Forwarded by Jack Saporito of Chgo Area Group to Stop O'Hare Expansion:

EPA using human testing data from manufacturers in evaluating pesticide regulations, exposure levels

By JOHN HEILPRIN

The Associated Press

11/27/01 7:15 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency is again using industry data gathered from human tests to help set limits on pesticide levels in food and water, officials said Tuesday.

The practice largely disregards the recommendations of a scientific panel the agency assembled in 1998 and follows a brief moratorium imposed -- but largely ignored -- by the Clinton administration in response to criticism from physicians and environmentalists.

"It was a wink and a nod and now it's a full green light to do human tests with pesticides," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group. "That's just going to open the floodgates to this industry."

Wiles, whose group's 1998 report on pesticides and human testing helped spark the brief moratorium, said EPA's practice encourages pesticide makers to conduct more human tests in order to win approval of their products.

"You're going to see protections weakened because of it and you're going to see someone get hurt as a result," he predicted.

Recent agency documents show EPA is considering data from industry tests on humans. In Oct. 30 reports on insecticides, for example, EPA said it looked at three such tests involving azinphos-methyl and one for phosmet. Both have been used for decades on fruit and nuts.

All the recent industry studies involving human tests were submitted by members of the American Crop Protection Association, a trade group, said Angelina Duggan, the group's science policy director.

"We encourage EPA to accept and use all information, including human testing, in making their decisions. They're scientifically sound, and the participants in these studies have agreed to participate," she said. "They're conducted under very strict standards."

EPA Assistant Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, who oversees the pesticides programs, said the agency recognizes human testing is "very controversial" but has had not made a formal policy decision on the conduct or use of those studies.

"We have looked at some recent human studies that have been submitted to the agency," Johnson said. "From a scientific standpoint, the human studies did not make a difference in our ultimate regulatory decision, so we did not even look at the ethics or ethical issues associated with those studies."

More typically, the government uses the results of animal testing and multiplies that exposure level by 10 to establish an exposure level considered safe for humans. But manufacturers have said human tests give more accurate results.

Johnson said "it's certainly important that the ethics and sound science have to go hand in hand" but added, "The world community at large actually does accept human studies and the EPA appears to be out of sync."

EPA has begun an examination of 9,000 pesticide safety levels for children, who are more sensitive than adults to such substances which can cause cancer, neurological damage and other illnesses.

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Allene R. Wahl, Ph.D., C.N.C.

Int'l. Resource Center for Chemically Induced Immune Disorders