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COALITION SUES EPA
OVER FOUR PESTICIDES
A coalition of farmworker advocates and
environmental activists has filed a lawsuit
against EPA that seeks to halt the use of
four organophosphate pesticides. The
compounds—methidathion, ethoprop,
methamidophos, and oxydemeton-methyl—have
put thousands of farmworkers
and families at risk of serious illnesses,
including cancer and reproductive deformities,
allege attorneys for Earthjustice, an
environmental law firm representing the
plaintiffs. The organophosphates are used
primarily in California on a wide variety
of fruit, vegetable, and nut crops. The lawsuit,
filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California, in San Francisco,
alleges that in allowing the pesticides
to remain on the market, EPA has failed to
satisfy its legal obligation to ensure that
the chemicals will not have “unreasonable
adverse effects” on farmworkers, children,
and the environment. An EPA spokesman
says the agency is reviewing the issues
raised by the litigation and will decide on a
course of action at the appropriate time.
HEALTH IMPACTS OF
CLIMATE CHANGE
Anticipating more human health problems
from global warming, the World Health
Organization and several United Nations
partners announced a new research agenda
to produce better estimates of the scale and
nature of human health vulnerability due to
changing climate, as well as to find healthprotecting
strategies and tools. Margaret
Chan, WHO director-general, warned that
warming may be gradual but the effects—
more storms, floods, droughts, and heat
waves—will be abrupt and acutely felt. She
predicted that global warming will influence
some of the most fundamental determinants
of health: air, water, food, shelter, and
freedom from disease. The impact will be
global, she said, but the consequences will
not be evenly distributed. “In short, climate
change will affect problems that are already
huge, largely concentrated in the developing
world, and will be difficult to control,”
Chan said. She announced a new climatechange
program to be run by WHO along
with the UN Environmental Programme,
the Food & Agricultural Organization, and
the UN World Meteorological Organization.
The program will provide better sur-
GOVERNMENT & POLICY CONCENTRATES
NEW LAWS PROPOSED IN CANADA
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week announced plans to
overhaul his nation’s food, drug, and product safety laws. Harper’s legislative
package, delivered to the House of Commons on April 8, would
modernize the existing Food & Drugs Act and create a new Canada Consumer
Product Safety Act. Proposed changes to
the Food & Drugs Act would require makers of
pharmaceuticals and other health products to
provide results of government-specified tests to
demonstrate that a product remains safe and
effective once it is on the market. It would also
allow regulators at Health Canada to share data,
including confidential business information,
when appropriate, with other regulatory agencies
and the public. Harper’s proposed product
Harper
safety law would prohibit the manufacture, advertisement,
or sale of consumer products that are a danger to human
health or safety. It would require suppliers to maintain accurate records of
the sources of their products and would give regulators the power to pull
unsafe consumer products from retailers’ shelves and to order recalls.
“We welcome this federal initiative and look forward to working with the
federal government on this important project,” says Shannon Coombs,
president of the Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association.
veillance and forecasting, stronger basic
health services, and more effective means to
help people adapt to a changing climate and
to limit climate change’s effect on health.
TRADE DEAL FACES
FIGHT IN CONGRESS
With strong support from U.S. industry,
President George W. Bush has sent Congress
a controversial free-trade agreement
with Colombia, a move that will force
lawmakers to vote on the pact within 90
legislative days. The measure faces an uphill
battle. Democratic leaders in both chambers
say support for the trade deal will hinge
on renewal and expansion of a program
designed to help workers who lose their jobs
as a result of foreign competition. The pact
with Colombia would level the playing field
for U.S. exporters by immediately providing
nearly complete access to a $30 billion market.
U.S. manufacturers currently face 14%
tariffs on average for industrial products
shipped to the South American country.
U.S. exports to Colombia include chemicals,
plastics, cereal, heavy machinery, and electronics.
Dow Chemical annually exports
more than $300 million worth of products
from the U.S. to the Colombian market. Du-
WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 34 APRIL 14, 2008
NEWSCOM
ties on the majority of these products would
be eliminated under the pact.
NIH BUDGET LOSING
GROUND
Over the past five years, funding for NIH has
dropped in constant dollars, according to
data compiled by the Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology.
Specifically, FASEB reports funding for NIH
in constant dollars was $31.7 billion in fiscal
2004, but has fallen 13% to a projected $27.5
billion for fiscal 2009. This drop in funding
resulted in a decline in the total number of
RO1 grants—from 29,061 in 2004 to 27,850
in 2007. “We have seen a substantial decline
in NIH’s purchasing power, curtailing the
ability of scientists to take advantage of new
opportunities and respond to new health
challenges,” says Howard Garrison, director
of FASEB’s Office of Public Affairs. This
period of decline comes on the heels of a
five-year doubling of the agency’s budget.
And, according to the FASEB analysis, if the
1998 to 2003 doubling had not taken place,
and if NIH had continued at its historic rate
of growth from 1998 through 2008, then the
agency’s budget would be several billion
dollars higher than it is today.