This is pretty disgusting. Apparently, the EPA, following a plan put forth by Dubya ^[1], plan to test pesticides on people. I found out about it through the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) ^[2]. It’s amazing how little care the administration has for people. Go figure that this administration would favor corporations over people: at least they are consistent and staying in character.

What’s really bad is the backdoor for testing on pregnant women and children. Essentially, manufacturers can conduct testing on pregnant women and children as long as they convince the EPA that the researchers didn’t intend to submit the results to the agency at the outset of the study. It’s like “Oops, we didn’t intend to test the effects on pregnant women and children, but we got some results so here they are”. I have to question the value of this guideline.

While I can see where someone could construe this as being good, as we can find out what will be bad for pregnant women and children, should we even have to go there? Why not use more environmentally friendly forms of pest control, like natural predators, using different herbs and plants grown with crops that will cause pests to be naturally repelled, and maybe even using genetics to create plants that are naturally resistant to those pests in question?

I have to wonder what connections the top producers of pesticides have to this administration. The top 10 “AgChem Companies” by 1998 pesticide sales in U. S. millions are:

1. BASF $1,945
2. Dow $2,132
3. Bayer $2,273
4. DuPont $3,156
5. Aventis $4,676
6. Novartis $4,152
7. Monsanto $4,032
8. AstraZeneca $2,897
9. American Home Products $2,194
10. Makhteshim-Agan $801

Source: Rural Advancement Foundation International

I realize that this list is eight years old, but I don’t think that it has changed that much in that time. It’s amazing how many household names there are, and how only a couple of these companies are unknown to me (the last two). I wonder how much these companies have donated to the Bush Administration, and how much support they have received from Bush and Co. That will certainly take more research to find out.