EDF Health

More evidence that protecting Americans from toxic chemicals is not a partisan issue

By / Published: July 9, 2012

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

Another encouraging sign emerged today that efforts to ensure the chemicals we all encounter every day are safe need not fall into the partisan food fight that seems to consume so much of Washington, DC these days:  A bipartisan group of 26 Senators — more than a quarter of the U.S. Senate — has sent a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson in support of actions EPA is taking to limit Americans’ exposure to a class of very toxic chemicals widely used for decades as flame retardants in furniture, electronics and even childrens’ products.

The chemicals in question have gained even greater notoriety in recent months after an in-depth investigation published in the Chicago Tribune exposed a coordinated campaign of deception by the chemical and tobacco industries to hide the truth about these toxic chemicals.

The Senators’ letter urges EPA to pursue a variety of actions on these chemicals, including to finalize proposed notification and testing rules — now undergoing public comment — as quickly as possible.  But the Senators also call attention to the severe limits on EPA’s authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and they urge prompt action to reform TSCA:

“While we commend the EPA for taking steps to address PBDEs, it is concerning that the agency must undertake lengthy rulemaking processes merely to secure additional health and safety data on a chemical of concern and to receive notifications regarding expansions of its uses.  Further, EPA is not evaluating steps to actually restrict existing unsafe production and uses of these toxic flame retardants.  This reinforces why there is broad agreement that TSCA must be reformed to protect American families from dangerous chemicals in a cost-effective way and we urge you to continue to work with Congress to enact consensus reforms.”

The letter’s signatories are as follows:

Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Al Franken (D-MN), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jon Tester (D-MT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Tom Udall (D-NM), John Kerry (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), and Michael Bennet (D-CO).

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The beat goes on with 13 new additions to the Candidate List under REACH

By Allison Tracy / Published: June 18, 2012

Allison Tracy is a Chemicals Policy Fellow. Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

The number of chemicals identified as “substances of very high concern” (SVHCs) in the European Union continues to grow.  With today’s addition of 13 new chemicals, there are now 84 entries (representing 92 Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) registration numbers) on REACH’s Candidate List for Substances of Very High Concern for Authorisation.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) added the 13 chemicals based on each chemical’s classification as Carcinogenic, Mutagenic, or Toxic for Reproduction (CMR).  [UPDATE:  Of the new batch, two are among the 83 TSCA workplan chemicals recently identified by EPA as priorities for risk assessment, and five were reported as being in U.S. commerce in 2006.  With the new addition, a total of 48 of the 92 CAS numbers on the Candidate List were reported as in commerce in the U.S. in 2006.  Additionally, 20 of the 92 CAS numbers on the Candidate List are included among the TSCA workplan chemicals.] Read More »

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Joe Chemical — Ring a bell?

By / Published: June 13, 2012

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

I’ve blogged earlier about the chemical industry’s campaign of deception exposed by the Chicago Tribune last month in a jaw-dropping series titled “Playing with Fire.”  That in-depth series ran into the tens of thousands of words and included many extras such as video interviews.

EDF and the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition decided it should be boiled down to its essence.  That’s why we produced this ad, which is running full page today in Politico:

[click to enlarge]

For more on this, check out www.saferchemicals.org/JoeChemical.

 

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Exposure to toxic flame retardants is an environmental justice issue: New research finds differential exposure in children

By / Published: May 23, 2012

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

A peer-reviewed paper released today documents that nonwhite toddlers in North Carolina carry nearly twice as much of certain toxic flame retardant chemicals in their blood compared with white toddlers.  The finding adds to a growing body of evidence that exposures to toxic chemicals are higher in communities of lower socioeconomic status.

Numerous other studies have found higher levels of the flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, in children and adolescents relative to adults.  The current study – authored by Stapleton et al., and appearing in Environmental Health Perspectives – may be the first, however, to demonstrate differential exposure based on socioeconomic status. Read More »

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Labor and public health advocates to the chemical industry: Stop bullying federal scientists!

By / Published: May 21, 2012

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

After my long post this morning, I’ll keep this one brief:  The United Steelworkers, one of the nation’s top occupational physicians and EDF, represented by Earthjustice, have filed a motion to intervene in D.C. District Court, seeking to help defend the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ listing of styrene as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”  The motion is in response to a chemical industry lawsuit attempting to force the agency’s National Toxicology Program to withdraw the styrene warning, which was published in the 12th edition of the Congressionally mandated Report on Carcinogens.

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No shame: ACC plunges to new low in fighting your right to know

By / Published: May 21, 2012

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

This post is longer than usual and starts with a rather esoteric topic, but I urge you to read it through, as it vividly shows there is no limit to the lengths to which the American Chemistry Council (ACC) will go to squirm out of a regulatory requirement, even if it means violating rules by which ACC had agreed to abide.

But that’s far from the worst of it.  Going farther than even I could imagine when I blogged earlier about its tactics, ACC is sparing no effort to deny your right to know about the health impacts of chemicals, by mustering every argument it can invent – however far-fetched – to  keep health and safety studies from being shared with the public.

ACC insists that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should hassle the European Union (EU) instead of its members for the health and safety data ACC promised to provide – despite the fact that the chemical industry itself has thrown up major roadblocks to such sharing.  And reaching a new low in tortured logic, ACC argues that, should EPA succeed in getting its hands on the health and safety data submitted to the EU, EPA can and should deny the public access to those data – despite the fact that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) clearly prohibits EPA from withholding such information.  Read More »

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