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David B. Resnik¹ and Christopher Portier²

¹Office of the Scientific Director, and ²National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA

Abstract
In the debate surrounding testing pesticides on human subjects, two distinct positions have emerged. The first position holds that pesticide experiments on human subjects should be allowed, but only under stringent scientific and ethical standards. The second position asserts that these experiments should never be allowed. In this article, we evaluate what we consider to be the strongest argument for the second position--namely, that the benefits of the experiments are not significant enough to justify the risks posed to healthy subjects. We challenge this argument by examining the benefits and risks of testing pesticides on human subjects. 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. Key words: Environmental Protection Agency, ethics, Food Quality Protection Act, human subjects research, pesticide testing. Environ Health Perspect 113:813-817 (2005) . doi: 10.1289/ehp.7720 available via
http://dx.doi.org/ doi:10.1289/ehp.7720 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 16 March 2005]

Address correspondence to D.B. Resnik, NIEHS/NIH, P.O. Box 12233, Mail Drop NH-06, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA. Telephone: (919) 541-5658. Fax: (919) 541-3659. E-mail: resnikd@niehs.nih.gov

Supplemental material is available online (http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7720/suppl.pdf)

We thank P. Blackshear, W. Schrader, W. Stokes, and E. Zeiger for helpful comments and discussions.

The ideas and opinions in this article are the authors’ personal views and do not represent the views of the NIEHS, the NIH, or the U.S. government.

The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Received 3 November 2004 ; accepted 16 March 2005.

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