Wow! Bush's EPA decides that children outside the womb shouldn't be used for pesticide experiments!

EPA Cancels Proposed Study That Would Have Exposed Children To Pesticides

(AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday canceled a controversial study using children to measure the effect of pesticides after Democrats said they would block Senate confirmation of the agency's new head.

Stephen Johnson, as EPA's acting administrator, ordered an end to the planned study, a reversal from the agency's position just a day earlier when it said it would await the advice of outside scientific experts.

The aim of the study, Johnson said, was to fill data gaps on children's exposure to household pesticides and chemicals. He suspended it last November after ethical questions were raised by scientists within EPA and by environmentalists.

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Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., had joined with Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in demanding the study's cancellation as a condition for confirming Johnson's nomination by President Bush.

"I am very pleased that Mr. Johnson has recognized the gross error in judgment the EPA made when they concocted this immoral program to test pesticides on children," Boxer said.

"The CHEERS program was a reprehensible idea that never should have made it out of the boardroom, and I am just happy that it was stopped before any children were put in harm's way," Boxer said, adding that she would continue to oppose any testing of toxins on humans.

Environmentalists such as Mike Casey, a spokesman for the advocacy- and research-oriented Environmental Working Group, applauded the end of what he called "a completely corrupt idea."