[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 38 (Wednesday, April 6, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H1827]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          COMMENTS ON THE EPA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the EPA is trying to 
exploit the poor people in my district for their pseudo-Nazi and 
Tuskeegee-like studies to determine what pesticides do to infants and 
toddlers in Duval County Florida.
  In October, the EPA received $2.1 million to do the study from the 
American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry front group that 
includes members such as Dow, Exxon, and Monsanto Critics of the 
research, including some EPA scientists, claim the study's funders 
guarantee the results will be biased in favor of the chemical industry, 
at the expense of the health of the impoverished children serving as 
test subjects.
  The families would have to keep spraying, even when the directions on 
the bottles say ``cover all food and keep pets and children outside and 
away from the pesticides.''
  The point of the study is to determine what happens to children 
exposed to pesticides. There is no reason to believe that the 
participants would be informed about incorrect use of pesticides that 
would abnormally affect the children. Any change in pesticide use would 
skew the results.
  In fact, EPA policy recommends that children be kept away from all 
pesticides because all pose some health risks. But the agency will not 
be warning parents in this study group. Doing so would interfere with 
the study. Infants and toddlers up to 3 years in age are involved, and 
the agency will warn their parents of the pesticide danger only if 
their children begin to show risky levels of pesticides in their urine,
  There are no safeguards to prevent a family from increasing their 
pesticides use to become eligible for the study.
  This is a low income area. $970 over two years, plus a video 
camcorder is a lot of money to many people.
  The EPA Press Release for this study said: ``As part of this exposure 
study, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) has signed a cooperative 
research agreement with EPA to collect information on exposures of 
young children to several household chemicals, including phthalates, 
brominated flame retardants, and perfluorinated chemicals.''
  These classes of chemicals have been shown to have effects on male 
sperm counts in adults, and are known to be dangerous. The European 
Union is in the process of banning these drugs.
  This project is symptomatic of a larger problem.
  This administration has been pushing to increase human testing.
  American kids should not be guinea pigs for a misguided 
administration proposal to help the large pesticide companies increase 
sales.

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