EDF Health

West Virginia officials trust shaky science in rush to restore water service: One-part-per-million “safe” threshold has questionable basis

By / Published: January 13, 2014

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

[SEE NOTE ADDED 1/15/14 BELOW]

In a press conference today outlining plans to restart the water system serving 300,000 people, West Virginia state officials and executives from the West Virginia American Water utility company stressed that levels of the toxic chemical that contaminated the supply after last week’s spill had reached a “safe” level of one part per million (1 ppm), the threshold agreed upon by state and federal officials on Saturday.

Unfortunately, the science behind this standard remains unclear.  Based on what we do know, there are good reasons to believe that officials are overlooking significant health risks.  Read More »

Posted in Environment, Health policy, Regulation / Tagged , , , , | Read 36 Responses

Failed TSCA collides with the real world in West Virginia chemical spill this week

By / Published: January 11, 2014

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.  Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist.

[CORRECTION ADDED BELOW 1/12/14]

If the protracted debate over reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) sometimes seems esoteric or abstract, the epic failure of this law could not be better illustrated than by what’s unfolding in Charleston, WV this week.

There, a major spill into the Elk River of an obscure chemical used to wash coal has disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of residents of the state for what is likely to be days if not weeks or longer.  The storage tank from which the chemical has leaked lies upstream from the intake for one of the city’s drinking water treatment plants.  Even before the leak had been detected or reported, the chemical was sucked into the plant and distributed through thousands of miles of pipe to homes and businesses.  Residents have been told not to drink, bathe or otherwise come into contact with the water – although some exposure clearly did occur before the warnings were issued.  Massive amounts of water are being trucked into the area.  President Obama declared the situation a national emergency.

What is particularly maddening and outrageous is that no one – not local or state officials, not the company that owns the storage tank, not the federal government – can say anything even close to definitive about what risk the chemical poses to people, even in the short-term, let alone over time.  And that’s where the failures of TSCA come into sharp focus.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Regulation, TSCA reform / Tagged , , , | Read 10 Responses

Doublespeak is alive and well in the ACC-backed “SAB Reform Act”

By / Published: December 19, 2013

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

George Orwell would be proud. 

Yesterday a Senate copycat of a House bill called the “EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2013” was introduced.  The Senate bill has yet to be made publicly available, but that didn’t stop the American Chemistry Council (ACC) from sending out its own release strongly supporting the bill, literally within minutes of the issuance of a press release by the bill’s main sponsors.

Assuming (as stated in the release) that the Senate bill is the same as the House bill, H.R. 1422, no wonder ACC loves this bill: 

  • Tired of having your companies’ scientists and hired consultants excluded from SAB panels because of conflicts of interest?  Write a bill that eliminates such a pesky rule, and then say the bill “eliminates conflicts of interest.”
  • Frustrated by the time limit placed on comments from the army of industry commenters that typically show up at SAB panel meetings?  Bar the setting of any time limit so you can stack the deck, and then say the bill “promotes fairness” and “strengthens public participation.”
  • Unhappy with how many independent academic scientists are seated on SAB panels?  Require not only that panel members be willing to devote their time to review lengthy EPA documents, but that they respond in writing to every public comment received – a massive expansion in the workload placed on panel members, given the flood of industry comments typically provided – and then say the bill “promotes transparency.”
  • Upset with academic scientists on SAB panels that receive government grants not always supporting the industry position?  Claim that they are the ones who have conflicts of interest, single them out for disclosure of their grants and contracts – with no mention of industry consultants – and then say the bill “increases disclosures” related to potential conflicts.  (An earlier version of the bill would actually have set a 10% quota for government-funded scientists on SAB panels; happily that was removed after an outcry.)
  • Want to slow down the pace of EPA risk and hazard assessments?  Require that every single such assessment be sent to SAB for review, exponentially expanding the SAB’s workload and adding months or years to the process of finalizing assessments, and then say the bill merely “enables SAB reviews” of such documents.

Despite its grand claims, the EPA SAB Reform Act is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by ACC and its Hill allies to heavily stack the deck in its favor when it comes to independent scientific reviews of EPA work products.

When the House bill was introduced earlier this year, more than a dozen of the country’s premier public health scientists weighed in strongly opposing the bill, as did a group of prominent environmental NGOs.  See those letters for more details.

While the bill clearly parrots the talking points of the chemical industry when it comes to peer review of government chemical assessments, it should be noted that the bill would apply to any and all aspects of SAB’s work, not just that on chemicals.  So scientists in all fields of endeavor relating to protection of health and the environment ought to be concerned.

 

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Industry influence / Tagged , , | Comments are closed

Maybe not surprising, but still upsetting: New report highlights role of election-year politics in OIRA delays

By / Published: December 18, 2013

Rachel Shaffer is a research assistant.

Earlier this month, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) completed an investigation into the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ (OIRA) long delays in reviewing proposed and final rules and to offer recommendations for improving the efficiency and transparency of OIRA’s review process. The final report – which was featured in a front page story in the Washington Post – echoes and expands upon concerns we discussed in a previous blog post and a joint letter sent to Senator Blumenthal’s office earlier this year.

ACUS documents that the average time for OIRA reviews has significantly increased in recent years. From 1994-2011, the average review time was 50 days. However, in 2012, the average review time rose to 79 days. And in the first part of 2013, the average review time rose further to 140 days. 

The reason for these growing delays?  Read More »

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

It’s a generational thing: Evidence grows that environmentally induced epigenetic changes can be passed down from one generation to the next

By / Published: December 17, 2013

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

We’ve blogged here before about the growing evidence that environmental exposures can cause changes in gene expression – not to be confused with mutations, which are changes in the DNA itself.  We’ve noted that these changes in how and when our genes are turned on and off may actually be heritable, along with any biological or behavioral changes they induce.  That is, not only might the individual who is directly exposed suffer effects, but – and here’s the kicker – so might descendants who never experienced the original exposure.

Now, several new studies add even more evidence that epigenetic changes may be transgenerational.  In the past 10 days, the Washington Post has run articles detailing three new studies in mice, each of which strongly indicate that dietary deficiencies and environmental exposures can reprogram DNA in ways that can be passed along to reside in the DNA of the offspring of the affected individuals.  Read More »

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

Making regrettable substitution a thing of the past

By EDF Blogs / Published: October 17, 2013

Michelle Harvey is a Senior Project Manager in EDF’s Corporate Partnership Program.

Regrettable substitution. Informed substitution.

The first sounds like a problem – and it is. The second is the way you avoid the first.

In the world of consumer products made from mixtures of chemicals – baby lotion, shampoo, cleaners, laundry soap – chemists seek ingredients that are effective and feasible. What they too often don’t also consider are the hazardous properties of the chemical and its risk to people.  This is in part because most chemists are not trained in toxicology.  Further, many of the biological interactions between us and the ingredients in everyday products we use on our bodies and in our homes are only now being understood.  As our understanding has grown, groups such as EDF have called for the removal of some of the more concerning chemical ingredients from store shelves.

But it’s not as simple as just taking a hazardous chemical out of a product.  While in some instances a chemical of concern can be simply eliminated, in many cases these chemicals perform a key function in a product and a replacement chemical is necessary.  If the replacement isn’t carefully considered for its own potentially deleterious effects, you can end up exchanging a problem for a problem – resulting in a regrettable substitution. 

The good news is that the path forward for identifying and making informed choices about substitutes has become a lot clearer. 

Today, EDF together with BizNGO, the Toxic Use Reduction Institute and the Lowell Center for Sustainability released The Commons Principles for Alternatives Assessment with the support of over 100 representatives of business, universities and NGOs.  This broad consensus around simple, solutions-based principles, signals a growing commitment to moving hazardous chemicals out of the supply chain and driving informed, safer innovations. 

Alternatives assessment is a process for identifying, comparing, and selecting safer alternatives to chemicals of concern based on certain chemical features including hazard, performance, and economics.  The six “Common Principles” establish key elements of informed decision-making about the chemicals in a product.  Reduce hazard. Minimize exposure. Use best available information. Require disclosure and transparency. Resolve trade-offs. Take action.  They are “common principles” because they are shared by a broad, diverse group of individuals from academia, industry and the NGO community.

In September, Walmart became the first retailer to call for informed substitution as suppliers phase out of chemical ingredients of concern in products it sells. It is EDF’s hope that the Commons Principles will be used to meet this commitment, and inform the efforts of other retailers and product manufacturers.  Smart and informed decisions guided by the Commons Principles can make products safer and regrettable, hazardous substitutions a thing of the past.

 

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