America tested Pesticides on Infants with video

[Pragmatic]

Perchlorate {also see "Methimazole"}

September 10, 2009 Proposition 65 List "Methimazole"

Methimazole (also known as Tapazole or Thiamazole) is an antithyroiddrug, and part of the thioamide group.

The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 requires that the Governor revise and republish at least once per year the list of chemicals known to the State to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.

Methimazole

developmental

60-56-0

July 1, 1990

http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/prop6...ngle091009.pdf

Video: America tested Pesticides on Infants with video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeToqt08SOM"][SIZE=3]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeToqt08SOM[/SIZ

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), led by Bush appointees, plans to launch a new study in which participating low income families will have their children exposed to toxic pesticides over the course of two years.

For taking part in these studies, each family will receive $970, a free video camera, a T-shirt, and a framed certificate of appreciation.

In October, the EPA received $2 million to do the study from the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry front group that includes members such as Dow, Exxon, and Monsanto. The EPA's Linda Sheldon says the study is vital, because so little is known about how small children's bodies absorb harmful chemicals.


The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study -- known by its acronym CHEERS -- does not mark the first time the agency has accepted chemical industry money to conduct research; the Clinton administration signed similar agreements. But it represents the most money the chemical trade group has given the EPA. The chemical industry council represents about 135 manufacturers and spends $20 million a year on research

As of press time, none of the EPA's employees are offering to have their own children take part in this research project.

(ACC = American Chemistry Council who funded government study. List of sponsors below, including IG Farben)

The trick here is that these products are known to have negative long term health effects. This is a short two year study. In other words, the results of he study are already known...there will be little to no obvious short term negative effects on these children at the end of the two year period. The seemingly positive results of the study will allow the ACC to announce positive "EPA study results" to the public, which will allow the ACC to more effectively lobby congress to weaken regulations on these products even more (thereby increasing profits dramatically). This technique has been exercised by the ACC for decades.

The real negative effects of these types of chemicals come further down the road, when these children could exhibit learning disorders, a propensity for various types of cancer, early puberty/ hormonal disruption, and birth defects in their children.

Low income families have clearly been targeted in this study. Participants for the study will be chosen from 6 health clinics and three hospitals in Duval County, FL. According to the EPA study proposal, "Although all Duval County citizens are eligible to use the [health care] centers, they primarily serve individuals with lower incomes. In the year 2000, seventy five percent of the users of the clinics for pregnancy issues were at or below the poverty level." (p.23)

These medical facilities report that 51% of their births are to non-white mothers and 62% of mothers have only received an elementary or secondary education. Again, according to the EPA study proposal, "The percentage of births to individuals classified as black in the U.S. Census is higher at these three hospitals than for the County as a whole." (pg.23).

Characterization of the CHEERS study in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida :

The US EPA's Office of Research and Development's National Exposure Research Laboratory (ORD/NERL) proposes to conduct a two-year longitudinal field measurement study of young children's (aged 0 to 3 years) potential exposures to current-use pesticides and selected phthalates, polybrominated diphenyl ethes, and perfluorinated compounds that may be found in residential environments. The study will be conducted in Duval County, Jacksonville, Florida over a two-year period from 2004-2006. Sixty young children will be recruited into this study in two cohorts: (1) infants recruited into the study soon after birth, and , (2) children recruited into the study at approximately 12 months of age. The study involves up to six data collection events at each home during the two-year study period. During each event, environmental and biological samples will be collected to measure chemical concentrations and questionnaires will be administered to collect data that will be used to estimate aggregate exposures and to analyze the measurement data. Aggregate exposures will be estimated for the current-use pesticides and selected phthalates in the study. The data collected on the polybrominated diphenyl ethers and the perfluorinated compounds will be used to evaluate the potential magnitude for exposure and to determine the temporal and spatial variability of these chemicals in residences. The study will collect data to fill critical gaps in our understanding of very young children's exposure to chemicals in their residences. The study will help the Agency reduce uncertainty in exposure and risk assessments for children by providing data on exposure factors and validated tools for estimating children's expsure to contaminants, as well as providing much needed measurement data for model refinement. The exposure factors generated in this study will be included in the National Center for Environmental Assessment's (NCEA) Child Specific Exposure Factors Handbook. Additionally, the information will apear in the form of final EPA reports, journal articles, and will also be made publicly available in an electronic database for use by the scientific community, risk assessors, and risk managers.
Ref: Part A: Supporting Statement for Information Collection Request 2126.01 -
Docket No. ORD-2003-0011-0006 attached to the March 3, 2004, Federal Register.

CHEERS. INDEX To US EPA study in Duval County, Florida. Index page from Fluoride Action Network Pesticides Project.

EPA Bans Staff From Discussing
Issue of Perchlorate Pollution

PETER WALDMAN / Wall Street Journal 28apr03

The Bush administration has imposed a gag order on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from publicly discussing perchlorate pollution, even as two new studies reveal high levels of the rocket-fuel component may be contaminating the nation's lettuce supply.

EPA Bans Staff From Discussing Issue of Perchlorate Pollution PETER WALDMAN / Wall Street Journal 28apr03


New Study Suggests Perchlorate is Thyroid Danger to 44 Million American Women

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have just released findings that show that American women -- and especially women with low iodine intake -- are at risk of hypothyroidism due to common exposure to the toxin perchlorate.
New Study Suggests Perchlorate is Thyroid Danger to 44 Million American Women
Toxic Chemicals As a Cause of Thyroid Disease -- Perchlorate, Pesticides, Etc.

EVIDENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENTAL AND
REPRODUCTIVE TOXICITY OF

Perchlorate
September 2005

At a meeting of the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant (DART) Identification

Committee held on December 4, 2002, after considering a petition from several interested
parties, the Committee asked OEHHA to take perchlorate out of the usual prioritization
process order and to prepare a draft hazard identification document (HID) as resources
were available. A public request for information relevant to the assessment of the
evidence on the reproductive toxicity of this chemical was announced on April 11, 2003,
in the California Regulatory Notice Register. Four sets of comments were received as a
result of this request. These hazard identification materials were compiled to provide the
Committee with the available scientific evidence on the reproductive toxicity potential of

this chemical, and were released on May 20, 2005 for a 60-day public comment period.

At its August 11, 2005 meeting, following discussion and deliberation, the Committee, by
a vote of five against and one abstention, did not find that perchlorate had been “clearly
shown through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles to
cause reproductive toxicity.” Accordingly, perchlorate was not placed on the Proposition

65 list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity.

SUMMARY OF AVAILABLE INFORMATION

Ammonium perchlorate has been and continues to be used as an oxidizer in solid rocketpropellant. Sodium perchlorate is used in slurry explosive, and potassium perchlorate is used in road flares and air bag inflation systems. Large volumes of perchlorate have been
disposed of since the 1950’s. Some of this has leached into soil, and into aquifers used as
drinking water sources. Perchlorate is highly mobile in aqueous systems and can persist
for many decades under typical ground and surface water conditions. As discussed in
more detail in the Attachments, perchlorate blocks uptake of iodine by the thyroid gland that may lead to decreased synthesis of the thyroid hormones, T3 and T4.

These thyroid hormones are critical determinants of growth and development in fetuses, infants andyoung children. Among the sensitive subpopulations identified are pregnant women and their fetuses, lactating women, and infants.

http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/hazar...orate91405.pdf

US: Lockheed Martin's Tests on Humans Aerospace contractor pays Californians $1,000 to eat thyroid toxin in first large-scale human test of water pollutant Environmental Working Group November 27th, 2000

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- On behalf of military contractor Lockheed Martin, Loma Linda University is conducting the first large-scale tests of a toxic drinking water contaminant on human subjects -- a precedent medical researchers and Environmental Working Group condemned as morally unethical and scientifically invalid. The Los Angeles Times reported Nov. 27 that Loma Linda Medical Center in San Bernardino is paying 100 people $1,000 to eat a dose of perchlorate every day for six months. Perchlorate is a toxic component of rocket fuel that damages thyroid function, preventing healthy development of fetuses and children and causing cancer. It is found in hundreds of water supplies in California, most of them in Los Angeles and surrounding counties. Although Loma Linda researchers defended their study by claiming that perchlorate also has therapeutic value, EWG has learned that its use as a medicine has been discredited since 1966, when Israeli researchers reported that large doses caused deaths and severe illness among already-ill test subjects. The Times quoted Richard Wiles, research director of Environmental Working Group, who said, "These tests are inherently unethical." (Documents from the Loma Linda study are available here.) "It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to know that medical researchers shouldn't feed toxic chemicals to humans," Wiles added. The Loma Linda subjects are being fed up to 83 times the "safe" level of perchlorate currently set by the state health department, which is expected to review its perchlorate standards in coming months. Next year, the U.S. EPA will begin national testing of water supplies for percholorate in preparation for adopting national standard If Lockheed Martin can persuade the state and EPA not to set strict standards for perchlorate in drinking water, the company will save millions of dollars in cleanup costs. The rocket maker is also being sued for unspecified damages by a group of San Bernardino County citizens who suffer thyroid cancer and other disorders from ingesting perchlorate that leached from a now-closed Lockheed Martin plant into area water supplies. According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the residents' attorney, Gary Praglin, said of the Loma Linda study: "I think they ought to be ashamed of themselves." The Times said the Loma Linda study, sponsored by both Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force, is apparently the first large-scale study to use human subjects to test the harmful effects of a water pollutant. The EPA has no protocols or regulations for human testing, and to date only industry-sponsored studies have employed human subjects. In September the agency's science advisory panel said human testing should be used only with "the greatest degree of caution." But two members of the panel dissented strongly, calling the studies dangerous and insufficient to judge the safety of pollutants, especially for children. In their dissent, EPA panel members Dr. Herb Needleman of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Dr. J. Routt Reigart of the Medical University of South Carolina wrote that allowing human testing "lays the ground for a flood of research that should not be conducted and should not be accepted by the EPA for regulatory purposes." In an editorial today, the Los Angeles Times noted that Lockheed Martin claims "It is trying to promote science and human health, but the study is designed in ways that could downplay perchlorate's dangers. . . . Regulators should be wary of dubious research like the Lockheed study." The director of the Loma Linda study, Dr. Anthony Firek, defended the use of human subjects by saying that perchlorate is also used as a therapeutic drug in rare cases to treat hyperthyroidism. He said if perchlorate were only a toxic pollutant, he would have declined to conduct the human tests. But use of perchlorate as a hyperthyroidism treatment has been discredited for more than 30 years. In 1966 Israeli researchers conducted a study in which large doses of perchlorate were fed to a group of 76 patients with hyperthyroidism. The study found 10 serious complications among the group, including two deaths, one of a patient who developed aplastic anemia, where bone marrow fails to produce blood cells, and another who died of agranulocytosis, where there is a marked decrease in a type of white blood cell critical to immune function. In addition to the fatalities, there were two more cases of agranulocytosis and two of leukopenia, a significant decrease of white blood cell count. The authors wrote: "In our opinion the results do not justify the continued use of perchlorate in the therapy of thyrotoxicosis." In a report on the Loma Linda tests in this week's U.S. News & World Report, Dr. Gina Solomon of the Natural Resources Defense Council, member of a recent EPA advisory committee, said: "They are giving people a chemical that flunked as a medicine." A recent study by the Arizona state health department of infants near Lake Mead, Ariz., which is contaminated with perchlorate, found that many were born with altered thyroid function. The director of the study, Dr. Ron Breckner, told EWG he was surprised that the Loma Linda subjects were not told of the 1966 Israeli study. In a letter to the president of Loma Linda University, EWG warned that the ethical and scientific cloud over human testing means that "the human subjects in this experiment, including Loma Linda University students in all likelihood, will have accepted risks during the course of an experiment that will yield results that are unusable for any regulatory purposes." "I am writing to express serious ethical, scientific, and policy concerns about this human study, and to strongly urge the university to terminate it immediately," EWG President Ken Cook wrote in a Nov. 22 letter to Loma Linda President B. Lyn Behrens. Cook said Loma Linda should not "be complicit in a corporate strategy to permit long-term perchlorate contamination of tap water, and associated exposure to many thousands of individuals in proximity to the University, in large parts of Southern California, and in other states." Cook also urged the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial VA Center, where some of the Loma Linda tests are being conducted, and Boston University, which employs one of the researchers, to terminate their participation in the study.