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ALT PRESS
Online Edition
November
27, 2004
The
EPA and Industry Team Up to Protect Profits in Florida Study,
Leaving Children Behind
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.
----------------------
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
For further
information:
Robina Suwol, Executive Director
California Safe Schools
Box 2123
Toluca Lake, California 91610
www.calisafe.org
818-785-5515
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