TUES - Feb 6 - Environmental issue...

Watch Law & Order:Special Victims Unit
----- Original Message -----
From: Women's Voices for the Earth
To: wvenational@...
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 2:32 PM
Subject: Controversial pesticide issue on primetime television


Dear Friends of WVE,


Our colleagues at Physicians for Social Responsibility- Los Angeles
and Pesticide Action Network informed us about this great show.
We're so pleased to see these important issues get taken on in prime
time! Hope you can tune in!

On Tuesday, February 6th, NBC will air "Loophole," an episode on the
crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit an exceptional episode
that focuses on the controversial EPA rule allowing intentional
dosing of people with pesticides. Martha Dina Arguello of Physicians
for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, and chair of the steering
committee of Californians for Pesticide Reform, and Margaret Reeves
(and other staff scientists from Pesticide Action Network - North
America) consulted with Law and Order: SVU executive producer Neal
Baer and writer Jonathan Greene. I encourage you to watch the
show, organize view parties. This episode is a great combination
of education and entertainment.

In the episode, a fictional chemical company tests several children
and their families with a dangerous organophosphate pesticide (a
class of acutely toxic chemicals). In real life, EPA's human testing
rule contains loopholes that allow chemical corporations to test
pesticides on women and children. A 2005 Congressional report
written by Senator Barbara Boxer's and Congress member Henry
Waxman's staff revealed human testing studies where pesticide
corporations told their subjects they were ingesting vitamins or
drugs. No study of the well-documented long-term effects of
pesticide exposures were conducted in follow-up of those test
subjects.

"Loophole" reminds the public of EPA's all too real life "CHEERS"
program, where the federal government proposed in 2004 to offer low-
income families in Florida $970, a camcorder, and some clothes if
they would record "routine exposure" of their infants to household
pesticides. The script is careful to point out the opposition of EPA
staff scientists to the human testing rule made by EPA political
appointees.

Dr. Margaret Reeves, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network -
North America was very pleased with the scientific accuracy of the
show "Even though they created a fictional pesticide for the
episode, it very much demonstrated the harmful health effects we see
with organophosphate pesticides." Reeves heads up a campaign to ban
organophosphates. PANNA has partnered with EarthJustice and the
Natural Resource Defense Council to sue EPA over the human testing
rule.

The Law and Order: SVU episode highlights many regulatory problems
concerning pesticides, and the difficulty of linking exposure with
specific health outcomes. The show further reveals the many
environmental health threats faced by low-income children in their
own homes. Law and Order: SVU is doing a great public service by
raising awareness about how low income communities are more
vulnerable to environmental injustice.

On February 6th please watch the show. We really encourage you to
organize viewing parties in your community. Tell your friends and
family to watch the show. Let NBC know how important it is to do
more socially responsible television.



Pesticide resources

http://www.psrla.org
http://www.panna.org/
http://www.calisafe.org/
http://www.pesticidereform.org/

--