Stop Human Pesticide Testing!

Stop Human Pesticide Testing!
Dear Fellow Americans:
After more than four years of fighting the Bush Administration's efforts to pollute good science with politics, I thought I'd heard it all. Then I learned how they were deciding to test new pesticides.
In violation of routine ethical standards, the Bush Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is using studies that deliberately expose humans to dangerous pesticides to decide whether those pesticides should be legal.
This decision flies in the face of scientific practice and the sound policies of past Republican and Democratic EPA Administrators including Carol Browner and Christie Todd Whitman.
A recent Congressional report commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman and me found "serious and widespread deficiencies" in these studies.  Moreover, it concluded that the "experiments appear to have inflicted harm on human subjects, failed to obtain informed consent, dismissed adverse outcomes, and lacked scientific validity."
In just one example of the inexcusable conduct of these studies, subjects were instructed to swallow capsules of toxic pesticides with orange juice or water at breakfast. We need to put a stop to this kind of Frankenscience -- now.
On Tuesday, I introduced a bipartisan amendment co-sponsored by Senators Clinton, Collins (R-ME), and Snowe (R-ME) that reinstates the moratorium on all human pesticide testing put in place by Republican and Democratic EPA Administrators until the EPA develops strict ethical rules consistent with the standards laid out by the National Academy of Sciences.  Now, I need your help to pass this amendment when it comes up for a vote Wednesday at noon EDT in the Senate.
Please take a moment right now to email and phone your Senators, urging support of my bipartisan amendment to put a moratorium on human pesticide testing back in place -- before the Senate vote at noon EDT Wednesday!
In Friendship,


Barbara Boxer