Exploiting infants for the pesticide industry

Take, for instance, the April threat by Senators Bill Nelson and Barbara Boxer to block Bush's nomination of Stephen Johnson to head the EPA. The Senators took exception to the EPA's CHEERS (Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study) program, in which low-income, minority families were promised up to $970.00 if they allowed the application of pesticides and other chemicals in rooms primarily occupied by their infant children. The study was partially funded by the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying arm of pesticide manufacturers, to the tune of $2 million. Johnson promised to terminate the CHEERS program in exchange for his confirmation.

Nothing like exploiting infants and the poor on behalf of the pesticide industry.

The CHEERS program is not a mere anomaly. During his confirmation, Johnson revealed that EPA is conducting more than 250 other experiments on human subjects. Several of those experiments involve testing chemicals on children, including: exposing children to a pesticide (chlorpyrifos) that was banned for residential use in 2000; paying children to inhale methanol vapors at levels described as "a worst case scenario"; and having asthmatic children inhale harmful ultra fine carbon particles.

http://politicsofdissent.blogspot.com/2005/06/one-nation-under-experiment.html

Human testing by chemical companies isn't always consenting!!!
Fuck these corporations,and the politicians in bed with them they are all SICK!

Allowing our kids to be guinea pigs for W's chemical buds? Do the right wing fundies know about this? Of course, they probably got advance knowledge and made the investments for profit.

Parents (who are guardians) can give "informed" consent. If you've ever read one of those forms, it takes at *least* a high school education to read. This will victimize people (and their children) with lower education levels.

Not too bad on the scale of ethics horrors (it gets worse), so far.... BUT:

Orphanage administrators (who are also guardians) can also give "informed" consent. For money. And they legally speak for the child.

So, the practical horror is that some Sri Lankan orphanage in need of money can turn hundreds of children into unwilling lab rats. And it's not just pesticides, it's everything from aromatic room scents to weed killers to cleaning agents.... all kinds of stuff. Until clear evidence of harm is shown, often the research will not be shut down.

Bioethics is not a pretty field. It makes perfect sense not to expose humans to something dangerous, but how can you know if it's dangerous to humans without exposing them to it?

President Bush recently nominated Stephen L. Johnson, a 24-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency, to be the agency's new administrator. Mr. Johnson has been the acting administrator since January, and prior to that oversaw the EPA office handling pesticides and other toxic substances. In nominating Johnson, Mr. Bush described him as "a talented scientist" and having "good judgment and complete integrity."


http://www.chej.org/MoreonCHEERS.htm

DSHEA (1994) made it legal to test all sorts of bizarre chemical substances on the public, with various boards only allowed to step in *after* clear harm was shown, and victims had already suffered.

That's when federal regulation of testing all sorts of chemistry became "de-fanged", and anybody could exploit any vulnerable population for as long as they wanted, as long as nobody showed clear evidence of harm (yet).

IRB's have been getting weaker and weaker ever since, no longer asking someone to provide *hard data* that a substance was not harmful to animals, mammals, primates, then humans, etc.

This issues splits progressives, though... many among us are against animal testing (which could be required before human testing), and for very large scale trials, it would require federal agencies to have our medical histories... the whole field is pretty difficult. :(

Maybe Mr. Hatch should be asked about that.

Do these people have the faintest f*cking idea of what "ethical" means????

Dems went ahead and confirmed him anyway- despite this outrage.

And they wonder why they've become irrelevant in national politics.