Pesticide testing on humans denounced by physicians and environmentalists
Subject: Pesticide testing on humans denounced
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 11:54:56 -0500
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Pesticide testing on humans denounced
By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT, ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
A group of physicians and environmentalists is warning the federal government against using human test results to set pesticide exposure standards, calling it a morally repugnant practice with dubious scientific value.
In a letter to Health Minister Allan Rock, the group is asking for a ban on using information from human toxicity testing. It was prompted by an apparent policy reversal by the Bush administration to consider these trials in determining allowable pesticide exposure levels in the United States.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Globe and Mail, is being released publicly today. It also suggests that using humans in testing could weaken the safety margin that is now applied to pesticides.
"These tests are not only immoral, but also provide a false sense of security," the letter says. "This practice has been appropriately greeted with grave concern."
Under the North American free-trade agreement, Canada, Mexico and the United States have committed to joint reviews of pesticide safety, creating the possibility that the new U.S. approach will be applied in Canada. The U.S. action may also encourage further experimentation on humans, a controversial practice that raises ethical, scientific and medical concerns.
"The concern is that once the door is open for this, that these kinds of tests can happen anywhere in the world," said Kathleen Cooper, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Environmental Law Association, one of the organizations writing to Mr. Rock.
Besides the environmental law group, the letter was signed by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, the Canadian Institute of Child Health and the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada.
Although no experiments on humans are known to have been done recently in Canada, a number were done in the 1990s in Britain and Scotland. Results from at least three such trials have been submitted by pesticide companies to U.S. regulators, according to a recent article in The Los Angeles Times.
In animal experiments, researchers try to find the pesticide dose at which no adverse impact is noted. The limit for humans is then made 10 times more stringent, because of uncertainty over whether the animals studied can be applied to people.
Using data from human tests would allow regulators to apply less stringent safety factors under the theory that having data on what actually happens when people are exposed to pesticides is far more accurate than using rodents and other animals as substitutes for human-health effects.
The U.S. policy change could be a boon to pesticide manufacturers by allowing far higher application rates for bug and weed killers. It may also allow more frequent use by permitting spraying much closer to harvest dates.
Industry officials in the United States have supported human experimentation, contending the use of test animals has led to needlessly conservative safety standards.
Canada doesn't allow companies to submit human pesticide toxicity tests when applying for pesticide registrations, according to Joan Butcher, a spokeswoman for Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency. "Our current process is that we don't accept human health studies. We don't ask for them. We don't accept them if they're sent in," she said.
Ms. Butcher said the agency actively discourages companies from submitting human test results, but she declined to comment on the U.S. policy reversal and its implication for Canada, pending formal notification by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of its change.
According to U.S. news reports, the Bush administration has quietly ended a ban put in place three years ago by then-president Bill Clinton, who acted after an outcry by doctors and environmentalists over the practice.
Source url: http://www.globeandmail.com
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