Category: Pesticides

EPA Allows Pesticide Manufacturers to Use Human Guinea Pigs

Last Updated (Monday, 24 March 2008 15:05) Written by Shelley Davis Friday, 07 March 2008 23:02

Pesticides are poisons. You’d think that companies wouldn’t test them on people to determine their harmfulness but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows chemical companies to do just that. In a human testing regulation issued in 2005, EPA opened the door for pesticide manufacturers to test their products on people. The chemical companies have jumped in with both feet, handing the EPA human studies previously conducted and asking them to approve a host of new ones.

Testing pesticides on people is unethical under both national and international standards. The people (usually poor folks or students) who participate in these experiments will not benefit directly. Moreover, needed data on adverse health effects can be obtained from other sources, including animal studies and reports of pesticide poisoning cases. Because chemical companies may not have fully investigated the long-term health effects that a pesticide could cause, they cannot inform test subjects of the extent of their health risks. Nor do chemical companies explore the combined effects of pesticide exposures with medications or pre-existing health conditions.

The human subjects of these tests may be in for some nasty surprises, if not immediately then later in life. Scores of pesticides are linked to cancer, neurological damage, birth defects and other illnesses and injuries. But the companies do not guarantee medical care to study participants in the event they suffer from a severe long-term impact.

Many of the human studies do not produce scientifically valid results because of the small scale of these experiments, i.e., using 6-10 people for each dose group. Studies of new medicines, by contrast, often are conducted with thousands of people before being approved. Even then many are found later to cause unexpected health problems or even death. Using only 6 – 10 people in pesticide studies, to determine the range and degree of risks posed by a toxic products is sure to miss much of the harm and lead to faulty conclusions.

But this isn’t stopping the companies from carrying out these tests or the EPA from using them. The companies are using these tests to weaken pesticide safety standards and they are succeeding. The EPA has approved use of pesticides as safe enough based on human tests. This puts the health of farmworkers and their families at risk.

A coalition of farmworker, environmental, and health groups filed a lawsuit to challenge the EPA’s human testing rule. The groups contend that the agency's rule violates a law passed by Congress in 2005 mandating strict ethical and scientific protections for pesticide testing on humans. The case, Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA, was argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on January 17, 2008. Earthjustice, Farmworker Justice and NRDC are attorneys for plaintiffs in the case.

It’s time to strike down this rule. The court can do it or it can be repealed by a new Presidential Administration. People should not be used as guinea pigs in tests of toxic pesticides!

For more info on farmworkers and pesticides see our Pesticide Information Page