EPA Plan to Study Pesticides Effect on Kids Spurs Backlash within Agency

[genieroze]

Don't think this has been posted before. This is sick


Published on Sunday, October 31, 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle
EPA Plan to Study Pesticides' Effect on Kids Spurs Backlash within Agency
Poor families may join just to get the perks, staff fears
by Juliet Eilperin

WASHINGTON -- An Environmental Protection Agency proposal to study young children's exposure to pesticides has sparked a flurry of internal agency protests, with several career officials questioning whether the survey will harm vulnerable infants and toddlers.

The EPA announced this month that it was beginning a two-year investigation, partially funded by the American Chemical Council, of how 60 children in Duval County, Fla., absorb pesticides and other household chemicals. The chemical industry funding initially prompted some environmentalists to question whether the study would be biased, and some rank- and-file agency scientists are now questioning whether the plan will exploit financially strapped families.

In exchange for participating for two years in the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, which involves infants and children up to age 3, the EPA will give each family using pesticides in their home $970, some children's clothing and a camcorder that parents can keep.

EPA officials in states such as Georgia and Colorado sent e-mail messages to each other last week suggesting the study lacked safeguards to ensure that low-income families would not be swayed into exposing their children to hazardous chemicals in exchange for money and high-tech gadgetry. Pesticide exposure has been linked to neurological problems, lung damage and birth defects.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1031-06.htm

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Jesus. Duval County.

[KoKo]

6. Folks in Florida have to use pesticides.Wouldn't YOU want your kids safe?

Roaches, Mosquito's and other crawlers invade your home in huge quantities, when you live in poorer areas and the housing isn't built to keep them out.

Wouldn't you want to know if your kids were absorbing higher amounts of the pesticides that used everywhere? What if they are more exposed to them than we are? How does the exposure affect their development. Would you spray Raid in a room with your kids if you saw ants, roaches or other vermin crawling all over the crib?

How many of us spray whenever we see a bug? How many of us lather our children with mosquito repellent? How do we know what it does to their systems. Would you want to know?

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Koko. They're buying human guinea pigs for less than $1000.00

These decisions are being made by parents who are probably going to think the money is worth it. What happens if those pesticides actually harm those kids? They will grow up not only resenting their parents, but the government.

[Trekologer]

14. Who will the study be done on?

According to Randi Rhodes on Air America about two weeks ago, the study will be on children born in the hospital that serves the poorest area in Florida, where most of the new parents lack a high school education. We already know the health effects that these chemicals have. The study will probablly be used to "prove" that the chemicals are not hazardous to children, hence the reason that the chemical companies are paying the EPA for it. We already know the health effects that these chemicals have.

If you want to do a study on these things, fine. But don't intentionally try to grab kids from parents who won't know or understand the potential harm to their children and are so poor that they'd take the money even if they knew and understood the risks.

I'd want my kids to be safe. But I also want others' kids to be safe as well. These kids, the targets of this study, need protection because their parents probablly don't know what health risks they will expose them too.

[gWbush is Mabus]

2. time to purge the EPA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[genieroze]

3. If this was posted before mod please delete

[KoKo]

4. This is a very fair article about this. The study has been posted before

but in hysterical terms from an Organic Foods site which alarmed folks into signing a petition and said "George Bush"s EPA Applying Pesiticides to Children." It upset folks and had many DU'ers really upset the way it was worded.

I know one of the people on the CHEER'S study. It was hoping to help show that children absorb pesticides and would hopefully point out the problems with one of the chemicals in the pesticides.

The participants are in Florida where most folks have to regularly use pesticides in the tropical environment. Most of us folks in the Southern US have to use pesticides because of where we live. But, folks in poor areas need to use them more because of the kind of housing they live in and the fact that many live in rented homes, apartments which are regularly sprayed on a schedule where they can't control when the pest folks come. Their kids may be more exposed because of that.

The person leading the Study has kids of their own and was on Bill Moyers trying to talk about how harmful some of the chemicals in our environment are. Perhaps the study needed more safeguards and I think they are going to revise it. But, for folks to have gotten hysterical assumeing the study was a Bush Nazi program to apply pesticides to kids was really sad.

Thanks for posting this. It does give both sides.

[KoKo]

5. Please folks.....read the whole article. This study is not "Sick." Before

you assume this is some kind of Nazi Bush tactic.

[w4rma]

15. I guess you'll be signing your children up for this program, KoKo, no?(nt)

[gaia_gardener]

7. We need a study to show how harmful

pesticides are. Studying kids that are already exposed (and let's be honest, not studying them is not going to lower their exposure) is the best way to do it.

Hopefully they will have to stop the study early because it's just too dangerous and start a massive recall of pesticides. Not that a recall does any good. 2 years after diazanon was recalled I could still buy it and the local radio garden show host (idiot) was recommending it.

I'm an organic gardener living in the south. I don't have massive insect problems. I've learned to embrace spiders, which eat the cockroaches that might dare to venture near my house. Mainly, I've learned to live with some insects, does a ladybug in my home really hurt me?

[KoKo]

8. It would take some massive spider to deal with the "palmetto bugs" which

were all over my screened porch this summer. Since I don't like to spray I couldn't go out at night on the porch most of the Summer.

We never figured out what it was that caused such a problem this year. I tried cloves but that works on ants. It didn't seem to stop those giant flying roaches from running wild everywhere on the porch....

Send me some of those spiders, that's a battle I would love to see! :D

[gaia_gardener]

9. I think for that size you need

tarantulas. Which we have here and they're non-venomous ...

Another thing for cockroaches (including palmetto bugs) is citrus oil. Just spray it around. If that doesn't work, break out the garden formulated diatomaceous earth (DE) - not the kind sold for pool filters. This stuff is like ground glass to insects, it cuts them open and they bleed to death - but it doesn't hurt humans or pets.

Cockroaches do have their place. They are a necessary part of the forest for breaking down dead trees.

[KoKo]

11. Thanks for that tip....I understand those "palmetto bugs" are useful but

I hate the damned things...even so...I won't kill them with Raid. Instead I don't use my porch. We think it might be a preservative we used on our the floor this year (yes chemicals...but we had to restain it) and it seems the roaches loved it. They showed up after we applied it..??

But, I'll try the citrus oil next Summer. I have cats who like to go out there, so I try to stay away from anything they will eat or get into..so there are many things that are natural which might not be good for them to be exposed to.

[gaia_gardener]

12. Natural does not mean safe, you are right.

There are a lot of natural items that are not safe at all for animals. Pyrethrum (sp?) is one that could be deadly to pets and children.

DE is used to worm pets and livestock so it is safe for animals. The main hazard is that it could be a lung irritant.

[genieroze]

10. This is the problem I had with this

"EPA officials in states such as Georgia and Colorado sent e-mail messages to each other last week suggesting the study lacked safeguards to ensure that low-income families would not be swayed into exposing their children to hazardous chemicals in exchange for money and high-tech gadgetry. Pesticide exposure has been linked to neurological problems, lung damage and birth defects."

and the response of the EPA later in the article

" Several EPA officials, all of whom asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, also questioned why the agency removed the study design and its recruitment flyer from the EPA's Web site once some scientists started to complain about the project. Sheldon said the agency is rewriting how it portrays the research."

Low income parents would not be swayed, bullsh*t.
I stand by my initial statment that this is sick. This was being funded by the chemical companies. It doesn't say if they were being forced to or not. Being it was being funded by them and we all know Bush's stand on enviromental issues, I wouldn't trust it. Why doesn't the EPA do a study on mercury? After all Bush did lower the standards.