okay maybe some kids--those who live in areas where rodent vermin (like rats and mice) aren't a problem--aren't getting a fair shake when it comes to good-tasting rat poison pellets...but ya can't fault the bush administration's epa for effort. 

as many as 50,000 kids, ages 6 and under, have ingested rat poison (pellets are the most commonly used form) this year alone.  the consequences range from internal bleeding, anemia to coma with long-ranging complications.  that's a threefold increase since 2001 when the bush administration's epa officials reversed a 1998 policy of withholding agency approval of rodenticide products unless they were compounded with an additive that made them taste bitter and a dye that made it clearly apparent to parents their kids had been eating the stuff.

those requirements were dropped in 2001 when the epa "came to a mutual  agreement with the industry to rescind" them. maybe im being unfair to the rodent pellet producers but i'm guessing their motivation was money. 

last week the national resources defense council and an environmental group based in harlem filed suit in federal court to force the epa to do its job.  hopefully one of those bogeyman activist judges the bush administration keeps harping about will find in their favor (unless, of course, it's a pro-life activist judge unwilling to rat out the administration in hopes of a shot at a supreme court seat where he or she can help to ensure more kids are carried to term AND then poisoned).

after all, someone has to help consume the millions of pounds of rat poison produced annually and as the bush administration's regulatory agencies--most notably the epa, fda, fcc, etc--have spent the past 4 years demonstrating,  america's most mendacious rats are already doing all they can for the cause.