{"id":7047,"date":"2017-10-20T14:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-20T19:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/?p=7047"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:02:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:02:01","slug":"doursons-account-of-his-work-on-pfoa-is-incomplete-and-misleading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/2017\/10\/20\/doursons-account-of-his-work-on-pfoa-is-incomplete-and-misleading\/","title":{"rendered":"Dourson\u2019s account of his work on PFOA is incomplete and misleading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/em>is a Lead Senior Scientist.<\/p>\n

[Use\u00a0<\/em>this link\u00a0<\/em><\/a>to see all of our posts on Dourson.]<\/em><\/p>\n

In testimony <\/a>before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) on October 4 and in responses to Questions for the Record <\/a>submitted by Senators after the hearing, Michael Dourson, the Trump Administration\u2019s nominee to run EPA\u2019s chemical safety program, provided information about his work on a DuPont chemical called PFOA (also known as C8) that is incomplete and misleading.\u00a0 His selective responses to Senators\u2019 questions reinforce the already serious concerns about his nomination and his suitability for the job.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2002, the state of West Virginia hired Dourson\u2019s firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA) to convene a panel to set a \u201csafe\u201d level of PFOA in drinking water, after the chemical was found to be contaminating water supplies in the state.\u00a0 Among other implications, the level set would determine the number of communities and people for which DuPont would be required to pay to provide alternative sources of drinking water \u2013 and hence which families and communities would continue to drink PFOA-contaminated water because it was found \u201csafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the hearing Senator Kirsten Gillibrand questioned Dourson about his work on PFOA.\u00a0 The panel convened by TERA recommended 150 parts per billion (ppb) as the \u201csafe\u201d level for PFOA.\u00a0 Gillibrand asked Dourson whether he knew that DuPont itself had an internal guideline of 1 ppb.\u00a0 Dourson responded by saying:\u00a0 \u201cOur understanding at the time was the 1 part per billion was a placeholder; it wasn\u2019t based on a full reading of the science.\u201d\u00a0 She then asked whether he knew that EPA has set a health advisory level of 0.07 ppb.\u00a0 Dourson responded that \u201cthe science has progressed, significantly advanced since the time of 2004 [sic] <\/em>and the new science indicates a lower level.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have ourselves noted <\/a>that EPA\u2019s current level was set in 2016, well after Dourson\u2019s work.\u00a0 However, what Dourson failed to acknowledge is that in March 2002 \u2013 5 months before the report recommending the 150 ppb level was issued \u2013 EPA had imposed a much stricter standard of 14 ppb on DuPont through a consent order<\/a>, based on a review of the latest science commissioned by DuPont.\u00a0 That level is over 10-fold more protective than the standard set through Dourson\u2019s work.\u00a0 Since that time, EPA has steadily lowered its standard<\/a>, as more evidence emerged about PFOA\u2019s myriad risks, reaching the current level of 0.07 ppb<\/a> that is more than 2,000 times lower than that Dourson advocated.<\/p>\n

Dourson\u2019s response to Questions for the Record (QFRs) submitted by EPW Ranking Member Tom Carper contains other incomplete or misleading assertions.<\/p>\n

Dourson asserted that:\u00a0 \u201cIn 2002, 4 governments and one industry recommended TERA as the independent and neutral party to assist in a PFOA evaluation. \u00a0A West Virginia judge agreed.\u201d\u00a0 We know who the company is that recommended TERA:\u00a0 As reported in The Intercept<\/em><\/a>, that company was DuPont, which argued in an internal memo that has since surfaced that: \u201cTERA (i.e. Mike Dourson) was the leading choice\u201d because TERA had \u201ca very good reputation among the folks that are still in the business of blessing criteria\u201d and had the ability to \u201cassemble a package and then sell this to EPA, or whomever we desired.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the source Dourson cites \u2013 the final report of the panel<\/a> \u2013 provides no support whatsoever for his claim that 4 governments recommended TERA for the job and that a judge had agreed.\u00a0 While several government agencies were involved in the panel, we could find no evidence in the report or elsewhere that supports the claim.\u00a0 Perhaps this evidence was among the documents that a West Virginia official admitted were shredded <\/a>after the panel concluded? \u00a0If such evidence exists, Dourson should be compelled to provide it.\u00a0 In any case, this is one of many examples of his obfuscation when it comes to the funding of and engagement in his work by different parties.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another:\u00a0 Dourson\u2019s QFR response also states:\u00a0 \u201cFive panelists were government employees; 3 were from EPA.\u201d\u00a0 This response is both selective and misleading:\u00a0 Dourson fails to mention that there were five additional panelists:\u00a0 3 were TERA employees, including Dourson, and the remaining 2 were DuPont employees.\u00a0 It also downplays the central role TERA was assigned in the panel process, as described in a November 2001 consent order <\/a>between the state of West Virginia and DuPont.<\/p>\n

These questionable and selective responses Dourson provided to Senators in the context of his confirmation hearing serve again to illustrate why we believe Dourson lacks both the credibility and the trustworthiness needed for the job of overseeing our nation\u2019s chemical safety program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Denison, Ph.D.,\u00a0is a Lead Senior Scientist. [Use\u00a0this link\u00a0to see all of our posts on Dourson.] In testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) on October 4 and in responses to Questions for the Record submitted by Senators after the hearing, Michael Dourson, the Trump Administration\u2019s nominee to run EPA\u2019s chemical safety …<\/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":[44,5009,56093,114108],"tags":[91812],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy","category-health-science","category-industry-influence","category-tsca","tag-dourson"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047","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=7047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12810,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047\/revisions\/12810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7047"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}