EPA Testing Rule Is Challenged

A coalition of activist groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Feb. 23 that seeks to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency rule that allows testing of pesticides on humans.

The groups contend that the regulation issued on Jan. 26 violates a law passed by Congress in 2005 that mandates strict ethical and scientific protections for pesticide testing on humans. ???EPA's rule allows pesticide companies to use intentional tests on humans to justify weaker restrictions on pesticides,??? says Margaret Reeves, a senior staff scientist with the Pesticide Action Network North America.

Although the rule prohibits some kinds of testing and limits others, the groups contend that the EPA policy is ???riddled with loopholes??? that undermine its effectiveness and ultimately encourage more human testing. They also say the rule fails to ensure that pesticide testing on human subjects meets the strictest scientific and ethical standards recommended by a 2004 National Academy of Sciences report and outlined in the Nuremberg Code after World War II.

???The industry's human pesticide tests are unscientific and unethical,??? says Erik D. Olson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. ???Their record of abuse is appalling, yet the EPA disregards Congress??? order to crack down on this abhorrent practice.???

Under the agency???s policy on the use of data from human studies, EPA says it will no longer accept research that intentionally tests pesticides on pregnant women and children. The agency is also establishing a human studies review board to provide ethical reviews of existing studies that involve humans.

EPA spokesman Robert Zachariasiewicz says the regulation ???establishes stringent and enforceable safeguards that govern the ethical conduct of studies involving the intentional dosing of humans with pesticides.???

The coalition filed simultaneous lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco.??