Thanks for the variety...discussions like this help us sharpen our rhetorical skills!
Hmmmm..what would be your reaction to a family with children that regularly used the commercially available pesticides and sprayed inside their house to control the insects, but chose to NOT participate in the study? Would you have them arrested, or criticize them, for continuing to use the agents in the absence of compelling evidence that they are dangerous? And, if so, why would you wait for some government agency to propose this study before you raised the alarm?
Or, are you saying that it's okay for the families to continue to use the agents in question as long as no one tries to learn anything in the process?
If you thought the agents in question were dangerous and should be pulled from the market (again in the absence of proof positive), then isn't this is a separate issue from the EPAs study question? Issue one: the safety of chemicals in use now. Issue two: the wisdom and ethics and possible conflicts of interest from the EPA conducting prospective observational studies of families that use pesticides.
Sounds like the real problem here is the "marketing" of the study, doesn't it? Too vulnerable to distortion so as to look malevolent, perhaps. Too juicy a target for the political opposition to pass up?
And, isn't the cash and other products in return for SHARING information? It's not really a reward for using pesticides, since they were doing that for free before. Continued study participation - in the US - is not compulsory. People can withdraw at any time, for any reason, without consequence.
The baseline activity here - the control - is the use of aforementioned pesticides, which preceded the study, right (unless I read it wrong in my haste..it is hard to get a quick but accurate sense from the structure of this agenda-driving prose). The goal of the study is to prospectively assess the outcomes in families using the chemicals which have been, and continue to be, in heavy use in the U.S.
The traditional method used to assess the impact of such practices (chemical use, tobacco use, asbestos exposure, etc) is the retrospective study...that is, the investigators seek out families, ask about their past use of such agents, try to quantify that, and then assess that history of use in relation to other outcomes, such as the health of kids, etc. Problem is, such retrospective studies are notoriously flawed due to uncontrolled biases and various "cause and effect blind spots." Correlation is not causation, as we say. The only way to followup on real risks is to perform a prospective study, actively controlling the variables as you go to minimize the impact of these biases, to see if there really IS a cause-effect issue.
It's interesting. Astronomy is one of the pure true sciences, with little tangible day-to-day benefit to human events. Most astronomy buffs fancy themselves advocates of science. But your tone here seems as ideologically based (albeit looking in the other direction) as that of the Bush admin's policy makers. We get this alot on both sides in the U.S. It's bad (or good) just because the Republicans advocate it. It's bad (or good) just because the Democrats advocate it. As Hilary Clinton said, we should make decisions based on evidence, not ideology.
Granted, cash payouts and gifts are cheesy and smack of "pay-offs". We call those "material inducements" and in medical research there are strong rules (in the US, at least) in not offering incentives that make the relationship more coercion than encouragement. And this wouldn't be the first time someone was over-the-top stupid and unethical with inducement offers. What the heck is the cam-corder tossed in there for, what did some flunky get a deal on a box of the at WalMart?
What does pique my curiousity is why the chemical/pesticide industry is funding this. Usually they don't want to study something that is already marketable, because they have nothing to gain and much to lose. Unless (gasp) they are genuinely concerned that it might not be safe. And, frankly, I'm with you in that I doubt that is the case. A person has a conscience, but corporations (and governments) almost always have agendas; and policies are driven by the lowest (conscience) denominator....
By the way, more children die (a bit later, admitted) each year from consequences of poor health habits - conditioned in them by ignorant parents giving them Twinkies and letting them play video games, rather than healthy food and exercise. If teh FDA wanted to study these families and track the association of food habits and later health outcomes, would you decry the study? When heart attacks and diabetes are veritable epidemics in the US, diseases whose trajectories begin with lifestyle selection as children? The word "chemical" and "pesticide" are more emotive, they summon images of WWI trenches and Agent Orange victims....a great tool for the spin-doctor. But this is not scientific or really germaine to the discussion of the scientific value of the study.
Quod erat demonstratum!
(but please, bring it on, let's expose the flaws to this counter-point while we wait for new moon!)
Scott