Pesticide Lunch

doi:10.1126/science.294.5550.2285c

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said last month that it is once again accepting controversial studies in which companies dose people with pesticides.

Industry researchers expose paid volunteers to pesticides in order to determine the minimum level of a toxicant that causes effects such as headaches, nausea, and changes in the activity of enzymes in the blood. They say human experiments are better than animal studies for setting realistic safety standards. But Clinton-era EPA chief Carol Browner barred the agency from using the human data in setting limits for pesticides on produce after activists argued that the tests--unlike drug trials--offer no potential benefit to the participants. And an EPA advisory panel that wrestled with the issue for over 2 years (Science, 1 January 1999, p. 18) condoned some human pesticide studies but advised against the minimum-response tests.

EPA spokesperson Dave Deegan says the agency's new stance, first reported in the Los Angeles Times, is not a policy change because there never was "a formalized policy" on the issue. But outsiders say the agency should formulate official guidelines for human studies if it is going to encourage them. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a member of the advisory panel, says EPA is "desperately in need of a policy."