Sludge. Just the sound of the word disgusts and makes you want to hold your nose. But is it toxic?
The Environmental Protection Agency says no. We eat a lot of food produced in fields spread with the treated remains of the stuff we flush down the toilet. You can buy it to spread on your garden.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins thought it could also help to abate lead contamination in the soil and lead poisoning in children caused by chipping paint in certain areas of Baltimore. Those areas are poor and black. Nine families agreed to allow scientists from Hopkins and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to spread treated sewage in their yards and to monitor the consequences.
Gerald Stansbury of the state NAACP last week compared this study to the Tuskegee experiments (1932-72), whose illiterate black subjects were never told by the federal government they were being observed because they had syphilis. On the face of it, that charge rankles. No one could argue the government was trying to help the people in the Tuskegee experiments. In fact, researchers showed total disregard for the well-being of those in their care.
The Hopkins researchers, on the other hand, had the best interests of the families as their starting motivation, explained their work and sought the permission of their subjects first before proceeding. And they were proposing using a widely used substance to prevent the potentially devastating effect of lead poisoning, a scourgein inner-city Baltimore.
On the face of it, the invidious comparison makes no sense and is inherently unjust. It also brands the nine families as victims without evidence they were coerced or have experienced medical problems since the sludge was spread.
Before Stansbury called for a state and federal criminal investigation, wouldn?t it have been worth talking with the families? And maybe reviewing the research on the widely accepted practice of using it as fertilizer? Same goes with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who asked for a federal investigation of the matter.
Clearly, researchers should have taken every precaution to prove the sludge was safe ? including testing it before spreading to ensure nothing contained in it exceeded federal safety guidelines. The onus is on them to prove that. But making a blanket accusation of racism without first weighing the evidence assaults the character and intelligence of each of those connected to the study, science and civil discourse. We look forward to a full airing of the evidence in this case.
