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The Environmental Protection Agency issued a moratorium on December 14, 2001, precluding the consideration of pesticide tests on human beings. The agency asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the ethics and usefulness of testing on human volunteers. Some pesticide companies, hoping to establish a basis for raising regulatory restrictions they deem overly strict, have paid volunteers to ingest limited quantities of certain pesticides to determine the health consequences, such as nausea and vomiting. Some test doses are 100 to 300 times levels currently deemed safe by the EPA. Environmental regulators and environmentalists have questioned the ethics of such studies and whether they are useful, given the relatively small number of subjects studies. "It's a general principle of medical ethics that you don't test a chemical on people unless there is the potential of some direct benefit to the person himself or herself," said Philip Landrigan in an interview with the Washington Post. Landrigan chaired a 1993 Academy panel that looked into the matter, told the Washington Post. -12/14/01 |
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