Thank you for the heads-up -- I know I will be watching.

The CHEERS program reflected a disturbing situation at the EPA, with the agency planning to do a study funded significantly by the American Chemistry Council. The worst part, in my opinion, is that EPA administrator Stephen Johnson was the main proponent of CHEERS.

I think the problem is not confined to that one program. Johnson has demonstrated in the past that he is willing to alter the EPA's work in favor of chemical companies. In 2000, he was the deputy assistant administrator for prevention, pesticides and toxic substances. That year, the EPA sprayed New York City with malathion to kill mosquitos carrying West Nile virus. According to Newsday, later that year, in a review of the spraying, the EPA's own scientists wanted to classify malathion as a likely human carcinogen, but Johnson decided not to make the classification after Cheminova, the maker of malathion, complained about the review.

Before joining the EPA, Johnson worked at Hazelton Laboratories Corporation (now part of Covance) and Litton Bionetics (part of Litton Industries, owned by Northrop Grumman). I wonder what his current financial interests are in either of those companies.

I also wonder whether there is a parallel between his favoritism toward the chemical industry and the conflicting interests of other administration officials with personal financial stakes in the oil industry.

I actually watched this episode for the first time! I don't like the preaching scare tactics so I did a Google search and landed upon this blog. I have a hard time believing that the EPA (Steve Johnson) would even allow such testing to occur -- and playing devil's advocate -- even if they did allow such testing, I'm sure that there are exists program guidelines in some federal manual regarding strict ethical and human safety concerns. I always wonder about those ads you see in the classifieds about medical institutions, funded by govt (sometimes) asking for volunteers to come and test a new drug that they want to try to cure AIDs or cancer. Could this be the same? Animal testing only goes so far before we need actual human experimental data in order to make sure we are safe. Furthermore, pesticides are saving human lives - they control the spread of disease, like West Nile and malaria. I think sometimes we get on a high horse and forget just how these products are beneficial to our health.

Well Grace,

If you're so sure that there are "program guidelines in some federal manual" prohibiting this, well--I guess we should just take your word, huh?

Would you be willing to feed your kids pesticides in the name of science?

In real life, EPA’s human testing rule does contain loopholes that allow chemical corporations to test pesticides on women and children. A 2005 Congressional report written by Senator Barbara Boxer’s and Congress member Henry Waxman’s staff revealed human testing studies where pesticide corporations told their subjects they were ingesting vitamins or drugs. No study of the well-documented long-term effects of pesticide exposures were conducted in follow-up of those test subjects.