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Jennifer Ortega, Research Analyst, Environmental Health
Environmental racism is everywhere. At the neighborhood level, communities of color often experience worse air quality, fewer green spaces, or face more extreme temperatures. At the household level, families of color and low-income families experience a higher risk of lead in their drinking water and higher utility debt and energy insecurity. Inequities are even manifested in the items we use every day, with personal care products marketed to women of color often containing more toxic ingredients than those marketed to white women.
These toxic exposures are not driven by individual choices, but rather by where one lives, where one works, and by cultural beauty standards and norms. A new personal care product story map (also available in Spanish) consolidates federal labor and census data, as well as information from public health studies to show how the intersection of different factors manifests in racial disparities in the exposure to toxic ingredients in personal care products. The map is part of an interactive web series, led by Tamarra James-Todd, Ph.D., and her team at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (more…)
Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals and Maricel Maffini, consultant
A powerful investigative article by Politico’s Helena Bottemiller Evich revealed significant structural and leadership problems at the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) food program. The article articulated what has been implicitly understood by the food safety community. It led to demands from Congress for Commissioner Robert Califf to take aggressive action and even prompted calls for a new agency focused solely on food safety.
“Over the years, the food side of FDA has been so ignored and grown so dysfunctional that even former FDA commissioners readily acknowledged problems. There’s a long running joke among officials: The “F” in FDA is silent.”
—Helena Bottemiller Evich, Politico article
In response, FDA leadership has pointed to Congress for failing to adequately fund the program and touted examples of where the agency has taken action on food safety.
Yesterday, 30 groups representing food industry leaders, and consumer groups, including EDF, joined in a call for Califf to unify the FDA’s food program under a deputy commissioner for foods with direct line authority over all food-related programs.
We have been advocating for FDA to improve the safety of chemicals added to our food for more than a decade, often working with FDA officials to push for regulatory reforms. From that narrow but deep perspective on food safety, everything we have seen reinforces the shortcomings highlighted in the Politico article. (more…)
Joanna Slaney, Sr. Director, Federal Affairs; and Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative
For the first time in recent memory Congress approved funds for FDA specifically to address food safety from potentially dangerous chemicals that may present health hazards. Now it’s time for the agency to get to work.
Congress appropriated $7 million for “Emerging Chemical and Toxicology Issues” and $11 million for “Maternal and Infant Health and Nutrition” for the current fiscal year. While these numbers are below the agency requests of $19.7 million and $18 million respectively, the funds can help FDA meet its stated goals to bring on new staff and to:
Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative; and Jennifer Ortega, Research Analyst
Providence Water, Rhode Island’s largest water utility, has applied for state funds to rehabilitate drinking water mains in its service area. Lead service lines (LSLs) are often attached to the mains and carry drinking water to customer’s homes. The utility has requested a “categorical exclusion” from the basic environmental assessment requirement for projects seeking money from the State Revolving Loan Fund (SRF). We believe the exclusion is not appropriate and have sent a letter to the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) asking it to deny Providence Water’s request.
As part of its work, Providence Water apparently plans to replace LSLs on public property and give customers the option to accept a 10-year interest free loan to replace the LSLs that run under their private property. However, this practice forces customers to choose between paying for a full LSL replacement or risking greater lead exposure from the disturbance caused by a partial LSL replacement. It is also the basis of a civil rights complaint that Childhood Lead Action Project (CLAP), South Providence Neighborhood Association, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, National Center for Healthy Housing, and EDF filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January.
EPA, which allocates grants to SRF programs has begun to investigate the civil rights issues raised by the complaint, which demonstrated that Providence Water’s practices disproportionately and adversely affect the health of low-income, Black, Latinx, and Native American residents by increasing their risk of exposure to lead in drinking water.
Under federal and state National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, SRF projects are not eligible for a categorical exclusion where an “extraordinary circumstance” is present. The discriminatory effects of Providence Water’s LSL replacement practices represent such a circumstance, and the utility should not be eligible for a categorical exclusion unless it changes its LSL replacement practices. (more…)
Maria Doa, Ph.D., Senior Director, Chemicals Policy
The EPA will release a draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde, a key scientific review that identifies and characterizes the hazards from chronic exposure to this known carcinogen. The draft assessment, due to be published tomorrow, will be reviewed by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (National Academies).
We welcome the EPA’s decision to issue its formaldehyde assessment. Release of the assessment is a win for scientific integrity that follows years of pressure from industry groups and efforts during the previous administration to suppress the assessment.
The EPA’s IRIS program is the gold standard for identifying and characterizing the hazards that result from exposure to chemicals. Its findings are essential to informing health-based standards that protect frontline communities, workers, children, consumers and more. (more…)
Maricel Maffini, consultant and Tom Neltner, Chemicals Policy Director
This blog is the fourth in our Broken GRAS series where we explore the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) voluntary notification system for novel chemicals added to food, how the process works in practice, and why it is broken. Companies voluntarily submit these notices seeking a “no questions” letter from FDA that makes it easier to market the chemical to food companies.
In our latest blog we address a chemical called “COZ corn oil” developed by the Iowa-based company, Corn Oil ONE. We obtained documents from FDA revealing that the agency twice raised significant concerns about the safety of COZ corn oil with the company, which withdrew its notification without addressing the agency’s questions. As with the other examples in the series, FDA did not make its concerns public or take steps to block the chemical’s use in food. (more…)
