Government Scientists Revolt Against Pesticide Industry Pressure

On May 24, 2006, three unions representing over 9,000 EPA and other federal agency scientists wrote a letter to EPA chief Stephen Johnson asking him to prevent the re-registration of over twenty carbamate and organophosphate pesticides—chemicals that most scientists feel are especially dangerous for fetuses, infants and children.

EPA scientists, risk managers and others— represented by the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Treasury Employees Union, and Engineers and Scientists of California—put their jobs in jeopardy for speaking out against the threat of politically-appointed EPA officials allowing use of dangerous pesticides without completing adequate hazard evaluations. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) took the letter public. “Our top public scientists are morally and professionally compromised by the Bush Administration partnership with the chemical industry,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing to EPA’s rush to embrace testing of pesticides and other chemicals on human subjects for commercial purposes. “The fact that this letter had to be sent at all is an utter disgrace but, even more disgraceful, is the likelihood that this warning will be disregarded by an agency that is supposed to be protecting public health and the environment.”

“We commend these brave and responsible scientists for speaking out,” says PAN Senior Scientist Dr. Margaret Reeves. “We’ve known all along that scientists working inside the EPA have integrity. The pressure from pesticide manufacturers to weaken protections from these particularly dangerous chemicals is in direct confl ict with the mandate of the EPA.”

One issue central to the discontent of scientists nationwide is the January 2006 rule from EPA that purports to prohibit intentional dosing of humans with pesticides, but in fact leaves loopholes proposed by the pesticide industry that would allow dosing of pregnant women and children with pesticides. PAN is working with PEER and a coalition of groups to support the scientists and expose the complicity of the Administration (see figure on page 4).

On June 23, the EPA responded by proposing an additional rule to bar certain types of research in which nursing mothers are dosed with pesticides. Still, according to PEER’s Jeff Ruch, “By this move, EPA gives backhanded acknowledgement that human experimentation puts its subjects at risk. The fact that EPA overlooked the dangers posed by exposing nursing mothers to pesticides does not inspire confidence in the agency’s public health perspective.” In spite of the known risks, EPA has designed and deployed at least one of its own human testing programs, such as the infamous CHEERS study in Florida. This program offered parents of infants one year of age or younger a camcorder and $970 if they regularly sprayed pesticides in the room primarily occupied by their infant for two years. It was cancelled in 2005 only after PAN and other groups convinced Senator Barbara Boxer to make it an issue in Johnson’s senate confirmation as head of EPA. After Johnson’s confirmation, the study was reinstated.

Pesticide Action Network supports the brave EPA scientists and is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the EPA to halt the Human Testing Rule, filed by Earth Justice in February in San Francisco; a simultaneous suit was filed by Natural Resources Defense Council in New York.

Notes

Read the EPA scientists’ letter to EPA Director: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=691.

Read all of the notes from a pesticide lobbyist meeting with Bush administration representatives proposing loopholes for the human testing rule: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=692.

Read about the June 23 proposal: EPA forgot to shield nursing mothers in pesticide experiments, http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=703.