The EPA and
Industry Team Up to Protect Profits in Florida
Study, Leaving Children
Behind
Poison, Protection, and
Children
Robina Suwol &
Ashley Posner,Esq. - California Safe Schools (non-profit)
They call it CHEERS. The
"Children’s Environmental Exposure Research
Study" is a cooperative agreement between the
Environmental Protection Agency and the American
Chemical Council. The Chemical Council will
provide $2.1 million of the $9 million dollar
study—the rest coming from our federal
government.
But there’s nothing cheery
about CHEERS. The acronym is deliberately
misleading and, when examined, downright scary.
This time, the government is protecting an
unethical study that actually exposes children,
including babies, to some of the chemical
industry’s most noxious poisons. Who is the EPA
protecting? The health of American children? Or
the profits of American corporate interests?
Parents of children in the
CHEERS study must agree to routinely spray or
have pesticides sprayed inside their homes
during the two-year study period, according to
Chemical & Engineering News. Chemical
concentrations will be measured in air, dust,
and urine samples of the children, and by
analyzing chemicals absorbed in clothing before
and after pesticide applications.
The chemicals EPA and their
corporate partners want to expose these kids to
are already known to cause serious health
problems. Along with pesticides, which are known
to damage neurological and reproductive
development, the study includes phthalates,
(chemicals used to soften plastics). Phtalates
have been linked in animal studies to damage to
kidneys and liver and are considered a probable
human carcinogen.
EPA also wants to expose
Florida kids to brominated diphenyl ethers
(flame retardants). Animal studies indicate that
these chemicals may harm neurodevelopment, and a
recent study determined of exposure of these
chemicals to fetal and newborn mice showed a
permanent effect on spontaneous behavior,
learning, and memory. Still another chemical
category under CHEERS is perfluorinated
chemicals, which have shown a statistically
significant association with bladder cancer.
In return, the parents of the
young test subjects will receive up to $970 and
a free video camcorder for participating. And,
revealing their target demographic of infants,
they are offering a ‘study bib’. A review of the
protocol, however, suggests that they won’t
receive health care, during or after the study.
In fact, the study seems to entirely ignore any
potential for serious injury to any of its
participants. Participation of the Centers for
Disease Control and Florida’s County Health
Department appear to be only window dressing.
If it’s not already obvious why
this study must be stopped, consider the
following. Floridians are already
dispraportionally burdened by toxins. Due to the
state’s humid conditions, it uses fungicides
extensively—some reports claim that Florida’s
fruits and vegetables can be sprayed with 5 or
more active ingredients shown to be male
reproductive toxins in animal studies, and the
cause of birth defects. Adding additional
pesticides and chemicals to the already
overburdened bodies of Florida’s children raises
additional serious health issues. According to
EPA's own Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk
Assessment, children receive 50 percent of their
lifetime cancer risks in their first two years
of life. And because children are growing, they
are more vulnerable than adults to toxins.
Nonetheless, EPA is proceeding to add a
prescription of select poison to the infants
used in this study.
Furthermore, EPA’s study is
inherently unethical because children cannot
legally give their consent to participate in
such experimentation. CHEERS directly violates
the Nuremberg Code Directives for Human
Experimentation arising from world condemnation
of the Nazis’ experimentation on human subjects
without their consent. Using children without
their consent violates their constitutional
right to equal protection under the law.
Moreover, this study suggests that participating
parents are fully informed and competent to rely
on the judgment of the individuals conducting
the study or applying the pesticides on their
own behalf as well as for their babies.
Furthermore, the use of government funds to
underwrite such tests may create a liability to
the government (and the American people) for any
future problems attributable to the study.
There may be a glimmer of
hope. A recent release was sent out from EPA
advising that the study had been suspended while
study protocol was reviewed. However nowhere has
it stated it's been cancelled, or stopped.
A New York Supreme Court
Justice Edward Greenfield ruled in T.D. v The
NYS Office of Mental Health (1995), "Parents may
be free to make martyrs of themselves, but it
does not follow that they may make martyrs of
their children." The promise of $970 and a
camcorder to potentially permit parents to
cripple their infant children leads to the
inescapable conclusion that the subjects of the
CHEERS study are uneducated, poor and
vulnerable.
When the government’s
protection agencies fail to protect our
children, we, as citizens, must insist that they
do the right thing. This unconscionable study
must be stopped.
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References
Concern over "Phthalates"In
Food Packaging – plasticizers Paper, Film, &
Foil Converter, Feb 1, 2003 by Richard M.
Podhajny (COPYRIGHT 2003 PRIMEDIA Business
Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group)
Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers
in Maternal and Fetal Blood Samples
Anita Mazdai,1 Nathan G.
Dodder,2 Mary Pell Abernathy,1 Ronald A. Hites,2
and Robert M. Bigsby1 1Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology, Indiana University School of
Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA;
2Department of Chemistry and School of Public
and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University,
Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Proposal for Regulations on
PFOS-Related Substances Partial Regulatory
Impact Assessment prepared for Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Chemicals
and GM Policy Division in association with BRE
Environment, September 2004
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For further
information:
Robina Suwol, Executive
Director
California Safe Schools
Box
2123
Toluca Lake, California 91610
http://www.calisafe.org/
818-785-5515
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