WASHINGTON,
DC, July 13, 2005 (ENS): People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) filed a lawsuit Monday
to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
to stop testing toxic substances on animals and using
the results of those tests to indicate that children
can be exposed to adult levels of pesticides without
harm.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia is a challenge to the EPA’s
denial of a rulemaking petition filed jointly by the
groups in September 2004.
The petition called on the EPA to stop requiring companies
to conduct developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) testing
on animals. The groups say the results of those tests
are being used as a basis for providing children with
less protection from pesticide risks than the law requires.
The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) requires
that children’s exposure to pesticide residues
be 10 times lower than that of adults, but the act contains
a loophole. A smaller margin of safety can be used if
the EPA has “reasonable certainty” that
higher exposure levels will be safe for infants and
children.
The plaintiff groups claim that "in defiance"
of the intent of the law, the EPA is using this loophole
and the results of animal tests as a basis for "large-scale
abandonment" of the required protection factor
for children.
A single developmental neurotoxicity study can kill
upward of 2,500 animals, yet the plaintiff groups allege
that the method "has never been properly validated
to ensure that test results are even remotely predictive
of chemical effects on human children."
In the absence of proper validation, the physicians
and animal groups assert, the EPA cannot conclude with
“reasonable certainty” that children will
suffer no harm from exposure to higher levels of pesticide
residues than the Food Quality Protection Act would
otherwise allow.
The lawsuit contends that the EPA’s reliance
on developmental neurotoxicity testing to permit deviations
from the Food Quality Protection Act standard for children’s
health and safety is "arbitrary, capricious, and
in violation of the law."
“The EPA is killing thousands of animals in tests
that are not validated and allowing chemical companies
to experiment on children by exposing them to levels
of chemicals with no scientific proof that those levels
are safe,” says PETA Senior Vice President Mary
Beth Sweetland.
“The effect of the EPA’s use of DNT is
that children will receive substantially less protection
from pesticide residues than if DNT testing had never
been carried out,” she said.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2005. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2005/2005-07-13-09.asp#anchor5
|
