EDF Health

Selected tag(s): Confidential Business Information (CBI)

EPA starts to chip away at chemical secrecy; but don’t stop here!

By / Published: January 20, 2010

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

Tomorrow’s Federal Register will contain a short notice from EPA that partially corrects a decades-old Agency practice that has denied the public access to the identity of chemicals that present substantial risks.

This welcome action begins to pull back the curtain on the chemical secrecy that has been a hallmark of life for the public under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  As I noted in a previous post, this action is one of a host of changes needed to remedy the major excesses and abuses of confidentiality under TSCA.  EPA’s action makes clear that some things can be done even as we await TSCA reform.

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Posted in Health policy, Regulation / Also tagged | Comments are closed

How should the problem of “secret chemicals” be addressed?

By / Published: January 5, 2010

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

A front page article by Lyndsey Layton in yesterday’s Washington Post – spurred by an intriguing new report by the Environmental Working Group – did a great job of exposing the extent to which the identities of chemicals in widespread use are hidden from view, and of exploring some of the many adverse consequences.

Neither the article nor the report, however, had much to say about how this problem of excessive reliance on confidential business information (CBI) claims by industry might be solved, especially in the context of impending reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

In this post I’ll provide some concrete proposals for addressing this serious problem.

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Posted in Health policy, TSCA reform / Also tagged , | Read 3 Responses

Not a silly question: Is Halloween mischief worth risking toxic exposures?

By / Published: November 12, 2009

Cal Baier-Anderson, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist.

Growing up in the 1970s, Mischief Night was a big deal for me.  When I was in grade school, hoards of us kids took to our neighborhood just after dark to wreak innocent havoc.  More fun than Halloween, I recall soaping up car windows and decorating neighbors’ trees with toilet paper.  (What were our parents thinking?)

When a wonder toy called Silly String hit the stores, Mischief Night turned psychedelic with crazy vibrant colors issuing in long streams from an aerosol can!  And what was the harm?  Silly String simply dried up and blew away.  Who knew that we might actually be spewing a brew of toxic chemicals?  Read More »

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Over-Exposed: Why relying on exposure to prioritize chemicals is dangerous

By / Published: November 11, 2009

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

When the chemical industry talks about prioritization – a central question in the debate over TSCA reform – more often than not it quickly reduces the question down to the argument that we should focus only on those chemicals, however hazardous or untested they may be, to which we know people are exposed.  In a perfect world, that might suffice.  But, as this post will explore, the world of exposure assessment is anything but perfect.  Read More »

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The nanotube SNURs: Nano step forward, nano step back

By / Published: August 21, 2009

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

In June, EPA published a Federal Register notice that included Significant New Use Rules (SNURs) for two carbon nanotubes (as well as 21 other chemicals).  That notice certainly got the attention of lawyers in town (see here, here and here).  The nanotube SNURs would require anyone planning to produce or process either of the two substances to notify EPA if the person intended not to comply with the (rather limited) risk management conditions specified by EPA.  Well, as reported yesterday by Sara Goodman of E&E News, EPA is now withdrawing the SNURs, at least temporarily.

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Hiding a toxic nanomaterial’s identity: TSCA’s disappearing act

By / Published: July 14, 2009

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

In earlier posts (here and here), I discussed a notice EPA had received in July of 2008 from BASF reporting toxic effects at very low doses of a carbon nanotube (CNT) observed in a 90-day rat inhalation study.  In that notice, BASF had declared the specific identity of its CNT to be confidential business information, hence denying that information to the public.  Now, in a setting more to its liking, it appears the company has decided to reveal the identity after all. Read More »

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