EPA Cancels Pesticide Study

Designed to fill data gaps on children's exposure to household pesticides and chemicals, the CHEERS study was cancelled after ethical questions were raised by scientists within EPA and Congress.

A controversial pesticide study using children to measure the effect of pesticides was planned by the Environmental Protection Agency in conjunction with the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group that represents chemical makers. Just cancelled, the study, called Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS), would have involved 60 children ages 0 to 3 in Duval County, Florida, whose families would be asked to keep records of exposures in the home to products including phthalates, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated chemicals and pesticides over a two year period. The families would each be given $970, plus a camcorder and children's clothing in return for their participation in the research. The EPA had agreed to accept $2 million from the ACC for the research, but faced with refusal to confirm his confirmation in the senate, Stephen Johnson, EPA's acting administrator, ordered an end to the planned study. His move was a reversal from the EPA's position of just a day earlier, when it stated it would wait for advice from outside scientific experts. For more information, visit www.epa.gov/cheers.