Sludge Watch ==> Should Baltimore families be enticed into lead/sludge experiments with trinkets?

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

People who are following the AP story of families who were enticed by $10 in 
food coupons to allow the Kriger Institute and John Hopkins researchers  and 
Rufus Chaney, to dig up their lead contaminated yards down to bare earth, 
mix in sewage sludge compost (Orgro) and leave the bare soil seeded with 
grass seed... should read the court decisions below.

In the case below the courts take issue with using children to undertake 
these lead experiments.
It is astonishing that the sludge/lead researchers continued to expose 
children and poor black familieis to lead and sludge contamination despite 
these legal proceedings.

Listen to the interviews:
and listen to NPR radio for a 11 minute interview with both the AP reporter 
and the researchers who did the study:  
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89915590

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////




http://www.courts.state.md.us/opinions/coa/2001/128a00.pdf

Excerpt:

Otherwise healthy children,in our view, should not be enticed into living 
in, or
remaining in, potentially lead-tainted housing and intentionally subjected 
to a research
program, which contemplates the probability, or even the possibility, of 
lead poisoning or even
the accumulation of lower levels of lead in blood, in order for the extent 
of the contamination
of the children’s blood to be used by scientific researchers to assess the 
success of lead paint
or lead dust abatement measures.

Moreover, in our view, parents, whether improperly enticed
by trinkets, food stamps, money or other items, have no more right to 
intentionally and
unnecessarily place children in potentially hazardous nontherapeutic 
research surroundings,
than do researchers. In such cases, parental consent, no matter how 
informed, is insufficient.
While the validity of the consent agreement and its nature as a contract, 
the existence
or nonexistence of a special relationship, and whether the researchers 
performed their
functions under that agreement pursuant to any special relationships are 
important issues in
these cases that we will address, the very inappropriateness of the research 
itself cannot be
overlooked.

It is apparent that the protocols of research are even more important than 
the
method of obtaining parental consent and the extent to which the parents 
were, or were not,
informed. If the research methods, the protocols, are inappropriate then, 
especially when the
IRB is willing to help researchers avoid compliance with applicable safety 
requirements for
using children in nontherapeutic research, the consent of the parents, or of 
any consent
surrogates, in our view, cannot make the research appropriate or the actions 
of the researchers


The ultimate goal was to find the cost of the minimal level of effective 
lead paint or
lead dust abatement costs so as to help landlords assess, hopefully 
positively, the commercial
feasibility of attempting to abate lead dust in marginally profitable, lower 
rent-urban housing,
in order to help preserve such housing in the Baltimore housing market. One 
of the aims was
to evaluate low-cost methods of abatement so that some landlords would not 
abandon their
rental units.

For those landlords, complete abatement was not deemed economically 
feasible.
The project would be able to assess whether a particular level of partial 
abatement caused a
child’s blood lead content to be elevated beyond a level deemed hazardous 
to the health of
children.



''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080421/cm_thenation/917313590

Opinion
Of Sludge and Syphilis Mon Apr 21, 2:41 PM ET


>From the AP, a nausea-inducing report about how in 2005, federally funded 
researchers spread human and industrial waste in the yards of a poor, black 
Baltimore neighborhood--and decided against notifying residents of any 
possible health concerns. A similar study was conducted in East St. Louis in 
2001.

Instead, researchers piped another tune. One blithely written pamphlet 
distributed in East St. Louis read, "If people--particularly children--get 
some of the lead-contaminated dirt in their mouths, the lead will just pass 
through their bodies and not be absorbed." No medical care was made 
available, and no lead tests were performed on children or pregnant women 
after the study.

After all, as Rufus Chaney (one of the study's authors) says, the 
neighborhood's lawns were already full of lead and other harmful quantities: 
"There was danger before. There wasn't danger because of the biosolids 
compost," says Chaney. In other words: the families in Baltimore were 
already in a disempowered, dangerous position. Why accord them any other 
measure of dignity or concern? Researchers participating in the 1932-1972 
Tuskegee experiment--in which the federal government withheld treatment from 
poor and illiterate black sharecroppers infected with syphilis--could have 
made precisely that same case.

In exchange for their participation in the Baltimore study, residents 
received new lawns and food coupons. Members of Congress are demanding an 
investigation into the matter.

Update: A Kennedy Krieger Institute representative has contacted us to 
dispute the accuracy of the AP report cited. The materials used in the 
Baltimore study were Class A grade, and are sold commercially for 
residential use. We spoke with Thomas Burke, one of the experts cited in the 
original AP report, who confirmed their safety. According to Burke, his 
quote--and the EPA reports referenced in the article--were referring to the 
potential hazards of Class B sludge. No correction has yet been posted on 
the AP website