How about a video camera?

From Richard Fagerlund's bug column in the SF Chronicle.

Q: You seem to pick on the Environmental Protection Agency occasionally. Don't you realize they were formed to look after our welfare? What is wrong with them?

A: The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for how pesticides are regulated. Unfortunately, it's in the back pocket of the pesticide industry, and everything it does is counterproductive to the health and well- being of U.S. citizens.

Recently, it declared Diazinon, an organic-phosphate pesticide, unsafe. This pesticide has been around for many years, and now they decide it isn't safe.

As of December, Diazinon and some related pesticides are no longer allowed for nonagricultural use. However, these pesticides still can be used in agricultural applications. It seems to me that if a pesticide is declared to be not safe, it should be recalled immediately and not used at all. This ruling by the EPA endangers the health of farmworkers and others who are exposed to the chemical. Automobiles are quickly recalled and taken off the road when they are deemed unsafe. Pesticides are every bit as dangerous as vehicles, if not more so.

Also, the EPA is planning on testing pesticides on children. According to the agency's Web site, there's a plan to pay families in Duval County, Fla., to expose their children, 13 months old and younger, to pesticides and chemicals "as a result of normal use in their homes."

Although the study, called Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, was supposed to take place in summer 2004, the agency has sent the study design to an external, independent panel for another review. The review is expected to be done by this spring.

The agency will pay these families up to $770 or $970 each (depending on which cohort you are) "if all study activities are completed," and give them, among other things, a camcorder, a T-shirt and a letter of appreciation. You read this right. Our government is going to check to see how children react to certain pesticides by exposing them to the chemicals.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... B0ML61.DTL

fp

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/cheers.asp

Claim: An EPA study proposes paying families to allow their children to be exposed to toxic pesticides.

Status: Multiple — see below.

* The EPA plans to expose youngsters to pesticides in order to study what those chemical compounds do to little children: False.
* The EPA plans to study children who live in an area where pesticides are used year-round: True.

god i love snopes.

I like using it to snuff out idiotic rumors at work. Shouldn't snopes get verbified by now? You know:

"Dude, I heard this rumor . . . "
"Dude, that is so stupid, I'm going to snope it."

Or something like that. Nevermind, it's Friday at 4, I'm still at work, my brain's just not right by this point in the week.

Niiiiice. Glad it's not true. My bad for not checking to see if it was for reals or not.

Thanks,

fp

The EPA is not the devil. They are however slow on some critical issues.

What makes it so believable is that, due to recent goings-on over at FDA, for example, we do know for a fact that many such agencies are completely corrupt.

I guess the story about the EPA testing pesticides on childeren wasn't totally without merit.



[url=http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/b1ab9f485b098972852562e7004dc686/083d681b57e750dd85256fdd00639bc5!OpenDocument]
Statement by Stephen L. Johnson, Acting Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Cancelling Research Study[/url]

Contact: Rich Hood, 202-564-4355 / hood.rich@epa.gov

(Washington, D.C.-April 8, 2005) On April 8, 2005, I cancelled the Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study.

The Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study was designed to fill critical data gaps in our understanding of how children may be exposed to pesticides (such as bug spray) and chemicals currently used in households. Information from the study was intended to help EPA better protect children. EPA will continue to pursue the goal of protecting children's health.

Last fall, in light of questions about the study design, I directed that all work on the study stop immediately and requested an independent review. Since that time, many misrepresentations about the study have been made. EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study.

I have concluded that the study cannot go forward, regardless of the outcome of the independent review. EPA must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy.

As a scientist and a 24-year employee of the EPA, I have a deep passion for the Agency's mission to protect human health and the environment. Continual review and reassessment is a fundamental aspect of scientific progress, and I am committed to ensuring that EPA's research is based on sound science with the highest ethical standards.[url][/url]

Still doesn't say they're testing chemicals on children, which is what the Snopes piece said in the first place. All that's happened here is a study that would have been useful to humanity has been stopped because people failed to seek out the truth, instead opting to believe a completely ridiculous claim. Too bad.