CHEERS study in Duval County, Florida
E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides
New York Times, April 9, 2005
 
 

Return to CHEERS study

 

A US EPA "Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study" (CHEERS) was approved to assess children's exposure to pesticides in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida.

The two-year study will monitor developmental changes in babies, from birth to age 3, who are exposed to pesticides in their homes. Included in the pesticides and chemicals to be monitored are:

Fluorinated pesticides:
Bifenthrin, Fipronil, Lambda-cyhalothrin, and Cyfluthrin I, II, III, IV, total;
Fluorinated chemicals:
4-fluoro-3-phenoxybenzoic acid and the perfluorinated PFOS and PFOA.

 

New York Times

April 9, 2005

E.P.A. Halts Florida Test on Pesticides

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, April 8 - Stephen L. Johnson, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Friday that he was canceling a study of the effects of pesticides on infants and babies, a day after two Democratic senators said they would block his confirmation if the research continued.

Rich Hood, a spokesman for the agency, acknowledged that Mr. Johnson had canceled the test because of the objections to his confirmation. "They are pretty juxtaposed in time, aren't they?" Mr. Hood said. "There is clearly a connection."

But Mr. Hood said the opposition was not the only reason for the cancellation.

"Mr. Johnson said in a meeting this morning that, his confirmation aside, he had come to pose serious questions as to whether or not this study was the appropriate thing to do," he said.

A recruiting flier for the program, called the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or Cheers, offered $970, a free camcorder, a bib and a T-shirt to parents whose infants or babies were exposed to pesticides if the parents completed the two-year study. The requirements for participation were living in Duval County, Fla., having a baby under 3 months old or 9 to 12 months old, and "spraying pesticides inside your home routinely."

The study was being paid for in part by the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that includes pesticide makers.

In an interview on Friday, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, one of two Democrats who said they would block the confirmation, said the study amounted to "using infants in my state as guinea pigs."

Mr. Nelson said the study sought to recruit subjects in a poor neighborhood by offering parents compensation for practices potentially dangerous to their children.

"If you knew smoking caused cancer," he said, "would you want to have a study that said, 'Don't do anything, just keep smoking like you are smoking and we are going to pay you and give you a camcorder so that you can record all this'? "

Financing from the American Chemistry Council added a dangerous potential conflict of interest, Mr. Nelson said.
In a statement explaining the cancellation, Mr. Johnson said he first halted the study last fall "in light of questions about the study design" to conduct an independent review.

But he attributed the cancellation mainly to mischaracterizations of the study. Some Democratic critics have portrayed it as deliberately spraying infants with pesticides.

"E.P.A. senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study," Mr. Johnson said. "E.P.A. must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy."

Mr. Johnson's confirmation was one of several stalemates in a broader partisan battle over many of President Bush's nominees, including 10 appeals court judges, his selection as commissioner of food and drugs and his nomination of John R. Bolton, an under secretary of state, as United States envoy to the United Nations.

Mr. Johnson's acquiescence, however, is unlikely to alter the broader standoff. Senator Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and the Senate majority leader, has threatened that Republicans may change the Senate procedures if Democrats continue to block nominees by refusing the 60 votes needed to close debate on a confirmation. Dr. Frist repeated to reporters this week that Senate Republicans would not yield in their determination to see the president's judicial nominees confirmed.

Under Senate rules, any senator can put a "hold" on a nominee or proposal, and 60 votes are required to overturn it, making it similar to a filibuster.

Mr. Nelson said that now that Mr. Johnson had canceled the program he was prepared to withdraw his hold on Mr. Johnson's nomination and vote for his confirmation. "I have heard only good things about him," Mr. Nelson said. "And I am looking forward to him being a breath of fresh air to the E.P.A."

A spokeswoman for Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the other Democrat who put a hold on Mr. Johnson's confirmation, said that Ms. Boxer would not block a vote on Mr. Johnson, a 25-year employee of the environmental agency who is the first person with a science background to be nominated to lead it, but that she had not decided how to vote on his confirmation.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

 
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