Popular Science has published its annual list of "The Worst Jobs In Science." The NASA Ballerina I blogged on Saturday was nine out of ten. Here's number one:
1. Human Lab Rat
Warning: Pesticides are bad for youPharmaceutical companies have long relied on hard-up college students to act as guinea pigs. (Dudes, I was in a double-blind Viagra trial! And I got paid!) But did you know that the pesticide biz is hiring too?
Last year an industry-funded University of California at San Diego study paid students $15 an hour to have the root killer and World War I nerve agent chloropicrin shot into their eyes and noses. Chloropicrin is also a component of tear gas–that trusty suppressor of Big 10 sports riots–and at high doses can lead to nerve damage and death. Duuude. Because of its irritating qualities, small doses of the chemical are often added to other pesticides to act as a "warning agent," and it's the safety of those doses that the study looked at.
Coincidentally (or not), within a week of the UCSD study's completion, its industry funders submitted the results to the EPA to support chloropicrin's re-registration as an independent pesticide–not as a warning agent. Meanwhile, Congress is debating a moratorium on human testing.
