Responding to Consumer and Senate Pressure, EPA Finally Drops CHEERS Study

After warning, EPA drops study on pesticides, kids

Acting chief: Democrats threaten to oppose his confirmation - one more battle in the ongoing war

By David D. Kirkpatrick The New York Times
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2647008
4/9/2005

WASHINGTON - Stephen Johnson, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said 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 Johnson had canceled the test because of the objections to his confirmation.

''They are pretty juxtaposed in time, aren't they?'' Hood said.

''There is clearly a connection.'' But Hood said the opposition was not the only reason for the
cancellation. ''Mr. Johnson said in a meeting on Friday morning that, his confirmation aside, he had come to pose serious questions as to whether or not this was the appropriate thing to do,'' he said. A recruiting flier for the program, called 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,'' according to the flier. The study was being paid for in part by the American Chemistry Council, a chemical company trade group that includes pesticide makers. In an interview on Friday, Sen. 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.'' Nelson said the study sought to recruit subjects in a poor neighborhood by offering parents compensation if they continued 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, Nelson said.

In a statement explaining the cancellation, Johnson said that he had 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 about the study's design. Some Democratic critics have portrayed the study as deliberately exposing infants to pesticides.

"Many misrepresentations about the study have been made. EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study," Johnson said. "EPA must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy."

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 Bolton, an undersecretary of state, as U.S. envoy to the United Nations.

Johnson's acquiescence, however, is unlikely to alter the broader standoff. Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and the Senate majority leader, has threatened that Republicans would vote to change the Senate procedures if Democrats continue to exploit the requirement for 60 votes to close debate on a confirmation.

Frist repeated to reporters this week that Senate Republicans would not yield in their determination to see the president's judicial nominees confirmed.