Huh? Can government actually do this?

Question: Is this an impeachable offense? Read article for details.

President Bush recently nominated Stephen L. Johnson, a 24-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency, to be the agency's new administrator. Mr. Johnson has been the acting administrator since January, and prior to that oversaw the EPA office handling pesticides and other toxic substances. In nominating Johnson, Mr. Bush described him as "a talented scientist" and having "good judgment and complete integrity."

During President Clinton's administration, the E.P.A. would not consider the results of controversial trials that tested pesticides on people. But after Mr. Bush was elected, Johnson changed the policy to permit consideration, saying, "We are willing to consider that such studies can be useful".

Johnson strongly supported a study in which infants will be monitored for health impacts as they undergo exposure to toxic chemicals for a two-year period. The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS), will analyze how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled, or absorbed by children ranging from infants to three year olds.

Other aspects of CHEERS are equally troublesome. The participants will be selected from six health clinics and three hospitals in Duval County. The E.P.A. study proposal noted, "Although all Duval County citizens are eligible to use the [health care] centers, they primarily serve individuals with lower incomes. In the year 2000, 75 percent of the users of the clinics for pregnancy issues were at or below the poverty level." The proposal also cited that "The percentage of births to individuals classified as black in the U.S. Census is higher at these three hospitals than for the County as a whole."

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.

Parents receive $970 for participating, 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.

Stephen L. Johnson's strong support of pesticide testing on humans is morally and scientifically reprehensible. The testing provides no health benefit to the subjects, or to society at large. But it does help chemical companies who claim that their products are not dangerous. And this is not the type of help that the future head of the E.P.A. should be giving.

(Intervention Magazine: EPA Nominee is Scientist Gone Mad.)