Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
I’ll bet that got your attention. Surely I jest, you’re thinking. Well, on December 2, Montana Public Radio’s Evening Edition included a segment in which a spokesperson for the new chemical industry front group, the Coalition for Chemical Safety about which I blogged a few weeks ago, publicly calls for an all-out ban on the controversial endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA). Here’s the clip (5 MB mp3 file). Read More
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
I’m excited to point you to a column, “Toxic Ignorance is Not Bliss,” just posted on our website. The column is written by Dominique Browning, formerly the longtime editor-in-chief of House & Garden, who is partnering with EDF via a monthly column.
The subtitle of the column is “Why I’m Outraged About BPA and Other Chemicals, and What We Can Do.” Here’s a sample to get you to read more:
We should be worried about what amounts to a huge, uncontrolled human testing experiment. Without agreeing to it, without understanding it, without even knowing it, we have become the chemical industry’s guinea pigs.
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
Over the last few months, I was heartened to hear a number of industry stakeholders in the debate over TSCA reform embrace the idea of designating in TSCA reform legislation a “jump-start” or “quick-start” list of chemicals of high concern or priority. The idea was to allow EPA to hit the ground running, by having an agreed-to list of chemicals on which it could immediately initiate action. Well, it now appears many in industry actually have something far slower and far more cumbersome in mind. Read More
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
It’s got pictures of kids and families. People of all colors. Gentle hands cradling our fragile planet. A hard hat resting on a pair of worn work gloves and a hammer. It says the coalition is “people like you.” It bears an uncanny resemblance to the website of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign, of which EDF is a founding member. But dig deeper and you’ll discover that the website of the “Coalition for Chemical Safety” is actually created and run by industry. Read More
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
As one who has closely followed the emergence of nanotechnology, I am sure I was not alone several years ago in welcoming what appeared to be a refreshingly new attitude among a broad range of stakeholders toward the introduction of this new set of technologies and materials. Calls from my organization to “get nanotech right the first time” were echoed widely. Perhaps the most frequently used metaphor, though, was that a “window of opportunity” had opened to do things differently this time. But I increasingly fear that the window is closing. Read More
Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.
The insurance industry is out in front on nanotechnology yet again. As the giant reinsurer Swiss Re did way back in May 2004 with its groundbreaking report Nanotechnology: Small matter, many unknowns, it is once again the insurance industry sounding an early alarm about nanomaterials. In this case, it’s the Continental Western Insurance Group (CWG), which has just announced that it will exclude coverage for “the, as of yet, unknown and unknowable risks created by the products and processes that involve nanotubes.” Read More
