EDF Health

Selected tag(s): Methylene chloride

Why are four notorious carcinogens approved by FDA for food?

By EDF Blogs / Published: February 1, 2024

By Liora Fiksel, Project Manager, Healthy Communities, and Lisa Lefferts, Environmental Health Consultant

Pregnant woman rests a cup of coffee on her belly.

While exposure data are scant, people who are choosing decaf coffee during pregnancy or for other health reasons may not realize that some popular brands contain methylene chloride.

What’s Happening?

On December 21, 2023, FDA filed a food-additive petition and a color-additive petition submitted by EDF and partners that asks FDA to revoke its approval for four carcinogenic chemicals approved for use in food.

There is broad agreement that benzene, trichloroethylene (TCE), methylene chloride, and ethylene dichloride are carcinogenic,1 and federal law2 is clear: additives that cause cancer in humans or animals are not considered “safe.” All the chemicals have been identified as causing cancer in humans or animals since the 1970s and 1980s.3 Read More »

Posted in Adverse health effects, Carcinogenic, Chemical exposure, Chemical regulation, FDA, Food, Health hazards, Public health, Vulnerable populations / Also tagged , , , , , | Authors: / Read 9 Responses

EDF statement: Trump EPA’s withdrawal of proposed bans on dangerous uses of three chemicals is shameful

By / Published: January 14, 2021

Decision epitomizes administration’s disdain for public health protection

(Washington, DC – January 14, 2021) Tomorrow, the Trump EPA will announce the formal withdrawal of proposed bans on high-risk uses of the dangerous chemicals methylene chloride, trichloroethylene, and N-methylpyrrolidone. By taking this action, the Trump EPA seeks to prevent the new administration from finalizing any of these bans without starting the process over.

“It appears that blocking these bans and denying crucial protections to workers and consumers for four years was not enough for the Trump EPA. This shameful move that epitomizes the Trump EPA’s concerted attacks on public health is a transparent attempt to further constrain the incoming administration. It is yet another stain on Mr. Wheeler’s dismal record,” said Dr. Richard Denison, Lead Senior Scientist, EDF Health. “We are counting down the days until the EPA’s decisions, once again, reflect its mission to protect health and the environment.”

Background:

Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Industry influence, Regulation, TSCA reform / Also tagged , , | Comments are closed

“Illegal, unscientific, and un-health protective”: Summing up EPA’s final methylene chloride risk evaluation

By / Published: June 19, 2020

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

Today, the Trump EPA released its first final risk evaluation and determination under the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), for the carcinogenic and acutely lethal chemical methylene chloride.

Sadly, despite EPA’s rush to issue this document as the 4th anniversary of TSCA reform on June 22 approaches, EPA doubled down on the illegal, unscientific, and un-health protective approach it has taken in all of its draft risk evaluations for the first 10 chemicals reviewed under TSCA.

EDF will be closely examining this final document, but it is already apparent that EPA has grossly and systematically underestimated the exposures to and risks of methylene chloride.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Industry influence, Public health, Regulation, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Also tagged , , | Comments are closed

While harder to discern, another EPA risk evaluation severely understates risk, this time for methylene chloride

By / Published: November 27, 2019

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

When EPA released the draft of its risk evaluation for methylene chloride at the end of last month, some were surprised that EPA had identified numerous unreasonable risks presented under a variety of the chemical’s conditions of use.

In an earlier post, EDF provided some context, noting how dangerous the chemical is and raising initial concerns that EPA was once again excluding known uses and exposures, making unsupported assumptions, and applying inappropriate risk benchmarks that were once again leading it to significantly understate the actual risks posed by methylene chloride.

Four weeks later, EDF has confirmed these concerns in spades.  Last night we filed 84 pages of comments on the draft risk evaluation, for consideration by EPA’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC), which will meet next week to peer review the draft.

EDF’s deep dive into the draft demonstrates that EPA has employed a host of unwarranted and unsupported assumptions and methodological approaches that lead it to either avoid identifying unreasonable risk when it should have, or to understate the extent and magnitude of the unreasonable risks it did identify.  Below we summarize some of the major concerns, which are addressed in detail in our comments.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Regulation, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Also tagged , , | Comments are closed

EPA’s just-released methylene chloride draft risk evaluation: Some important context

By / Published: October 29, 2019

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

After more than a month’s delay, EPA today released its draft risk evaluation for methylene chloride.  Running to 725 pages (not counting more than a dozen supplemental files), it will take some time to digest.  But here are some initial observations that provide context for those of you who will be looking closer.

First, methylene chloride is a very nasty chemical.  It has killed a lot of people.  It causes cancer.  Short- and long-term exposure to it is tied to liver effects, immune system effects, nervous system effects, and reproductive/developmental effects.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that EPA’s draft – even coming from an administration not known to be overly worried about the risks of chemicals – has found that most industrial, commercial and consumer uses of methylene chloride present unreasonable risks.

For example, EPA found that workers using methylene chloride-based paint strippers face high risks.  Of course, we knew that already:  EPA identified those risks more than five years ago, and proposed to ban those uses.  This EPA decided it had to do it all over again – which means that thousands of workers have continued to be unnecessarily exposed to this deadly chemical.  And it will be even more years before we get back to where we were before EPA took its mulligan.

So the good news is that EPA seems to be acknowledging that methylene chloride presents high enough risks to warrant regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The bad news is that EPA is dramatically underestimating the magnitude of methylene chloride’s risks – by pulling the same tricks it has for other chemicals among the first 10 it is evaluating under TSCA:

  • EPA once again ignores all exposures and risks to the general population by falsely assuming those exposures and risks are eliminated by actions it has taken or could take under other laws. That means ignoring over 4 million pounds of methylene chloride annually released to air, water and land.  See this backgrounder for the details and why this EPA assumption about methylene chloride is deeply flawed.
  • EPA once again grossly understates risks to workers:
    • EPA assumes that workers will always wear fully effective personal protective equipment (respirators and gloves) to make many of the risks it identifies go away – and to grossly understate the magnitude of the unreasonable risks it does find.
    • EPA once again finds a cancer risk to workers unreasonable only if it exceeds a level of 1 in 10,000 – which is 100 times higher a risk than warrants regulation under TSCA to protect workers and other vulnerable subpopulations.
    • For occupational non-users (ONUs), EPA has once again failed to identify unreasonable risks for the most highly exposed, and hence most vulnerable, workers unless it finds that the majority of workers also face unreasonable risks.

These are just a few initial observations based on our reading of EPA’s opus so far.

So while it’s somewhat encouraging that this new draft risk evaluation has found many more risks than previous drafts, we can already tell the draft falls far short of adequately describing the risks presented by methylene chloride.

Stay tuned.

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Public health, Regulation, TSCA reform, Worker safety / Also tagged , | Comments are closed

Next TSCA chemical peer reviews and draft risk evaluations to be delayed. You’ll never guess why.

By / Published: October 2, 2019

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

We’re hearing that EPA has cancelled the next meeting of its Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC), which was scheduled for October 21-25.  The SACC is conducting peer reviews of EPA’s draft risk evaluations of the first 10 chemicals to undergo safety reviews under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Word is that the panel was to use its October meeting to peer-review the draft risk evaluations for methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP).  But release of those drafts has been delayed, leaving insufficient time for the SACC to review them before the meeting.

We’re also hearing why release of the drafts has fallen behind.  The drafts were on track for release late last month, but apparently were blocked based on objections about at least the draft risk evaluation for methylene chloride.  The objections were lodged by Dr. Nancy Beck.  Read More »

Posted in Health policy, Health science, Industry influence, TSCA reform / Also tagged , | Read 1 Response