Apparently this episode was typical of how the EPA treats data from pesticide studies with human subjects. In response to the EWG's claim that "product registrations for [eight] insecticides rely on human studies," the agency insisted that "no human test data has been used by EPA for any final decision"--a point that an EWG spokeswoman later conceded. Last year, in a memo to its scientific advisory panel, the EPA indicated that human data would receive preference over animal data for some tests and that human testing is allowed under federal legislation.
The EWG's insinuation that subjects were exposed to grave danger was also unfounded. The symptoms reported in these studies--which included muscle weakness, headaches, and lightheadedness as well as sweaty palms--are all signs of nervousness. They are about what you would expect from people who believe they have ingested a poison, even if they are assured that the dose is too small to hurt them. The EPA's own evaluation of a study involving the insecticide dichlorvos noted that some subjects reported minor ailments such as headaches, drowsiness, and abdominal colic, but investigators "did not attribute these symptoms to dichlorvos administration."
Of course, human testing of pharmaceuticals is not only routine but required by law prior to FDA approval. "It's sad that companies are taking so much flak over these human pesticide studies because the whole object of these things is to try to identify a level that's absolutely safe," says Chris Wilkinson, a former EPA adviser and now an industry consultant in Arlington, Virginia. "Whereas with drugs, they try to see how much humans will tolerate. They really zap some people with these drugs."
But the EWG squirms around the drug testing, saying, "Exposure to toxic pollutants like pesticides is not undertaken on the assumption that in the future other people can benefit from exposure to the toxic substance." This is sophistry. People don't benefit from ingesting a pesticide, but they do benefit from its use.
Pesticides make food safer by preventing the growth of toxin-generating molds. They also make produce less expensive and more appealing--no small matter in a country where less than a tenth of the population consumes fruits and vegetables in the recommended amounts. Pesticide limits discourage the consumption of fresh produce by driving up its cost and making it look small, shriveled, and ugly (as "organic" crops generally do). Since more than 200 epidemiological studies have shown an association between low produce consumption and cancer risk, it seems likely that the anti-pesticide crusade is harming people's health rather than protecting it.
Although the EWG's report was nonsense from beginning to end, such documents have the power to intimidate. The day it appeared, the EPA proclaimed itself "deeply concerned that some pesticide manufacturers seem to be engaging in health-effects studies on human subjects as a way to avoid more protective results from animal tests." Why wasn't the EPA "deeply concerned" the day before the press conference? Because the suspicion that the agency takes its marching orders from environmental groups is largely correct. Why are animal tests "more protective" of humans than human tests? They're not; they're just more stringent. To a regulator, the tougher the law, the better.
During the EWG press conference, I kept wondering if I would hear the n-word. Sure enough, just before the event ended Wiles said the pesticide studies were reminiscent of experiments conducted by the Germans during World War II. Dan Guttman, an ethicist on the panel, jumped to his feet and exclaimed, "Nobody's suggesting a comparison to the Nazis." To which the woman next to me quietly replied, "Well, he just did."
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