Sarah Vogel, Ph.D., is Managing Director of EDF’s Health Program.
Information, and importantly, access to reliable and objective information, is the cornerstone of a democratic society. That is why recent efforts by the chemical industry and its allies to block Congressionally-mandated, scientific information on carcinogenic hazards by defunding the Report on Carcinogens (ROC) have many researchers and public health officials alarmed.
Today, in a letter sent to House and Senate appropriations committee leaders, 75 occupational and environmental health scientists and professionals from around the country called on Congress to maintain funding for the ROC. Their letter is in response to a legislative proposal that, if passed into law, would withhold funding for any work on the ROC until the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) completes its review of the listings of formaldehyde and styrene in the 12th ROC—a process the NAS has only just begun. If such a proposal were successful, it would effectively delay public access to critical information on chemical carcinogens for years. Read More