Human Testing of Pesticides: Ethical and Scientific Considerations

• Published in: American journal of public health (1971) Vol. 94; no. 11; pp. 1908 - 1915
• Main Author: Lockwood, Alan H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC Am Public Health Assoc 01.11.2004; American Public Health Association; American Journal of Public Health 2004
• Subjects: Analysis of Variance; Biological and medical sciences; Ethics; Female; Health Policy and Ethics; Human Experimentation - ethics; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; No-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level; Pesticides - toxicity; Toxicity Tests - ethics; Toxicity Tests - standards; Toxicology; USA; Assay; Human; Ethics; Health and environment; Methodology; Toxicity; Pesticides; Experimentation; Human aspect; Experimental study; Public health; Empirical Approach; Environmental Protection Agency; Biomedical and Behavioral Research
• ISSN: 0090-0036; 1541-0048
• DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.94.11.1908

I reviewed ethical and scientific aspects of 6 human pesticide-dosing studies submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for consideration during the pesticide reregistration process. All had serious ethical or scientific deficiencies-or both-including unacceptable informed consent procedures, unmanaged financial conflicts of interest, inadequate statistical power, inappropriate test methods and endpoints, and distorted results. Given today's knowledge of the effects of pesticides, there is no assurance that any such study can be completely free of short-term risks, long-term risks, or both. Therefore, there is no basis for allowing pesticide studies to continue or for using them during the pesticide reregistration process. An EPA committee that is free from political and financial conflicts of interest should review this practice.