SludgeFeast

Fans of the corporate pranksters known as The Yes Men will recall their straight-faced proposal to students at SUNY-Plattsburgh that McDonald’s recycle human shit and feed it to consumers in the developing world.

Today, via aimai, we read of this:

Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any potential risks.

Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

. . . There is no evidence there was any medical follow-up.

Comparable research was conducted by the Agriculture Department and Environmental Protection Agency in a similarly poor, black neighborhood in East St. Louis, Ill. Residents there also were not told of the potential risks.

Of course, no one seems to know what the potential risks might actually be, since — surprisingly or unsurprisingly, depending on your point of view — there are few data on the health effects of sludge exposure and consumption in children.

Perhaps the data gap could be filled it HUD would simply pay someone to mix the sludge with the kids’ oatmeal.