canceling a study of the effects of pesticides on infants and babies

EPA Halts Florida Test on Pesticides
    By David D. Kirkpatrick
    The New York Times

      Saturday 09 April 2005

      Washington - 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.

      "EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these
misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study,"
Mr. Johnson said. "EPA 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 EPA."

      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.

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