Why Testing Pesticides on People is Wrong, Part Two: Devilish Details and the Greater Good

When Dow Agrosciences told University of Nebraska college kids that a potent neurotoxin would make them smarter and paid them $460 to eat it, they were clearly behaving badly.

But might it be okay, in some circumstances, to test pesticides on people? Commented reader John in response to our first post on Dow,

... the reason that the practice is controversial rather than "disreputable" is because some ethicists--not just corporate shills--think it should be acceptable. In the end, the only way to figure out the true risk of chemical exposures to humans is to expose volunteers after earlier lab work gives reason to think it is probably safe. It's not obvious to me that wasn't what Dow did here.

In this particular case, John's wrong -- at the time of the tests, earlier lab work gave reason to think that the pesticide, chlorpyrifos, used as a chemical weapon in World War II, was dangerous.

Because scientists -- at least, those not receiving a Dow paycheck -- weren't monsters, it hadn't been tested directly on people, but animal research suggested that was a bad idea. As an Environmental
Health Perspectives article noted, "There is substantial toxicologic evidence that repeated low-level exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides may affect neurodevelopment and growth in developing animals."

What, however, if animal studies hadn't shown this? The debate becomes quite a bit stickier, and John is right that some ethicists say human testing should be permissible in highly regulated circumstances.

For a well-articulated version of this argument, I recommend this article, again from Environmental Health Perspectives. The authors write:

We argue that a study that intentionally exposes humans subjects to pesticides should be permitted if a) the knowledge gained from the study is expected to promote human health; b) the knowledge cannot be reasonably obtained by other means; c) the study is not expected to cause serious or irreversible harm to the subjects; and d) appropriate safeguards are in place to minimize harm to the subjects.

Now, even if one accepts that position, it's clear that having a pesticide manufacturer fund the study is a violation of those appropriate safeguards.

But even then, I disagree. In an ideal world, it might be possible -- but this is not an ideal world, but one full of human flaws, and the potential for misconduct is just too great. More than that, the premise is unacceptable: it is flat-out wrong to conduct tests that could not possibly benefit the subjects, but could harm them, in the name of some greater good. That the subjects are being paid to do so makes no difference. Not everyone agrees with me, but that's how I feel.

Animal models aren't perfect barometers of safety. The traditional method of arriving at a safe human dose by determining a harmful animal dose, extrapolating it to people, and then dividing by a few factors of 10 is imperfect. But the alternative is potentially horrifying.
*
Image: Nuremberg Doctors Trial*