The Real “Secret Science”

(Image: Earthjustice)

It’s been almost 20 years since an epidemiological study of farmworkers in California began providing staggering evidence of detrimental health impacts for children exposed to organophosphate pesticides in utero. The project, still underway, has shown longitudinal links between pesticide exposure and respiratory complications, developmental disorders, and lower IQs among farmworker children.

Now, in an effort to restrict how human studies like this are used in EPA’s regulatory rule-making, the Trump administration has labeled them “secret science” and claims that epidemiology is less valid than laboratory testing on animals.

Sound familiar? This was the same tactic used by the tobacco industry to hide evidence of harm to public health.

The administration’s proposal, “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,” is another example of Orwellian new-speak. Do we need strengthened transparency in regulatory science? Yes. But not by divulging confidential personal data about study participants.

We need transparency around funding of Monsanto-backed research that obscures the clear links between cancer-causing pesticides like glyphosate and public health.

We need transparency in the lines of power that hold our regulatory process hostage at the expense of the health of children and pregnant women.

Epidemiology is valid peer-reviewed science that offers us evidence of the longitudinal and complex health impacts of pesticides in our environment. The real “secret science” is happening behind the doors of industry.