Tuesday, January 24, 2006

What?! Pesticide testing on humans?

Today, Senator Barbara Boxer, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, and Rep. Hilda L. Solis criticized a Bush Administration plan to promote pesticide experimentation upon humans. The plan, contained in a final draft rule, was leaked to the legislators by a concerned Administration official who requested that the original copy of the plan not be duplicated in its entirety and widely distributed out of concern for anonymity. According to the EPA's communications plan, the Administration will officially announce the pesticide experimentation plan later this week as a final regulation....

"The Administration plan is inconsistent with the law passed by Congress with bipartisan support. The loopholes which allow continued testing on pregnant women, infants and children are contrary to law and widely accepted ethical guidelines, including the Nuremberg code. The fact that EPA allows pesticide testing of any kind on the most vulnerable, including abused and neglected children, is simply astonishing," said Senator Boxer.

2 comments:

Neil Shakespeare said...

that's just idiotic!

helmut said...

But, Neil, if the US contaminates a certain few, that potentially saves the rest of us. W By the Numbers. In the policymaking world, a lot of people only understand numbers (I hear, though, that Bush can only count to 34). Idiotic, yes.