US set to endorse human pesticide testing

摘要

The pesticide industry is keenly awaiting an imminent US ruling. Within days, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to publish its proposed policy on the use of human subjects in tests to assess the safety of pesticides. The $10-billion industry has plenty riding on the details of this regulation. It wants to use human toxicity data to help it keep at least a dozen pesticides on the market. These products must pass new safety hurdles with the EPA by next August or face being banned or restricted. Perhaps as important, a formal EPA policy governing company-sponsored human tests would give an unprecedented government seal of approval to the controversial practice. Critics predict that this will encourage companies to conduct human toxicity tests on a wide range of some 1,200 active pesticide ingredients now on the market, with the aim of loosening their regulation.