http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20041201.dv.html
December 1,
2004
Pesticide
Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS)
Stop
EPA From Testing Pesticides on Children
Children’s advocates were stunned in early November as the
U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new study
of pesticide impacts on children that planned to offer money and
camcorders to families for exposing their infants and toddlers
to pesticides. After a chorus of opposition, EPA postponed, but
didn’t cancel the industry funded Children's Environmental
Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) in Duval County, Florida. Sign
our petition urging EPA to cancel the study, return the money,
and give parents the facts about the serious health risks that
pesticides pose to children.
The testing
of pesticides on infants and children has clear ethical implications.
Scientific evidence clearly suggests that children in homes where
home and garden pesticides are used are more likely to develop
serious diseases, including asthma and childhood cancers. A recent
study reports children with early persistent asthma were 10 times
more likely to have been exposed to herbicides and insecticides
in their first year. Children under five who live in homes where
pesticides are applied may face a risk of childhood leukemia 11
times greater than those who live where no pesticides are applied.
Home use of insecticide foggers has been associated with a risk
of brain tumors in children that is more than 10 times higher.
As more organophosphorus
(OP) insecticides are being replaced with pyrethroids—many
of which are endocrine disrupting compounds—new adverse
effects are likely to surface. Exposure to neurotoxic pesticides,
including OPs and pyrethroids, is suspected as a possible cause
of learning disabilities such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder/Attention Deficit Disorder,
conditions that have reached epidemic proportions in the U.S.
While the epidemiological data are not in yet, animal models suggest
there is reason for concern.
The CHEERS
project was criticized for its offers of cash rewards and camcorders
to families that regularly spray pesticides in their home. Although
the website for the study promises, “EPA will not ask parents
to apply pesticides in their home to be a part of this study”
the offering of prizes may encourage families unaccustomed to
using pesticides in the home to change their habits to become
eligible. The clinics and hospitals selected
as recruitment sites in Duval County predominantly serve low-income
communities and serve a greater proportion of African Americans
than the rest of the county, thus the children from low income
communities of color are likely to bear the greatest risks in
this EPA-led study.
EPA plans to accept $2.1 million from the American Chemistry Council
(ACC) to fund this ethically questionable study. Instead of allowing
the pesticide industry to direct its research priorities, the
agency should be doing all it can to prevent children’s
exposure to toxic pesticides. EPA should be informing parents
of the risks of home pesticide use and promoting alternatives.
Instead it has chosen collaboration with the industry that produces
these chemicals to see how much exposure is "acceptable."
Sign our petition
asking EPA to firmly and permanently back away from the CHEERS
study, and begin speaking the truth to parents about pesticide
risks. See the petition at, http://www.petitiononline.com/NoCheers/.
Sources: EPA
CHEERS website: http://www.epa.gov/cheers;
Buckley, J.D., L.L. Robinson, R. Swotinsky, et al. 1989, Occupational
exposures of parents of children with acute nonlymphocytic leukemia:
A report from the Children's Cancer Study Group, Cancer Research
49: 4030–37; Lowengart, R.A., J.M. Peters, C. Cicioni, et
al. 1987. Childhood leukemia and parents' occupational and home
exposures, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 79(1): 39-46;
Pogoda, J.M. and S. Preston-Martin. 1997. Household pesticides
and risk of pediatric brain tumors, Environmental Health Perspectives,
105(11): 1214–20.
Contact: PANNA.
PANUPS is
a weekly email news service providing resource guides and reporting
on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the mainstream
media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North America,
a non-profit and non-governmental organization working to advance
sustainable alternatives to pesticides worldwide.
You can join
our efforts! We gladly accept donations for our work and all contributions
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