In 2001 the Environmental Protection Agency issued a moratorium on using data from human tests to formulate acceptable levels of exposure to pesticides. EPA chief Christie Whitman defended the moratorium at that time saying that the human exposure data could not be used until the EPA had thoroughly investigated the ethical and scientific acceptability of such tests.
Representatives of pesticide producing industries sued arguing that the EPA could not issue such a moratorium without first issuing a public notice of its plans and inviting public feedback. On June 3, a federal appeals court agreed and ordered the agency to accept human test data on a case-by-case basis until it establishes a new regulation under existing procedures.
EPA spokeswoman Lisa Harrison told the Associated Press that the decision would not really change much at the EPA as the agency is already on track to create new regulations related to human clinical trials of pesticides. “It actually doesn’t impact us all that much, because we were proceeding on that track,” Harrison told the Associated Press.
Although clinical trials of pesticides are done with willing volunteers, environmental groups generally oppose them as being unethical and instead want pesticide manufacturers to focus exclusively on animal toxicity tests. Animal rights groups, on the other hand, want the EPA to reduce the number of animal tests involved in testing chemicals.
Richard Wiles of the Environment Working Group told the Associated Press,
We hope that the EPA bans the use of human studies by regulation. It’s completely unethical to directly dose humans with pesticides to see what the toxic effects are. We think that’s self-evident.
Source:
EPA told to weight human pesticide test data. Elizabeth Shogren, The Los Angeles Times, June 4, 2003.
EPA halt of human test data overturned. Associated Press, June 3, 2003.