According to a recently released report, results from four human pesticide experiments have been submitted to the US Environmental Protection Agency since 1992, and EPA regulators believe that more are under way in Britain.
The growing use of human testing to solve US regulatory problems was revealed in a new report from the Environmental Working Group, entitled "The English Patients: Human Experiments and Pesticide Policy".
For decades, US and foreign pesticide manufacturers have been feeding their products to rats, rabbits, mice and guinea pigs in thousands of controlled laboratory studies, all designed to satisfy government regulatory requirements for chemicals that kill weeds, insects, rodents and other pests.
Studies on lab animals are still routinely conducted for pesticides. But in recent years, in a number of experiments that are raising ethical and scientific questions inside and outside government, the products are being tested on humans. According to the report, most of these recent tests have been performed in England and Scotland.
Last year, Amvac Chemical Corporation, a California pesticide company, hired a lab in England to conduct three related feeding trials using people to test the toxicity of dichlorvos, a common ingredient in pet collars and pest strips.
In a 1992 study in Scotland commissioned by Rhone-Poulenc, the French chemical giant, volunteer subjects were paid to ingest the extremely toxic insecticide aldicarb.
Neither US nor British pesticide guidelines require human studies. EPA officials informally discourage such studies on ethical and scientific grounds, refusing even to review study methods beforehand. EPA, in fact, has no policies or oversight system in place to insure that humans involved in such experiments are protected.
According to EWG, however, the agency is nonetheless accepting human experimental studies submitted by pesticide companies, several of which have been used in at least two recent cases to weaken EPA regulatory decisions.
The report states that by substituting people for lab animals, pesticide companies have in effect been able to increase the amounts of pesticide that can be used legally on crops or detected on foods, in water or in air. More studies are under way in Britain, according to EPA scientists, although they do not know how many, where they are being conducted or for what pesticides.
Citing ethical and scientific concerns, EWG said it strongly opposes human experiments that deliberately expose people to pesticides or other environmental toxins for the purpose of determining "safe" or "acceptable" levels of pollution for people.
EWG is asking EPA to conduct a comprehensive study of the use of human subjects in past and recent environmental research. Once the study is completed, EWG says, EPA should issue policy and guidelines for public comment on the use of humans in environmental research.
The rules must provide for thorough monitoring, EWG said, including consideration of special ethical considerations that distinguish human research on toxic contaminants from human research for drugs and medicines.
EWG also recommends an immediate moratorium on human experimentation of the type conducted for dichlorvos, aldicarb and perhaps other pesticides for purposes of pesticide regulation. The group asks EPA to suspend any pesticide approvals if the agency is unable to affirm that the studies were conducted according to US ethical standards.
[From Pesticide Action Network North America Updates Service.]