How could we not have thought that Nazi type medical research wouldn't follow suit with all the other atrocities of the Bush era? Stephen Johnson, Bush's nominee for head of EPA must have used
Mengele as a mentor. Johnson is advocating testing pesticides on children.
...in October of last year, Johnson strongly supported a study in which infants will be monitored for health impacts as they undergo exposure to known toxic chemicals for a two year period. The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, dubiously known as CHEERS, will analyze how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled, or absorbed by children ranging from infants to three year olds. The study will analyze 60 infants and toddlers in Duval County, Florida who are routinely exposed to pesticides in their homes. Yet the E.P.A. acknowledges that pesticide exposure is a documented risk factor for some types of childhood cancer and the early onset of asthma.
Cheers--A program to use our children for chemical experiements. Not just any children either, poor children, primarily black children.
The E.P.A. is targeting the poor and African-Americans for the study, presumably in the hope that they will be less informed about the dangers of exposing their children to pesticides, and will therefore continue to expose them over the two year period. The study actually mandates that participants not be provided information about the proper ways to apply or store pesticides around the home. And the parents cannot be informed of the risks of prolonged or excessive exposure to pesticides. Additionally, the study does not provide steps to intervene if the children show signs of developmental delay or register high levels of exposure to pesticides in the periodic testing.
Parents receive $970 for participating in the study, but only if they continue over the two year period. This is a powerful inducement for these impoverished parents to keep exposing their children to pesticides. Even some E.P.A. officials have been troubled by the lack of safeguards to ensure that these parents are not swayed into exposing their children to the chemicals. Troy Pierce, a scientist in the E.P.A.'s Atlanta-based pesticides office, wrote in an e-mail to his colleagues last year, "This does sound like it goes against everything we recommend at EPA concerning use of (pesticides) related to children. Paying families in Florida to have their homes routinely treated with pesticides is very sad when we at EPA know that (pesticide management) should always be used to protect children."
Enough, enough of being proper. What is it going to take for people to give a fuck? These are innocent human lives we are talking about. Wingnut assholes supposedly fight for life and infringe on women's choice for their own body, but they sure don't give a damn what happens to those fetuses once they are born and living in poverty. I am so fucking angry and frustrated and I want a damn revolution, this shit has got to stop somewhere. When do we all really get off our asses and our blogs and scream and protest and REALLY do something about our country turning into Nazi fucking Germany--but worse! It might not be in your backyard today, but once they are done in the ghettos they will be in your backyard one day too.
Update: EPA CHEERS PAGE