{"id":2409,"date":"2012-09-11T13:45:55","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T18:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/nanotechnology\/?p=2409"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:01:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:01:25","slug":"still-looking-for-a-moment-of-truth-from-acc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2012\/09\/11\/still-looking-for-a-moment-of-truth-from-acc\/","title":{"rendered":"Still looking for a moment of truth from ACC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.<\/em>, is a Senior Scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve blogged here recently<\/a> about how the American Chemistry Council (ACC) is seeking to hide the truth about the major changes made to the Safe Chemicals Act<\/a>.\u00a0 And about its efforts to suppress the truth about chemicals linked to cancer<\/a>.\u00a0 But its tenuous relationship with the truth doesn\u2019t end there.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

At the end of last month, the three main producers of brominated flame retardant chemicals \u2013 Albemarle, Chemtura and ICL Industrial Products \u2013 announced that they were pulling out of the Citizens for Fire Safety Institute<\/a>, and shifting all of their advocacy efforts to the ACC\u2019s North American Flame Retardant Alliance (NAFRA)<\/a>.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of smoke and mirrors here:\u00a0 Those companies were<\/em> the Citizens for Fire Safety Institute \u2013 they founded it and ran it and were its primary if not only members.\u00a0 If you needed any more evidence, consider that the entirety of the Institute\u2019s website now consists solely of a single page<\/a> \u2013 the companies\u2019 announcement of their decision to move their advocacy over to ACC.<\/p>\n

For its part, ACC welcomed the companies with open arms<\/a> \u2013 a little odd, given that the same three companies are not only already ACC members, but also the sole members of the ACC\u2019s NAFRA<\/a>.\u00a0 The term \u201cshell game<\/a>\u201d comes to mind.<\/p>\n

One might think that this move signals the companies\u2019 and ACC\u2019s intent to end the shenanigans they have played on the American public for decades, documented in the Chicago Tribune<\/em>\u2019s in-depth investigation, \u201cPlaying with Fire,\u201d<\/a> published this past May.\u00a0 One would be wrong.<\/p>\n

Business as usual continues<\/strong><\/p>\n

As recently as late last week, ACC was busy lobbying against restrictions on the use of toxic flame retardants in children\u2019s products<\/a> \u2013 the only opposition to such restrictions voiced at a September 6 hearing in the New York State Assembly<\/a>.\u00a0 At least they\u2019re being up front now about such lobbying.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t the case even in the recent past.<\/p>\n

In a June 2012 letter<\/a> from ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley to state legislators, ACC claimed that \u201cACC does not advocate with state legislatures or state regulatory agencies on behalf [of Albemarle, Chemtura and ICL Industrial Products] related to flame retardant chemistries.\u201d \u00a0In fact, however, ACC has conducted such lobbying for years:\u00a0 see here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Remember ACC\u2019s \u201cCoalition for Chemical Safety\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To expect a change would also require forgetting that ACC itself is no stranger to setting up front groups posing as citizens\u2019 organizations.\u00a0 In 2009, shortly after reversing course and proclaiming its support for TSCA reform, ACC was the main founder and funder of the \u201cCoalition for Chemical Safety,\u201d a fake grassroots (or \u201castroturf\u201d) group set up to carry the chemical industry\u2019s water.\u00a0 I\u2019m linking here to one of my earlier blog posts about the Coalition<\/a>, as its own website disappeared after the group\u2019s origins were exposed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A chronic failure to disclose<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, ACC\u2019s pattern of failing to disclose its links to or funding of various organizations that advocate for its positions appears to be chronic.\u00a0 Just recently, I happened upon this post on ACC\u2019s blog<\/a> written by the senior director of ACC\u2019s Regulatory and Technical Affairs Division, Dr. Rick Becker. \u00a0The post was responding to Nicholas Kristof\u2019s May 2012 column<\/a> in the New York Times that drew attention to the flame retardant scandal and noted that these chemicals have been linked to endocrine disruption.\u00a0 That clearly had Dr. Becker upset.<\/p>\n

But note in his blog post the two very prominent quotes from the \u201cInstitute of Population Health at the University of Ottawa\u201d\u00a0on which he relies for support. \u00a0I was curious about the institute, so I followed the link he provided<\/a>, which goes to a website called \u201cEM<–>com\u201d that describes itself as \u201cthe information site on endocrine disruption.\u201d\u00a0 (I think \u201cEM<–>com\u201d is supposed to stand for \u201cendocrine modulation: communication\u201d or some such thing.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The argument espoused on the site is that even eating your lunch causes changes (i.e., modulation) in your endocrine system \u2013 which is no doubt true.\u00a0 But the further suggestion is that maybe you needn\u2019t worry about \u201cmodulations\u201d caused, say, by a synthetic chemical coursing through your bloodstream.\u00a0 Indeed, \u201cmodulation\u201d sounds so much nicer than \u201cdisruption.\u201d\u00a0 Hmm, this is not a leap I\u2019m willing to make.\u00a0 But that\u2019s a topic for another day.<\/p>\n

All of this piqued my interest, however, so I poked around a bit more on the website, and stumbled across this little note about where the project\u2019s funding comes from<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EM-COM project also derives some funding from both US industrial associations (American Chemistry Council)<\/em><\/strong> and Canadian industrial associations (Canadian Chemical Producers Association, Canadian Chlorine Coordinating Committee, Dupont Canada Inc and the Canadian Plastics Industry Association).\u201d\u00a0 (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

So, as his evidence that Mr. Kristof got it all wrong, ACC\u2019s Dr. Becker cites\u00a0\u201ceducational material\u201d drawn from a website and project that ACC funds \u2013 all without ever disclosing the connection!<\/p>\n

See the ethical problem I have with this?\u00a0 If ACC is so sure it\u2019s right about all this science, why would it go out of its way not<\/em> to disclose that it funds the very project it cites as its authority?\u00a0 (To EM<–>com\u2019s credit, at least it does disclose its funding sources.)<\/p>\n

Anyone else see a consistent pattern here in ACC\u2019s behavior in all these cases?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist. We\u2019ve blogged here recently about how the American Chemistry Council (ACC) is seeking to hide the truth about the major changes made to the Safe Chemicals Act.\u00a0 And about its efforts to suppress the truth about chemicals linked to cancer.\u00a0 But its tenuous relationship with the truth doesn\u2019t …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,114108],"tags":[39150,39986,5010,731,5011],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-tsca","tag-american-chemistry-council","tag-endocrine-disruption","tag-flame-retardant","tag-front-group","tag-pbde"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12668,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions\/12668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}