An article recently published in the journal Macromolecules reports on the development of a new process that the authors claim can prevent the migration of phthalates from PVC plastic.   This “breakthrough” will undoubtedly be used to argue that industry should be allowed to continue to use a retinue of toxic chemicals in the manufacture of PVC destined for use in a broad variety of applications. 

Concern for consumer exposures is often the main argument made against the use of toxic chemicals in consumer applications.  With evidence of exposure to chemicals like phthalates in nearly everyone who has been tested, including pregnant women, this is understandable. 

But even if the new claims are proven to be true, there are many other reasons we need to find safer substitutes for such chemicals: worker exposures, environmental releases and end-of-life recycling and disposal issues, to name a few.  The potential impacts from continued use of toxic chemicals must be examined across their entire lifecycle.

PVC lifecycle concerns extend beyond phthalates

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic is a prime example of a material that should be reserved for use in only critical applications that have no available substitutes.  PVC is made from vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen.  To protect workers, exposures must be tightly controlled, as in the past there have been documented worker exposures resulting in cancer.  Both accidental and incidental releases to the environment are an ongoing concern and there have instances of groundwater contamination at some production sites (for example, see here and here). 

When it comes to consumer products and medical uses, exposure to vinyl chloride itself has been less of a concern than exposure to the plasticizing agents used to soften the PVC, such as phthalates.  These have proven problematic due to migration out of the plastics and into humans.  And then there are the end-of-life recycling and disposal issues.  Unfortunately, PVC plastic is not readily recyclable and most plastic winds up in incinerators (which can generate ultra-toxic dioxins), in landfills (which must be monitored for leakage in perpetuity), or in water bodies (case in point is the vast floating island of plastic debris in the North Pacific). 

While we can and should take steps to reduce consumer exposures to chemicals of concern, such as phthalates, we need to do so by broadly evaluating the materials we use, including how they are made and how they are managed after use.  In short, we need to find ways to reduce both the use of toxic chemicals and their impacts throughout the entire lifecycle.  And while it may not be feasible to eliminate all uses of such chemicals, we can and should reserve them for critical applications that have no safer substitutes.

Interesting exchange this afternoon between Joe Householder, Executive Director of the Coalition for Chemical Safety, and myself in comments on my last blog post.  See Mr. Householder's comment here, and my reply here.

The chemical industry’s fake grassroots group formed to feign broad support for its version of reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – the Coalition for Chemical Safety, issued a press release today touting that it’s surpassed 150 members. 

I blogged earlier about how some of the small businesses it has enlisted apparently weren’t told about the Coalition backers’ actual positions on toxic chemicals.

Now a review of the 150 members that have allowed the Coalition to meet its latest “milestone” reveals it has supplemented unwitting small businesses with dozens of agriculture-related companies and associations – despite the fact that TSCA doesn’t regulate ag chemicals!

Who knew that growing astroturf requires pesticides??

At least 40 of the Coalition’s members are clearly in the farm, landscaping or seed business – begging the question of whether they’ve been attracted to sign up by the Coalition backers wrongly claiming TSCA reform might lead to bans on pesticides.

More generally, the Coalition’s release makes clear it’s more than willing to play the “chemical ban” card to scare up members.  One choice quote:  “The Virginia State Police Association (VSPA) joined the Virginia Coalition for Chemical Safety to help ensure that our troopers have access to the very best safety equipment available,” says VSPA’s Executive Director.

Of course, real TSCA reform is not about halting the use of chemicals – it’s about driving the replacement of dangerous chemicals with safe ones.  It’s about integrating the heretofore largely missing ingredient of health and environmental safety – alongside traditional considerations of performance, cost and consumer needs – into all decisions made about which chemicals and products our nation makes, uses and sells.  It’s about ensuring the market has robust information needed to inform those decisions, and government has the authority to distinguish between safe and unsafe chemicals.

If the Coalition is serious about TSCA reform, it ought to embrace all aspects of the platform of a real grassroots coalition calling for comprehensive reform – Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families – which doesn’t depend on misleading or scaring potential members to get them to sign up.

The “identify-that-quote” contest I posted yesterday attracted quite a few responses, some as comments on the post, others in emails to me.  Most people were on the right track in thinking that it was said decades ago, though one guess was of someone in the last decade.  (I have to agree it does read like something EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrom might have said.)

If this were a popularity contest, the hands-down winner would be Rachel Carson.  Some said it must have come from Silent Spring, others from her 1963 Congressional testimony.

U.S. Presidents scored well, with Ford, Johnson and Nixon each getting at least one vote, and a couple more people suggesting their speechwriters or people close to them.

Several others got even warmer by zeroing in on the early days of EPA.  Inaugural EPA Administrator Bill Ruckelshaus got a couple votes.

There were three correct votes, however.  One was from the very first responder, within minutes of my posting.  He first emailed me, “I know, I know!”  I encouraged him to post a comment, which he did:  “Sounds like former EPA Administrator Russel Train, circa 1976!” said Daryl Ditz of the Center for International Environmental Law (a certified TSCA-geek for sure).

Daryl’s correct response was followed a few hours later by a mystery commenter who identified himself only as “RB.”  RB said “EPA Administrator Russel Train – 1976 – The year the Toxic Substance Control Act was passed.”

And then just a few hours ago, a third correct response, from Roger McFadden of Staples:  “Prophetic words of EPA Administrator Train in 1976 and now it is 2010. It is time to take action and stop the ‘chemical roulette’.”

While the first two winners don’t appear to know how to spell Russell, I’ll overlook that and offer congratulations to them and our other winner.  Russell Train served as the second EPA Administrator, serving under both Nixon and Ford from 1973 to 1977. 

The first citation of this quote I could find is in an article from the New York Times News Service that ran in the Lexington, NC Dispatch on May 27, 1976, a few months before the signing of the Toxic Substances Control Act by President Ford on October 11, apparently quoting from a speech Train gave at the National Press Club. 

The Pittsburgh Press on December 8, 1976 ran an article further quoting Train, presumably a further excerpt from the same speech:

“We not only don’t know whether what’s going on out there is dangerous – we don’t even know what’s going on out there.”   

Though uttered before its passage, I know of no better statement of the dual failings of TSCA.

No prize offered, but here's a little contest.  Who can guess who said the following, in what context and when — without cheating by googling a phrase from it?  Answer provided tomorrow.

"Most Americans had no idea, until relatively recently, that they were living so dangerously.  They had no idea that when they went to work in the morning, or when they ate their breakfast — that when they did things they had to do to earn a living and keep themselves alive and well — that when they did things as ordinary, as innocent, and as essential as eat, drink, breathe, or touch, they could, in fact, be laying their lives on the line.  They had no idea that, without their knowledge or consent, they were engaging in a grim game of chemical roulette whose result they would not know until many years later."

[Spoiler alert:  Here's a link to the answer.]

After EPA announced yesterday that it will deny certain confidential business information (CBI) claims that have masked the identity of risky chemicals, two chemical industry trade associations responded favorably, saying they “welcome” the move as “the right thing to do.” 

Entirely missing from their responses, however, was any acknowledgment of the fact that the EPA policy shift would not have been necessary but for the huge number of illegitimate CBI claims made by none other than the member companies of those same trade associations.  In a classic case of industry-speak, the companies who have been effectively stealing information from the public about their chemicals try to obscure their nefarious role by now saying they welcome the new alarm system they have forced EPA to install.

As I noted in a post to this blog on Wednesday, EPA’s new policy states that EPA will in general now deny any CBI claim intended to hide the identity of a chemical for which a company is submitting information, as required by law, indicating the chemical poses a substantial risk, if that chemical is already identified on the public version of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory.  (My post also noted that further changes are needed if this problem is truly to be solved.)

So what does the chemical industry think of this move by EPA?

In an article in Chemical Week, Charles Drevna, the president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association is quoted as saying:

"We support EPA’s action because it is the right thing do with regard to addressing health and safety concerns.  We applaud the Obama Administration for taking this step that, frankly, previous administrations would have been wise to consider.  In the case of health and safety information, it makes little sense to protect the identity of a chemical that is already publicly available on the TSCA inventory."

And Chemical Watch (subscription required) quotes Mike Walls, the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) vice president regulatory and technical affairs, as saying:

“EPA’s announcement of a general policy on confidentiality claims associated with certain filings under TSCA is a welcome indication of the agency’s ability to apply its statutory authority to promote transparency. While ACC is still assessing the full impact of the policy on filings made under Section 8(e), in general the announced policy is consistent with ACC’s position that EPA and chemical companies should work together to enhance public access to chemical health and safety information.”

Rhetoric versus deeds

This new-found industry enthusiasm for transparency and working to enhance public access to chemical information is quite a reversal from its practice for decades of pressing every opportunity to claim information it submits to EPA as CBI, thereby denying public access to it.  Indeed, it has learned that by flooding the agency with such claims, it can overwhelm EPA’s only defense mechanism:  a time- and resource-intensive, case-by-case challenge process.

The results?  As reported by the Government Accountability Office (see pages 32-34):

• EPA receives extensive illegitimate CBI claims, which must be honored until and unless challenged by EPA.
• EPA is able to challenge only about 14 CBI claims out of thousands made each year, because it simply can’t afford to do more.

Lest you think all this is in the past, consider the very latest posting by EPA of the “substantial risk” notices it receives, those posted for the month of November 2009:

• 41 submissions covering 54 chemical substances were received.
• For 32 of the chemicals, the chemical’s identity was claimed CBI by the submitter.
• For at least 25 of these chemicals, the submitter is a member of the American Chemistry Council.
• For an additional four of these chemicals, the company’s identity as well as that of the chemical were claimed CBI by its mystery submitter.

It remains to be seen how the chemical industry’s rhetoric will stand up when the tougher needed changes are pursued, whether by EPA in efforts to use its existing TSCA authorities, or by Congress in seeking to rein in CBI abuses when amending TSCA.

That will be the real test of whether or not we’re dealing with a truly reformed offender.

The Safer Chemicals Healthy Families campaign, of which EDF is a founding member, is releasing an important report today:  "The Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act."  This report connects the growing number of dots linking chemical exposures to a number of serious chronic diseases that are rising in incidence.  These include certain types of cancer, including childhood cancers; learning and developmental disabilities; Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease; reproductive health and fertility problems in both women and men; and asthma.

The report provides a succinct review of the state of the science in each of these areas, and argues that the U.S. has an opportunity to help ameliorate both the rise in these chronic diseases and their associated health care costs — by enacting comprehensive reform of our nation's policies addressing the safety of chemicals.

Check out the report and news release.

Tomorrow's Federal Register will contain a short notice from EPA that partially corrects a decades-old Agency practice that has denied the public access to the identity of chemicals that present substantial risks.

This welcome action begins to pull back the curtain on the chemical secrecy that has been a hallmark of life for the public under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  As I noted in a previous post, this action is one of a host of changes needed to remedy the major excesses and abuses of confidentiality under TSCA.  EPA's action makes clear that some things can be done even as we await TSCA reform.

Here's what EPA's notice outlines as the new policy and practice, to take effect immediately:

If, in submitting a "notice of substantial risk" as required under Section 8(e) of TSCA, a company claims the identity of the chemical in question to be confidential business information (CBI), EPA will:

1. review the claim at the time of submission;
2. generally deny the claim if the chemical is on the public portion of the TSCA Inventory (i.e., was not claimed CBI in that context); and
3. inform the submitter of that decision in a manner that constitutes a final EPA action and hence is not challengeable except via judicial review.

What's changing?

All three of these steps represent significant departures from the status quo:

First, EPA will actually review such claims as they come in, to determine whether they are consistent with the new policy or not.  In the past, EPA has rarely reviewed such claims ever, let alone at the time of submission, with the result being that virtually all such claims were by default allowed to persist in perpetuity.

The Federal Register notice forthrightly acknowledges this past practice: 

"Previously, EPA's general practice had been to redact chemical identity from TSCA section 8(e) postings where the identity was claimed CBI even when the chemical identity was listed on the public portion of the TSCA Chemical Substances Inventory."

Second, EPA is putting prospective claimants on notice that, when reviewing such claims, "EPA expects to find that the chemical identity clearly is not entitled to confidential treatment."  This effectively reverses prior policy and practice, under which such claims were presumed to be legitimate even without actual review of them.

Third, EPA's decisions will be communicated to the claimant via a "determination letter" that represents a final Agency action. In the past, EPA has often had to engage in a prolonged song-and-dance exchange of letters with claimants as a prelude to making a final decision – chewing up precious Agency resources and hence drastically curbing the number of EPA challenges of CBI claims.

What's the basis for the change?

EPA's new policy is based on the common-sense notion that the identity of a chemical that is already known to the public – by virtue of it being listed on the public part of the TSCA Inventory – has already been disclosed, and hence cannot be claimed CBI in a different context.

EPA also notes that, by the way, this new policy is consistent with a core part of its mission:  "To promote public understanding of the potential risks posed by chemicals in commerce."

Why this is only a first step towards what's needed

EPA's action is a great first step, but it's only that.  Unless EPA goes further, its new policy will still deny the public access to the identity of many other chemicals posing substantial risk – but whose identities have been masked as CBI and hence don't appear on the public portion of the TSCA Inventory.

(Indeed, I suspect that most of the chemicals with identities claimed CBI in Section 8(e) notices are also claimed CBI on the TSCA Inventory.  EPA did not but should provide such statistics, so that the magnitude of the change it's making – and of the larger problem – can be better gauged.)

Here's why EPA must go further:

First, public interest must trump private interest.

While TSCA provides wide latitude for companies submitting information to EPA to claim it CBI, one bright spot – in theory – is that TSCA prohibits granting CBI status to data from health and safety studies (see section 14(b)).

Why would Congress, when drafting TSCA, have gone out of its way to carve out an exemption from CBI eligibility for data from health and safety studies – effectively establishing the public's right to know such information – only to render impotent that right by denying the public the right to know to which chemical the data apply?  That makes no sense.

In its regulations, EPA itself has defined the identity of a chemical to be an integral part of a health and safety study (see here and here).

EPA's regulations also acknowledge the primacy of public over private interest.  Part 2 of Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations lays out EPA's regulatory provisions governing "public information," including procedures to be followed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  Look at this interesting provision found in Section 2.202(d):

"If two or more of the sections containing special rules apply to the particular information in question, and the applicable sections prescribe conflicting special rules for the treatment of the information, the rule which provides greater or wider availability to the public of the information shall govern." (emphasis added)

But as is so often the case under TSCA, what TSCA giveth with one hand it taketh away with the other.

TSCA provides an exception to the exception for health and safety data:  In disclosing such data, EPA cannot make public data that discloses either:

• "processes used in the manufacturing or processing of a chemical substance or mixture" or
• in the case of a mixture, "the portion of the mixture comprised by any of the chemical substances in the mixture."

Based presumably on this provision of TSCA, EPA regulations provide certain conditions under which a company may assert a confidentiality claim for the identity of a chemical – even when associated with a health and safety study.  It should be noted, however, that these regulations only apply to new, not existing, chemicals.  Moreover, they state that EPA will deny such a claim unless the claimant demonstrates that "the specific chemical identity is not necessary to interpret a health and safety study." See 40 CFR §720.90(c)(3).

I ask you:  How on earth could it not be essential to know the identity of a chemical in order to understand health and safety information about that chemical?

Finally, the astute reader will notice that nothing in TSCA's exception to the rule that health and safety data must be made public speaks to chemical identity.  Only the divulgence of information describing how a chemical is made or processed, or revealing how much of a given chemical is in a mixture, is excepted.

I suspect that some talented chemical industry lawyers have racked up many billable hours devising arguments as to why EPA must interpret such a limited provision so broadly as to extend it all the way to including something never mentioned at all in the provision:  chemical identity.

I would argue that such an interpretation flies in the face of:

• the express words of TSCA,
• the clear intent of Congress to provide public access to health and safety information,
• the core principles of right-to-know and the primacy of public over private interest,
• sound public policy, and
• last but not least, plain old common sense.

So I welcome EPA's action as a good first step in correcting a particularly egregious example of chemical secrecy under TSCA.  It appears that EPA sees it as a first step toward addressing this problem as well:  Its Federal Register notice describes the new policy as "part of a broader effort to increase transparency and provide more valuable information to the public."  Other recent actions announced by EPA fit this mold.  For example, its disclosure of the identities of 530 chemicals on the TSCA Inventory previously exclude as CBI; and its proposal to require disclosure of the identities of inert ingredients in pesticide formulations.

I also look forward to the next installment in EPA's effort.

In recent days, two compelling cases have surfaced of so-called “regrettable substitutions” – industry responding to concerns about the use of one dangerous chemical by replacing it with another that is less well-studied, or at least not currently in the crosshairs.

Case 1:  Chinese manufacturers of children’s jewelry, responding to concerns and restrictions on the use of lead in such products produced for export to the U.S., have replaced it with cadmium, a known human carcinogen and developmental toxicant that, if anything is even more toxic to kids than lead – but is not subject to any restrictions in such kids’ products. 

Case 2:  American food product manufacturers, responding to concerns about the devastating effects on the lungs of workers exposed to diacetyl – an artificial butter flavoring used in many products, most notably microwave popcorn – have begun to replace it with closely related chemicals likely to break down into diacetyl or otherwise have similar effects.

Are we destined forever to play this dangerous variant on the game of whack-a-mole, or can something be done?

Investigative journalism to the rescue

An interesting side-note to both cases:  Journalists have played the major role in exposing these debacles. 

In case 1, it was not our government, but rather Justin Pritchard at the Associated Press, that brought the lead-to-cadmium bait-and-switch to light.  AP commissioned its own product testing, testing 103 items – charm bracelets, pendants and the like — bought in New York, Ohio, Texas and California in November or December 2009.  It found that 12 percent of the items contained at least 10 percent cadmium, with the highest containing 91 percent!

In case 2, while the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) has been hot on the trail of diacetyl and substitutes, it was Andrew Schneider, a longtime investigative reporter writing for the AOL news outlet Sphere, who has most recently publicized the quiet replacement of diacetyl with closely related chemicals.  [Note added 1/13:  I was remiss in not realizing and noting the extensive coverage of this issue going back many months that has been going on at The Pump Handle blog.]

Isn’t it obvious that such substitutions should be avoided?

One might think that the chemicals considered as substitutes for a known danger would get scrutinized a little more closely than usual, in order to avoid repeating unwanted history.  But a combination of incomplete or inadequate regulations, resource-strapped government agencies and entrenched political resistance to market intervention work to perpetuate a lethally flawed system of chemicals management in this country.

From a scientific standpoint, avoiding the use of any toxic metal in making kids’ products would seem to be a no-brainer.  The AP story points out that virtually nontoxic zinc is a suitable substitute metal for use in children’s jewelry.  But this case apparently was driven down the path of least resistance:  Cadmium has been used domestically in China for kids’ jewelry and related products for many years, which likely explains the rapid transition to using it for exports in the face of newly-enacted U.S. restrictions on lead.

The diacetyl case is equally hard to fathom from a purely logical – dare I say naïve? – standpoint.

Inhalation of diacetyl leads to a wholly debilitative lung condition whose name speaks for itself: obliterative bronchiolitis.  Previously known to affect workers exposed to certain types of fumes in heavy industry, its association with diacetyl in butter flavorings began to be recognized only in 2000, when the first cases of what is now known as “popcorn workers lung” were identified at a microwave popcorn plant in Missouri.

First thought to be confined to industrial workers (albeit in the food industry), cases of this disease traced to diacetyl exposure have now been found in service industry workers and even in an individual consumer who reportedly ate two bags of microwave popcorn a day and enjoyed inhaling their aroma (who doesn’t?). 

Andrew Schneider reports on the case of a Blockbuster Video employee who contracted the condition after microwaving many bags of popcorn on a nightly basis to fill the old-fashioned popcorn machine in the store.  She is the third known case among of non-factory workers.

In response to the horrible publicity surrounding diacetyl, a number of major food companies – General Mills and ConAgra (owner of Orville Redenbacher’s) among them – announced they would no longer use it.

So what have they moved to instead?  As noted by Andrew Schneider, some companies have shifted to “natural materials” known variously as starter distillates and diacetyl trimmers.  [Note added 1/13:  An astute reader has posted a comment noting that the reference in the original Sphere article to "diacetyl trimmer" is likely a typo, and should actually be "diacetyl trimer."  This chemical is essentially comprised of three linked diacetyl molecules.   Indeed, meeting notes posted on the website of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of the California Department of Industrial Relations cite John Hallagan, general counsel for the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association, indicating that a trimer of diacetyl is one substitute for diacetyl now being used.]

Schneider notes that these “substitutes” either contain diacetyl or release it upon contact with heat and moisture (gee, how likely is that to happen?).  He cites NIOSH physicians who describe these materials as not representing any real substitution at all.  He also cites a trade association representative saying this shift is occurring so that companies can label their newly-formulated products as “natural.”  [Note added 1/13:  Thanks to another very interesting post from last week on this subject of diacetyl substitutes by Celeste Monforton at The Pump Handle, I have learned that NIOSH and OSHA have both stated in writing their concern about the lack of safety data on substitutes and the concern that they break down into diacetyl.  NIOSH did so in a recent letter sent to new OSHA Administrator David Michaels.  OSHA did so in a January 2009 Federal Register notice, stating:  "Both diacetyl trimer and the sulfite adduct of diacetyl have a low vapor pressure in their basic form, and are thus less likely to evaporate and result in employee inhalation exposures during the production process. However, both are converted to diacetyl during consumer food preparation, so that the foods when consumed will contain diacetyl. For example, if placed on popcorn, both convert to diacetyl when the popcorn is popped."]

To describe another substitute, I need to provide a short chemistry lesson.  Diacetyl is a nickname for the chemical, 2,3-butanedione.  It looks like this:

Some companies who tout their move away from diacetyl have replaced it with flavorings containing this chemical:

This chemical is named 2,3-pentanedione.  As you can see, even if you’re not a chemist, the only difference is the addition of a single carbon atom, from a total of four (to which the “buta”prefix refers) to five (to which the “penta” prefix refers).

They should know better

You also don’t have to be a toxicologist to have the following thought pop into your head faster than you could make a bag of microwave popcorn:  If these chemicals look so similar, might not they affect people’s lungs in a similar manner?  And might not a company want to thoroughly test the second chemical before claiming it to be a safe replacement for diacetyl?

This past November, NIOSH did an inspection of a General Mills “bakery mix production facility” located in Los Angeles.  In the resulting inspection report, termed a Health Hazard Evaluation, NIOSH reported that the company had replaced most, but not all, diacetyl-containing flavorings with ones containing 2,3-pentanedione.  Detectable levels of this chemical were found in the air in the plant and could be measured especially where workers bagged the powdered bakery mixes.

NIOSH also reported that a number of plant workers exhibited respiratory symptoms while at work.  And lung function tests performed by NIOSH found “higher than expected” evidence and incidence of respiratory problems, compared to the U.S. adult population; for example, 18% of the workers had “restrictive patterns” indicative of possible lung disease.  None of the workers exhibited popcorn worker lung-like symptoms, however.

None of this proves 2,3-pentanedione is risky, of course.  But it certainly begs the question.

Noting in its report that “a ‘safe’ level of diacetyl has not been established, and even low levels of diacetyl are potentially hazardous,” NIOSH goes on to state:

The toxicology of diacetyl substitutes is only now being studied.  Because 2,3-pentanedione, 2,3-hexanedione, and 2,3-heptanedione all share the same functional alpha-diketone group as diacetyl, these compounds may also share diacetyl’s mechanism of toxicity.

In other words, the operative presumption should be that 2,3-pentanedione and related chemicals affect people the same way diacetyl does.

Indeed, NIOSH’s report recommends to General Mills that “Until more is known about 2,3-pentanedione and similar alpha-diketone compounds, do not assume these compounds are safe.” (emphasis added) 

Yet these chemicals continue to be used as substitutes for diacetyl.

What can be done to avoid “regrettable substitutions”?

The two examples above may strike you as no-brainers, but there are many more cases that are not so obvious or where there aren’t such clear red flags.

I can sympathize with companies caught unawares when a chemical they use crashes onto the radar screen.  Nor is it hard for me to imagine they might leap at the first available alternative that is identified, based on nothing more than the fact that it is not, at least technically, the chemical of concern.

But these impulses can be downright dangerous in the context of our current policy and regulatory climate that has allowed most chemicals in or entering commerce to escape adequate testing or safety assessment.  That failing makes it all the more likely that a chemical chosen as a substitute for a known bad actor is either no better or untested and unstudied.

As readers of this blog know, the poster child for this failed policy is the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  TSCA “grandfathered in” the more than 60,000 chemicals on the market at the time, without requiring any testing or demonstration of their safety.  Measured by tonnage, the vast majority of chemicals on the market today – 34 years later – is comprised of those same chemicals.

What changes to TSCA could lessen the likelihood of further regrettable substitutions?

Here are a few suggestions, each of which is a featured plank in the platform of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign with which EDF is closely working.

1.      Adopt a comprehensive approach to testing and assessing the safety of chemicals in commerce:

First, we simply must bite the bullet and start the process of digging ourselves out of the hole created by TSCA.  While it will require considerable time and expense, TSCA reform must include a requirement that all chemicals be shown to be safe as a condition to enter or remain on the market, based on robust information developed on the uses, hazards of and exposures to those chemicals.

Some, especially in the chemical industry, would have us skip this altogether.  As I noted in previous posts (here and here), they suggest we simply identify the usual top suspects, maybe require further testing and study of them, and then maybe even regulate a handful of those – and be done with it.  Their estimates of how many chemicals might “rise to the top” range from “50-100” (subscription required) to “5%” of chemicals in use today.

As I've argued before, there's an inherent contradiction here.  The chemical industry is among the first to cry "regrettable substitution" when insufficient attention is given to what will replace a chemical targeted by state or federal authorities for restrictions.  But how are we ever to compare alternatives and select safer ones with confidence unless we have good information about them?

2.      Maximize public and market availability of chemical information:

Companies and institutions that use chemicals to make products, or that sell, buy or use those products, as well as individual consumers, make decisions involving chemical choices every day.  Those choices are often ill-informed today, based on assumption instead of data, or incomplete or biased information.

Companies need to know what chemicals are in the products they’re making, buying, selling or using, what is known about those chemicals’ hazards, and what the potential alternatives to such chemicals are.  They also need to know when government has identified a chemical to be of concern and is considering initiating regulatory action.

Only by requiring the development and broad sharing of sound and complete information about chemicals can we hope to address what amounts to a major market failure perpetuated by our current chemicals policies.

3.      Drive companies as well as government to prioritize efforts to develop, identify and assess the safety of alternatives to chemicals of concern:

Government needs to have the authority to direct both its own resources and attention and those of companies toward developing and identifying safer alternatives to chemicals of concern.  Doing so will require that both carrots and sticks are embodied in the range of tools available to government.  For example, government needs:

• ample authority to clearly identify and restrict the use of dangerous chemicals;
• the ability to require companies to seek out safer alternatives, as one of the available regulatory actions it can take;
• resources to investigate and identify safer alternatives, and to develop and provide to companies the tools and data they need to do the same; and
• programs to incentivize and reward those companies that do develop and implement safer alternatives.

Adopting these kinds of changes just might yield a future chemicals management system about which we can truly say, “No regrets!”

When it comes to chemical exposures, workers are on the front line.  Workers are usually the most likely to be exposed to harmful levels of chemicals, because they are the ones producing, processing, handling, sampling and measuring, transferring and transporting chemicals in larger and more concentrated quantities. 

Throughout history, workers have been the canaries in the coal mines; the first to exhibit the health effects of hazardous chemical exposures, from scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps, to mesothelioma in shipyard and construction workers to liver cancer in vinyl chloride workers. 

For these reasons, EDF has argued that workers handling or otherwise likely to be exposed to nanomaterials must be protected from harm (see our earlier posts here, here and here).  Now, a new government study published in the respected journal Environmental Health Perspectives reveals that certain comfortable assumptions about nanomaterial laboratory safety may be downright wrong.

Increasing evidence indicates that carbon-based nanoparticles, such as carbon nanotubes and fullerenes, are a worker health concern because inhalation exposures in laboratory animals have been associated with lung damage (see these earlier posts). 

Because of its small size, nanoscale carbon is difficult to contain in the workplace.  During production, processing, sampling and measuring and transfer of nanomaterials, individual or aggregated nanoparticles can be dispersed into the air, where they could be inhaled by workers or escape into the environment. 

The usual response is to say that laboratories should take certain steps to minimize both the release and exposure of nanoparticles, including avoiding handling materials in dry form and routinely requiring the use of personal protective equipment and specialized fume hoods.

Unfortunately, studies that document the effectiveness of these various control technologies are still largely lacking.  Therefore, invoking such laboratory safety practices requires a leap of faith.

The new government study challenges one common assumption behind such prescriptions:  that carbon nanoparticles suspended in liquid are less likely to become airborne.  As carbon nanoparticles are not generally water-soluble, continuous stirring or sonication is required to prevent clumping.  Alternatively, chemical dispersants can be added to the water.  One study found that the organic acids naturally present in river water are an excellent dispersant, by reducing the tendency for carbon nanoparticles to clump.  (An earlier post on our blog explored the implications of this study’s findings for the fate of nanoparticles released to the environment.)

The new study tested the extent to which dispersion to the air could occur from various liquid suspensions of nanoparticles, and also studied air dispersion during common activities involving dry forms of the materials, like weighing and transferring of carbon nanoparticles.

Some of the results are not surprising: weighing and transferring both carbon fullerenes and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in dry form released significant concentrations of nanoparticles into the air.  Larger particles were also measured, but at lower concentrations. 

The more surprising news was that sonication of fullerenes in distilled water, or MWCNTs in water containing natural organic acids, also led to significant airborne dispersion, with airborne concentrations not much lower than the activities involving handling if the materials in dry form! 

Even more interesting:  MWCNTs that have been modified to make them more water-soluble yield, in comparison to unmodified MWCNTs, far fewer airborne particles during weighing and transferring — but higher airborne concentrations during sonication!

Bottom line:  The assumption that suspending carbon nanoparticles in water reduces the concentration of airborne particles, thereby reducing the chances of worker exposure, is at best overly simplistic. 

One of the challenges of developing science-based policies is that we are always dealing with incomplete information.  To move forward in the face of uncertainty requires that we make assumptions.  Assumptions may be based on a combination of scientific information derived from a related issue, along with perceived common sense and conventional wisdom. 

They also may be wrong.  It is important that assumptions be tested as quickly and objectively as possible if we are to make sure that worker and public health are being adequately protected.  (In an earlier blog post, my colleague Richard Denison challenges other points of conventional wisdom on nanoparticle aggregation.)

As noted in the new government study, “Conventional wisdom suggests that nanomaterials in liquid suspension generally pose lower inhalation risk to workers.  However, CNMs [carbon nanomaterials] and other nanomaterials often agglomerate in aqueous suspension, requiring continuous mixing or sonication to deagglomerate nanomaterials.  It is possible that this common laboratory process results in the release and dispersion of nanomaterials into the air via small water droplets.”

Kudos to these government scientists who tested this assumption and published the results.  Now, let’s hope that laboratories that manufacture and handle nanoparticles take more aggressive action to ensure that nanoparticle releases are prevented and workers are fully protected.