testing testing -
This morning's Seattle PI lists an article of your famous American Medical Association testing the effects of PESTICIDES on "unsuspecting" pregnant women... signed into agreement with the stroke of George W's pen....
. . . wasn't yesterday's topic on Big Brother watching you ? - spyhopping !
. . . wasn't yesterday's topic on Big Brother watching you ? - spyhopping !
posted by a Turning Gurdy | 10:48 PM
9 Comments:
Here's an excerpt from yesterday's Science News ... highly exxagerating to say that Bush signed on to test pregnant woman. He is a father too!
..."The initial draft of the Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever rule on human testing of pesticides has drawn sharp criticism from public interest groups, members of Congress, and scientists within the agency itself, who argue that the law would not protect vulnerable groups.
The rule “looks like it was written by the American Chemical Council,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told The Scientist.
The EPA issued the 30-page draft last September after Congress suspended human testing of pesticides in August, until appropriate legislation was in place to protect test subjects. The final version of the rule is due by the end of this month.
Ruch and other critics say the draft leaves the door open to unethical conduct. “I am somewhat dismayed that this rule was presented in such a complex -- and I would have to say, tricky -- way,” said Suzanne Wuerthele, a regional toxicologist for the EPA. Wuerthele belongs to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union representing EPA scientists, which stated in a December letter to EPA chief Stephen Johnson that the law “could create serious ethical and liability problems” for its members.
For instance, the draft waives consent requirements for research in vulnerable children. It states that researchers don’t need consent for populations for whom “parental or guardian permission is not a reasonable requirement to protect the subjects (for example, neglected or abused children),” as long as “an appropriate mechanism for protecting the children who will participate as subjects in the research is substituted.”
The draft law also notes that the EPA could accept data from “ethically deficient” research conducted before the new law takes effect if it is deemed necessary to “protect public health.” However, the draft does not define “public health,” and some critics have warned that it could be interpreted extremely loosely. The new draft also defers proposing rules “providing additional protection for prisoners.”
Also, Ruch points out, the law only covers intentional dosing studies, so that studies like the Children’s Health Environmental Exposure Research Study– in which researchers would have paid parents to spray pesticides near their children’s beds, funded by $7 million from EPA and $2 million from the chemical industry – would still be permitted. The study raised outrage last year and led Democratic lawmakers to threaten to derail Johnson’s confirmation as EPA head if it was not cancelled. EPA had argued that the study was ethical because the parents claimed they would have been using the pesticides anyway.
The proposed rule “appears to be an attempt to rationalize old studies that have a number of ethical problems and rationalize their use to expanding markets for pesticides,” said Dave Christenson, president of the Denver AFGE.
Wuerthele noted that the draft rule also does not address the scientific validity of human tests, going against the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences, presented in a 2004 report. “If a study’s not scientifically valid, by definition it is unethical, because it is merely toying with the subjects, ” Wuerthele said.
For industry, the issue at the heart of the new rule is whether human tests that have already been performed can be used to re-register pesticides, according to Mark Maier, health science and policy leader for pesticide industry group CropLife America. Under the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), all pesticides must be re-registered using current standards by August 2006, or their registration will be cancelled.
The FQPA has made human testing more attractive to the pesticide industry, according to critics—and the NAS, in its 2004 report--because testing on humans allows manufacturers to sidestep the 10-fold safety requirement the act demands for animal toxicity tests. But Maier points to a 2001 study that found human tests result in less stringent requirements just two-thirds of the time.
“Neither EPA or CropLife members have any intention under any circumstances of testing someone that cannot give consent,” Maier added. "
I'm pleased someone found the reasons behind this - yes that's what & why -
makes sense to me then also why we eat genetically altered foods, drink chlorine/flouride laden water and use toxic household products... Do you really think Dubya knew what he signed ? (might as well eat farmed fish too)
Did he "know" what he signed? As in "did he read it and understand it's implications" before he signed? I strongly doubt it. Did his "advisors" read it and "advise" him? Of course... He's not the first president, nor, unfortunately, will he be the last, to put the American people at risk. Just talk to the "downwinders" in Utah and Nevada. Feel blessed that you can drink water out of your tap. I can't. Feel privileged that the sea is bountiful for you. It's not for all of us. We all have to do what we each can as individuals to make positive changes in this world. What one man can do.......
Prehaps a "pawn" as are the rest of us ? meaning well but too powerfully ? -
hey ya.. I haul artesian well water for miles, I'm afraid to shower in the "tap" locally, let alone drink the stuff..
the bountiful sea' is but a quagmire of political non-sense that you hadda be in the right place at the right time or know the "man" to hand you privileges ... personally I "bought-in" and am damn pissed about the whole works ! - politics really stress me out ! many moments I dream of otherwhere's - but where ?
Can't run, can't hide....guess that means we need to learn to live within the world that we have. Choose our battles and change what we can. Can't change the whole world, that would stress out anyone! Pick your battles....better what you can. I have enough problems dealing with corporate politics these days.
Here's one for ya.....
My assistant at work, Kevin..his wife was diagnosed with kidney cancer and given approx. 6 weeks to live. Three weeks into it, her systems start shutting down and she's hospitalized. Kevin is a basket case....trying to do it all....2 kids, 6 & 13, trying to still work, etc. I send him home, tell him don't come back till it's all said and done. He says he can't do that, needs his paycheck. So, I tell him to get Lisa's Dr. to write him a Dr.s note stating he is under tremendous emotional stress and can't work. Kevin brings me the note and I pay him out his sick time that he has accumulated. Lisa dies 2 days before Christmas. This past Wednesday, Security flew in (probably costing more than Kevins sick time) to grill me over paying him his sick time. Told me his Dr.'s excuse wasn't good enough, shouldn't have put in his sick time. Told them it wasn't my call to determine what the dr. said. Told'em if I had to do it over, I'd do the same thing. I've been put on notice that my job is "pending".......
Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to tell them a few choice things and walk?? Instead, all I said was, "I made my choice, and I can live with it, now I guess you guys have to make yours." Corporate bullshit........
So, I guess that's why I don't get too involved in global politics, have too much local stuff on my plate....doesn't make it right, just what is.....
If you figure out where "otherwhere's" is, let me know.....I'm damn tired of this....
So true..
sad yes...
We've seen likewise..
used to be said "can't beat em - join em" . . .
is there room ?
(2 wrongs make a right)?
"Can't beat'em, join'em???
No thanks!
Rather take the "road less traveled".....much more room there these days.....even if 'tis lonely at times....
Two wrongs don't make a right....
Hmmmm....what would two rights make???
a circle back to where this began...
A circle where each side completes the other??
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