EDF Health

Selected tag(s): Biomonitoring

Exposing our ignorance: EPA study reveals barren exposure data landscape

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: March 16, 2012

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

This past November, EPA scientists published a sobering paper, “The exposure data landscape for manufactured chemicals,” in the journal Science of the Total Environment.  The paper reveals how little systematic information we have about human and environmental exposures to the thousands of chemicals in use today.

The aim of the study was “to define important aspects of the [chemical] exposure space and to catalog the available exposure information for chemicals being considered for analysis as part of the U.S. EPA ToxCast screening and prioritization program.”  Its conclusion:  “The results suggest that currently available exposure data are insufficient to provide the evidence base required to inform risk assessment and public health decision making.”  Not good, but not surprising.  Read on for more detail. Read More »

Posted in Emerging testing methods, Health policy, Regulation / Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Read 1 Response

Linking everyday chemicals to disease: New science keeps on intensifying the writing on the wall

By / Published: February 10, 2012

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

As a Washington policy geek, it’s sometimes hard not to let the ups and downs of political prospects for achieving real improvements in public health protections from toxic chemicals get me down.  The tenacity with which some stakeholders insist on throwing wrenches into the works to block efforts to reach middle ground is indeed depressing.

But through it all, there is one constant that continually restores my optimism that we’ll eventually get where we need to get to:  Science keeps moving forward and inexorably points toward the need for reform.  I will use this post to briefly highlight four recent studies that demonstrate the changing landscape of our knowledge of how environmental factors, including toxic chemical exposures, are affecting our health.  What’s noteworthy about these studies is that they all identified adverse health effects in human populations, and linked those effects to early-life exposures.  They all also illustrate the complex interplay between chemical exposures and social or other environmental factors that directly challenges the overly simplistic and non-scientific approach to causation that our chemicals policies have taken for decades.

Below are summaries of and links to these new studies:

  • Early-life exposure to PCE is associated with later-life risky behaviors.
  • Phthalate exposure is associated with excess weight in New York City children.
  • Exposure to perfluorinated chemicals may interfere with childhood vaccine effectiveness.
  • Epigenetic changes are associated with socio-economic status and biomarkers for cardiovascular disease.

Read More »

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ACC’s chemical prioritization tool: Helpful, but flawed and off the mark for EPA to use without TSCA reform

By / Published: September 20, 2011

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

As I noted in my last post, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) issued its own “prioritization tool” in anticipation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) public meetings  to get input on the approach it will use to identify additional chemicals of concern under its Enhanced Chemicals Management Program.

In the context of TSCA reform, various actors in the industry have long called for prioritization, often saying they support EPA’s ability to get off to a quick start on identifying chemicals for further work – only to propose schemes that are more likely to do the opposite.

ACC itself has over time come off as a bit schizophrenic on prioritization, apparently being for it before they were against it.  ACC’s release of its tool puts it squarely back in the pro-prioritization camp, but just what is it proposing?  My sense is it’s after something quite different from what EPA proposes, and frankly, different from what EPA is currently capable of deploying, given its limited authority and resources under TSCA.  In this sense, ACC’s proposal is more relevant in the context of TSCA reform, where we presumably would have an EPA with a mandate to review all chemicals in commerce, the authority to readily get the data it needs, and the resources required to execute the kind of comprehensive prioritization scheme ACC proposes.

But setting that disconnect aside for the moment, let’s delve a bit deeper into the ACC proposal on its own merits.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Regulation, TSCA reform / Also tagged , , , , , , | Read 1 Response

Avoiding paralysis by analysis: EPA proposes a sensible approach to identifying chemicals of concern

By / Published: September 13, 2011

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.  Thanks to my colleagues Jennifer McPartland and Allison Tracy for their analysis of the EPA proposal discussed in this post.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held stakeholder meetings to get public input into the criteria it will use to identify additional chemicals of concern beyond the 11 chemicals or chemical classes it has already identified.  EPA used these meetings (as well as an online forum open until September 14) as an opportunity for the public to respond to a “discussion guide” it issued in August that sets forth draft criteria and identifies data sources it intends to use to look for chemicals that meet the criteria.

The day before the EPA meetings, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) issued its own “prioritization tool” which lays out its own criteria and ranking system for identifying chemicals of concern.  This post will make a few observations about EPA’s proposal.  My next post will provide a critique of ACC’s proposed tool.

EDF and the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition strongly support EPA in this endeavor – both for what it is, and for what it is not.    Read More »

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Chemical safety evaluation: Potential benefits of emerging test methods

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: May 12, 2011

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

Parts in this series:      Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4

This is the third in a series of blog posts on new approaches that federal agencies are exploring to improve how chemicals are evaluated for safety.  Previous posts primarily focused on the scientific principles underlying these efforts.  This post will take a pause from scientific fundamentals to discuss some of the opportunities presented by these more novel methods, while subsequent posts will address some of their limitations and remaining challenges.  (Not to worry, though, I’ll soon get back to computer-simulated organs as promised.)  Read More »

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New study demands far more than a pregnant pause: Expectant women carry dozens of toxic chemicals in their bodies

By / Published: January 14, 2011

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

A long-awaited study documenting the presence of multiple toxic chemicals in the bodies of pregnant women was published today in Environmental Health Perspectives.  The study, conducted by researchers at Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed the most recent comprehensive biomonitoring data collected by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as part of its national human biomonitoring program.

The new study found widespread exposure of pregnant women to a large fraction of the chemicals for which biomonitoring is conducted, including chemicals that are currently in widespread use, such as brominated flame retardants (known as PBDEs) used in furniture foam and plastics, perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) used in everything from packaging to textiles, and a pervasive environmental contaminant used in rocket fuel (perchlorate).

In particular the study noted:  “Certain PCBs, organochlorine pesticides, PFCs, phenols, PBDEs, phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and perchlorate were detected in 99 to 100% of pregnant women.” (emphasis added)  Read More »

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