Pesticide study controversy at EPA

The EPA has started requiring increased testing and analysis of various pesticides, including testing of the effects on the endocrine system of various chemicals used in herbicides and insecticides. According to Steve Owens, the assistant administrator of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, “After years of delay, EPA is aggressively moving forward by ordering the testing of a number of pesticide chemicals for hormone effects. These new data will be carefully evaluated to help identify potential hormone disruptor chemicals.”

The human endocrine system regulates hormone production, which impacts growth, metabolism, and reproduction. For all you'll probably ever want to know about it, click here.

The EPA has released a testing schedule for information from manufacturers of 67 chemicals over the next four months. It intends to use this information as a jumping-off point to determine if further testing of these chemicals is necessary. The testing, which will take place through the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program, will eventually expand to include all pesticide chemicals. Here's the controversy, though - should manufacturer data really be used as the basis for determining if further study is necessary?

The Office of Management and Budget has issued an order allowing for the results of old industry studies to be substituted for new studies on the impacts of pesticide use on the human endocrine system. Over the course of the last decade, more than 1000 studies have been conducted on the impacts of pesticides on the endocrine system, but some scientists fear that this order may undermine the ability of those scientists to get their results into EPA considerations for possible regulation of the industry.

The EPA claims that a good scientist will be able to tell from the structure of the studies whether or not they're credible. The critical issue here, however, is not that the industry studies will be used at all, but the fact that they will be used in lieu of new studies from (presumably) neutral parties.