Monthly Archives: October 2014

Will 2015 be the year of full product ingredient disclosure?

By Richard Denison / Published: October 28, 2014

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

Michelle Harvey, Jennifer McPartland and Boma Brown-West contributed to this post.

[UPDATE 10/28/14:  This post has been updated to reflect information we learned since posting it, regarding additional companies’ disclosure initiatives.]

We are nowhere near New Year’s Day, but based on recent corporate resolutions, 2015 is shaping up to be the year for ingredient transparency in products!  And that’s good news for those of us who want to know what we may be exposing ourselves and our families to when we use everyday products in our homes and on our bodies.

Unlike food and drugs, which must bear content labels, there has all too often been no way for consumers to know what’s in the products they use.  In particular, the composition of the myriad fragrances used in household cleaners, detergents and soaps, air fresheners, and other common household products have pretty much been a black box.  But change is on the way.   Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Markets and Retail / Tagged | Comments are closed

Building scientific bridges to support EPA’s new chemical testing programs

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: October 24, 2014

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist.

Readers of this blog are acutely aware of the dearth of data available for tens of thousands of chemicals in U.S. commerce today.  This state of ignorance reflects legal and resource constraints as well as the “challenge” of continuously integrating advancements in our scientific understanding of human health and disease into the way we assess chemical toxicity.

Fortunately, federal efforts to develop new chemical testing approaches, such as the high-throughput screening programs ToxCast and Tox21, offer a great opportunity to narrow the data gap while also helping to shine light on how environmental chemicals can impact our health.  But realizing the full potential of these new approaches will take a village.

Today in Environmental Health Perspectives we have published a commentary  that calls for greater and more diverse engagement of the basic research community in developing and using the new federal chemical testing data. We also provide recommendations that we believe would help facilitate and improve such engagement.  Read on to learn more.   Read More »

Posted in Emerging testing methods, Health policy, Health science / Tagged , , | Comments are closed

More than skin-deep: Have we underestimated the role of dermal exposures to BPA?

By Lindsay McCormick / Published: October 23, 2014

Lindsay McCormick is a Research Analyst.  Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. 

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine-disrupting chemical, and has been associated with health effects such as premature puberty and developmental neurotoxicity.  Massive quantities of BPA – about 10 billion pounds and rising – are produced each year, making it one of the highest volume chemicals in commerce.  For that reason alone, it may not be surprising that scientists find BPA in the urine of nearly all people they test. 

It has generally been thought that exposure to BPA primarily comes from dietary sources (see here and here) due to its use in food packaging products such as metal cans and polycarbonate bottles.  Based on these concerns and market pressure, FDA amended its regulations to no longer provide for the use of BPA-based materials in baby bottles, sippy cups, and infant formula packaging, and France passed a law banning BPA in all food packaging containers as a precautionary measure. 

However, there is growing evidence that non-dietary sources of BPA exposure may be important.  One potentially overlooked but significant source of exposure is the use of BPA to make thermal receipts, which are commonly used in cash registers and ATMs.  Unlike BPA used to make food packaging, which uses polymerized or otherwise chemically bound BPA molecules, thermal receipts are coated with BPA in free form, only loosely attached to the paper.

A study just published by researchers at the University of Missouri and the Universite de Toulouse suggests that we may be underestimating the role of dermal exposure to BPA from handling of thermal receipts, especially in certain common settings.  The researchers tested the impact that use of a hand sanitizer immediately preceding handling a thermal paper receipt has on the transfer and absorption of BPA.  Hand sanitizers and other skin care products may contain chemicals called “dermal penetration enhancers,” which increase skin permeability, for example, to facilitate drug delivery.  Read More »

Posted in Emerging science, General interest, Health policy, Health science, Regulation / Tagged , | Comments are closed

What’s the path forward on TSCA reform?

By Richard Denison / Published: October 15, 2014

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

Links to blog posts in this series:  Part 1     Part 2     Part 3

With two proposals to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) now, more or less, on the streets, and with some time to contemplate what course reform efforts might follow, it is important to consider what it will take to actually pass legislation into law.

Regardless of what happens in the elections this November, the only viable path forward I see is a strongly bipartisan one. The negotiations over the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA) during the past year and a half have broken through some longstanding impasses.  As I’ve noted earlier, EDF believes the Udall-Vitter proposal (which does not resolve the difficult issue of preemption) fixes the key flaws in current TSCA – and does so in ways that both Democrats and Republicans can support.

Chairman Boxer has publicly released her own substantive reform proposal, in the form of a redline of the Udall-Vitter proposal.  In doing so, she raises important issues that, in addition to preemption, need to be addressed.  Some of her proposals seem relatively easy to reconcile with Udall-Vitter, and some do not.  For the record, the latter include a number of provisions EDF has supported.

With respect to federal policy and EPA authority, both the Udall-Vitter and Boxer proposals would dramatically improve upon current law and would have a strong, positive impact on the health of the nation’s people and environment.

With two strong proposals on the table, I believe the conversation we need to be having now is how we get to a bill that can pass into law in a sharply divided Congress.  That’s because, to say it again, no matter what happens in November, this is going to need to be a bipartisan effort.  I remain confident we can address the failings of TSCA through provisions that can earn broad support.

Let me say up front that I believe any attempt to return to original CSIA as a result of a breakdown in negotiations would certainly be a step in the wrong direction and away from a bipartisan path forward.  Equally problematic would be a return to the Safe Chemicals Act, which failed to gain bipartisan support.

In the remainder of this post, I’ll take a look at the Boxer proposal.

Read More »

Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform / Tagged | Comments are closed

A hint of movement in the Super Slo-Mo that is nanoregulation at EPA under TSCA

By Richard Denison / Published: October 8, 2014

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

Nearly 4 years ago, EPA sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a pair of draft proposed rules that would require reporting of certain information by makers of nanomaterials.  The proposed rules under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) seemed by all measures to have fallen into a black nano-hole. 

But earlier this week, a smidgen of movement was discernible on the EPA regulatory tracker entry for this long-dormant activity.  What appears to have happened is that EPA has withdrawn the original proposed rules and resubmitted one of them to OMB.  Dropped, apparently, is the proposed significant new use rule (SNUR), which would have required companies proposing to commercialize a nanomaterial for a new use to first notify EPA so that it could conduct a safety review.  Retained is the other half of the original pair of proposed rules, an information reporting rule under the authority of section 8(a) of TSCA.  While details are not yet available, that proposal would require companies currently making nanomaterials to report basic information to EPA.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Nanotechnology / Tagged , , , , | Comments are closed

Newly listed carcinogens are all chemicals deeply embedded in US commerce

By Richard Denison / Published: October 3, 2014

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. 

[CORRECTION 10/4/14:  The company identified at the bottom of the table in this post as importing pentachlorophenol has been corrected to be KMG CHEMICALS; the original post had erroneously identified the company as ALBEMARLE.]

Yesterday the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released its 13th Report on Carcinogens.  This periodic, Congressionally mandated report lists substances classified after a rigorous scientific review as either “known” or “reasonably anticipated” to be human carcinogens.

The 13th report includes 4 new listings:

  • ortho-Toluidine, used to make rubber chemicals, pesticides, and dyes, was upgraded from its prior listing as “reasonably anticipated” to now be listed as a known human carcinogen, based on studies in humans showing it causes urinary bladder cancer.
  • Three chemicals are listed for the first time, each as reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens:
    • 1-bromopropane, used as a cleaning solvent and spray adhesive, inhalation of which has been shown in animal studies to produces tumors in the skin, lungs, and large intestine;
    • cumene, used to make phenol and acetone, inhalation of which has been shown in animal studies to produces tumors in the lungs and liver; and
    • pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative mixture, exposure to which increases risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in studies in humans and causes tumors in the liver and other organs in mice.

EDF used the latest available data on the production and import of industrial chemicals collected by EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to ascertain the extent to which these four chemicals are manufactured and used in the U.S.  These data demonstrate that the four substances are all present in U.S. commerce in very large amounts, considered by EPA to be high production volume (HPV) chemicals because their manufacture exceeds one million pounds annually.  In fact, all four chemicals are present in amounts far higher than that level, as shown below.  Read More »

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