citizens (especially children) to such ill-defined "testing" is a loophole for which the industry will undoubtedly have considerable plans in the offing. This should be all the more alarming for any who claim to value public oversight of corporate abuses and illicit practices.

Rhetorical assurances mean little when the protective clauses referred to remain entirely subjective such as those you've enumerated from the EPA's own claims. A careful study of the operative consequences of such subjective wording will reveal what terms such as "accepted benefits" mean to the industries seeking to push through such deregulatory measures.

Even the Evironmental Working Group has expressed alarm over the attempts of EPA to make exceptions for practices condemened as unethical by most scientists...

Two previous expert panels concurred. The EPA's FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) and the EPA Science Advisory Board both explicitly concluded that pesticide tests on children are unethical and should never be accepted by the EPA. Your panel, perhaps by virtue of omission, has totally undermined the prior consensus on this issue, and unwittingly opened the door to what most scientists view as a highly unethical testing regime.

This oversight reflects a rudimentary lack of understanding of the policy context into which the report's recommendations will be injected. It concerns us deeply that the panel was apparently not aware that the EPA, as a matter of policy, and acting against the recommendations of its own SAP, generally has not implemented the additional FQPA 10-fold children's safety factor for organophosphate insecticides (OPs).

In the real world, extra protections for children from pesticides are a regulatory goal, not standard practice. The committee explicitly shielded the 10-fold safety factor in its report, but apparently was unaware that in doing so it had protected a safety margin that in practice at the EPA does not exist for most pesticides where human studies have been conducted

http://www.ewg.org/issues/humantesting/20040219/letter.php

Additional critique of the flagrantly corporate-serving intents that lay behind the sorts of US government "assurances" of concern and safety for test subjects, cited above, can be found here. It provides, imho, a sufficient context in which to read between the lines of this latest industry end-run.

Former Member

I don't disagree that the whole issue is terrible and that the EPA should never be testing on children - my issue was that what this proposal was being criticised for wasn't the fundamental ethics behind the proposal but a claim that it was allowing testing only on oprhaned or abused children - which is a real misreading of what is in the proposal.

Former Member

Jim, firstly the EPA itself is not nor would be the ones "testing" upon anyone. Its the regulatory body originally intended to safeguard the public from environmental and health related abuses by industry (however far from that intent it has evolved to the present day).

Secondly, I fear you severely understate the malfeasance being schemed here through clever but altogether vague and subjective wording of the text which indeed gives these industries (already additionally shown to have zero interest in the welfare of their test subjects going back decades) the open door to test on children (especially outside the US, making it yet another case of international malfeasance on the part of Washington).

Where supposed "consent" has been sought and secured for such practices (again for decades, making it a matter of operational principle) this is done through coercive methods more often than not. Thus the more damning fact of allowing testing on marginalised children (orphans, handicapped, abused, et al.) without any necessary consent (nor with any actual enforcement regimes to truly protect such subjects) its patently clear which route the industry would consider less troublesome and ultimately more profitable for themselves.

Like every other issue, this is not some isolated matter but rather another piece in a much larger picture of well planned, longterm erosion of civil rights and safeguards which have been accelerated by this current criminal administration and its purposely appointed lackies.

Perhaps you would be more alarmed to discover that one of the main locations outside the US where this unaccountable and uncontrolled testing is taking place is the UK!

And for reasons neither U.S. nor British environmental officials can explain, most of the recent human pesticide experiments are being performed in England and Scotland. Four have been submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 1992, and EPA regulators believe that more are underway in the U.K.


Just last year, Amvac Chemical Corporation, a California pesticide company, hired a lab in England to conduct three related feeding trials using people to test the toxicity of a bug killer, dichlorvos, a common ingredient in pet collars and pest strips. Also, paid volunteer subjects drank doses of the extremely toxic insecticide aldicarb in a 1992 study in Scotland commissioned by Rhone-Poulenc, the French chemical giant.


Neither EPA nor UK pesticide guidelines require human studies. EPA officials informally discourage such studies on ethical and scientific grounds, refusing even to review study methods beforehand. EPA, in fact, has no policies or oversight system in place to insure that humans involved in such experiments are protected.


But the agency is nonetheless accepting human experimental studies submitted by pesticide companies, several of which have been used in at least two recent cases to soften EPA regulatory decisions.

and further down:

"These pesticide experiments are being conducted on humans abroad, then accepted by the U.S. government in the absence of specific EPA regulations or monitoring capacity for human research. These companies are not testing medicines on people to see if they are therapeutic. They're testing toxic chemicals to see how high exposure can be without causing regulatory problems. No one ever benefits from being exposed to pesticides, " Cook said.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/english/englishpr.html

I concur with the original poster on the subject. It's no small matter.