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Published on: December 30, 2010
Pesticide testing in humans: ethics and public policy
Christopher Oleskey1, Alan Fleischman, Lynn Goldman
1Center for Children's Health and the Environment, Box 1043, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustav L. Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, USA. christopher.oleskey@mssm.edu
Environmental Health Perspectives
|June 4, 2004
Summary
Pesticide companies test human volunteers to find safe exposure levels, but ethical guidelines and oversight are lacking. Recommendations include ethical standards and biomonitoring for pesticide exposure and health effects.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Toxicology
- Bioethics
Background:
- Pesticide manufacturers increasingly conduct human volunteer studies to determine "no observed effect levels."
- Data from these human pesticide toxicity studies are submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for regulatory standard setting.
- Current practices lack mandatory ethical guidelines, governmental oversight, and human subject protection protocols for pesticide toxicity testing in humans.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the ethical and policy issues surrounding human pesticide testing.
- To address the use of human data in pesticide standard setting by regulatory agencies.
- To develop recommendations for ethical conduct and policy in human pesticide exposure research.
Main Methods:
- Convened an expert workshop in February 2002 with ethicists, physicians, toxicologists, and policy analysts.
- Utilized a peer consensus process to develop recommendations.
- Reviewed existing practices in human pesticide testing and data submission to the EPA.
Main Results:
- Developed a set of ethical and public policy recommendations for human pesticide testing.
- Identified significant gaps in ethical guidelines and regulatory oversight for human pesticide studies.
- Highlighted the need for improved protection of human subjects in pesticide research.
Conclusions:
- Strongly recommended the implementation of ethical guidelines and oversight for human pesticide toxicity studies.
- Encouraged active biomonitoring of all pesticides to track human exposure, especially in vulnerable populations.
- Advocated for assessing adverse health effects linked to pesticide exposure through biomonitoring.
Keywords:
Biomedical and Behavioral Research
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