BodyBurden

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) supports EPA's decision to suspend the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, known as CHEERS. EWG requests that Mr. Johnson ensures fair and balanced representation on the panel.

In the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Fall 2004 Long-Range Research Initiative Update, (http://www.uslri.org/news.cfm?id=newsletters) the ACC wrote that the $2million payment to participate in the EPA study "also contains considerable leverage, in that $2 million of ACC funds add to $7 million of EPA funds.

Environmental Working Group is deeply troubled to learn that the EPA has decided to make the lobbying arm of a powerful regulated industry its "partner" in a major chemical research initiative. This agreement relegates the public and independent scientists to second tier status, and it suggests that any polluter or regulated industry can become a full partner with the EPA if the price is right.

Environmental Working Group expresses extreme disappointment and concern over a series of glaring omissions in the final report from the NAS Committee on the Use of Third Party Toxicity Research with Human Research Participants.

EWG is now firmly opposed to direct dosing of human subjects with pesticides, industrial chemicals, or pollutants on both scientific and ethical grounds.