from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
EPA is paying families in Jacksonville, Florida (Duval County) who “spray or have pesticides sprayed inside your home routinely” to study the resulting chemical exposure in their infant children. The study, called the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study or CHEERS, pays participating families $970 for participating throughout the entire two-year study period. Families who complete the study also get to keep the camcorder they are provided to record their babies’ behavior. In addition, families are given bibs, t-shirts and other promotional items. The families are recruited from public clinics and hospitals. EPA selects infants based upon pesticide residue levels detected in “a surface wipe sample in the primary room where the child spends time.”See also The Washington Post
4 comments:
Wow...just wow. I can't imagine a family doing this. Why would someone put their child through the risks that may come from such actions?
Even in my blue state, I'm seeing red.
From the Post article:
"Administration and industry officials said it was important to pursue the study to give regulators better information on how harmful chemicals get into children's bodies."
How about paying parents to put it there?
Under any other administration, one might expect the EPA to try to minimize the exposure of people to pesticides and other harmful chemicals. This one pays parents to study the effects. Some might say infants are the wrong age group on which to perform chemical testing, but I doubt Bush's Christian beliefs would ever allow it during pregnancy.
Yeah, you do have to wonder if the children they are studying are already abnormal due to pesticide exposure in the womb. I mean if a fetus has a right to personhood then they should be studied just like people.
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