Switchboard, from NRDC › Jennifer Sass's Blog

NRDC releases report recommending science journals protect themselves from misuse

2009-06-01T17:15:55Z

Today, I released a new report on the need for scientific journals to enforce strict and effective conflict disclosure policies for authors, peer reviewers, and even journal editors. The report, titled, Effective and Practical Disclosure Policies: NRDC Paper on Workshop to Identify Key Elements of Disclosure Policies for Health Science Journals is available on the NRDC website.

The NRDC report is also featured in my Guest Editorial in today's online release of the June issue of the premiere environmental science journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. In that article I quote Richard Smith, long-time editor of the British Medical Journal lamenting at how the pharmaceutical industry has used science journals to give a "stamp of approval" to industry-funded studies that promote their drug products.

Why is it so important for science journals to require authors to disclose conflicts to their readers? Because effective disclosure policies play an important role in protecting journals from becoming unwitting agents of the type of propaganda, distortion, and corporate marketing, that Richard Smith and other journal editors are concerned about.

When a toxic chemical starts to look like it might be causing harm, maybe to the environment, maybe to our health, the product manufacturer will usually start to circle the wagons defensively, and that defense includes published science.

A good example is bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic component of many plastics that also contaminates the bodies of most Americans, and has rightly got the public up in arms. The Washington Post reported this weekend that BPA industry executives huddled to frantically find a strategy to defend its chemical, including finding a 'pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA'. This kind of blatant denial of harm is the first step in a well-worn three-dog defense. It goes something like this:

1) It's not my dog (i.e. product).

2) Okay, it's my dog, but it didn't bite (i.e. harm) you.

3) Okay, my dog bit you, but it was your fault (i.e. you smoke, other chemical exposures, family history of cancer, etc.)

The first defense, denial, can buy some time while the second and third defenses are being prepared. And, it's these last two defenses that are the subject of this blog. That is, the generation of evidence, preferably including lots of published scientific data, suggesting either that the product is not harmful, or that it is not harmful under the conditions it is being used. For example, maybe it causes cancer at higher doses, but not at whatever doses people are exposed to (see my documented review of EPA's re-analysis of the pesticide captan, in discussion with the manufacturer, as an example).

One of the most outrageous examples of this dog-defense is the industry-science that only some types of asbestos fibers cause cancer, but not all types (see this documented as the ABC Myth, Anything But Chrysotile). In reality, whatever you may think of this argument, the fact is that asbestos does not occur as a pure sample of one fiber type, so the risk of cancer is always present.

Journals that require authors to disclose the funding source for the work, and any other financial conflicts or non-monetary competing interests of the author, provide a measure of scientific honesty for their readers.

EPA announces a much-improved IRIS chemical assessment process

2009-05-21T19:12:37Z

Today the new EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, announced a new process for assessing toxic chemicals under the IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System) program, in addition to $5 million and 10 new employees for the IRIS program.

The new process puts a time limit of two years for an assessment (reasonably rapid in EPA-time), solicits comments on the science only (not policy or politics), makes written comments publicly available, and leaves final editing decisions with EPA (rather than needing final White House approval). Sounds obvious, but it is the opposite of the Bush-era practice!

In essence, the new process strips away the highly criticized Bush-Administration changes to the IRIS chemical assessment process that infused politics into the scientific assessment, delayed the process by years, and handed over final editing to the White House regulatory hatchet men, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). I detailed the most offensive of these steps in an earlier blog on the issue. Even the independent investigation arm of Congress, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), was highly critical of the Bush-era process.

Unfortunately, the review process announced today will still allow the White House office and polluting federal agencies such as the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to have a bite at the apple with a comment period before the public has an opportunity to see the draft assessment. While this is likely to be problematic, there is some consolation that it is limited to 45 days, written comments will become part of the public record, and the comments are supposed to be science only. Hopefully, this will put a cap on whining about the draft IRIS assessment just because it seems likely to lead to clean-up or stricter exposure standards!

I hope that this new process will lead to more IRIS assessments being finalized each year, and more assessments of the most hazardous and most widespread chemical contaminants. These are the ones that we really need to target with solid science and health-protective policies, if we are to improve health where people live, work, and play!

NRDC sends its wish list on scientific integrity to the President

2009-05-14T16:53:45Z

When President Obama issued a call for public comments on how to fix the dismal state of scientific distortion, manipulation, and suppression that had marked the Bush Administration, NRDC answered the call. So did many other public interest groups and individuals eager to offer some good advice. NRDC's comments were signed by 22 supporting public interest groups including Greenpeace and Physicians for Social Responsibility. All of these groups have seen first hand the damage done by Bush-era policies of denying evidence of harm from toxic chemicals, protecting polluters, and punishing whistleblowers. Now it is time for a change! Back to the facts!

NRDC focused on the need to strengthen and enforce disclosure policies, and to eliminate experts with financial conflicts or competing interests from serving on expert advisory committees. How can these conflicted experts be identified? A conflicted expert is one whose opinion cannot be swayed by facts and evidence because it is tied to a financial benefit or competing interest. A conflicted expert has no place on any scientific or expert panel and should be barred in all cases. Such an expert may contribute to a deliberation as an invited specialist to address the committee, but not as a committee member.

Effective disclosure and conflict of interest policies play an essential role in protecting government and its experts from becoming agents of propaganda, distortion, corporate marketing, and other types of scientific and technical misinformation.

Many other excellent comments were submitted in response to this Presidential Memorandum. It's time for a change!

Today EPA announced that carbofuran, a highly toxic pesticide, will not be allowed on your food anymore

2009-05-11T19:47:51Z

Today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it has cancelled all food uses of a nasty toxic bird-killing, worker-poisoning pesticide called carbofuran. Yay! Way to earn back the "EP" in your name, EPA!

Initially, EPA had said that although uses of the pesticide in the U.S. would be cancelled, it would still be allowed as a contaminant on imported coffee, sugarcane, rice, and bananas. This would have meant that the manufacturer, FMC Corp., could still sell carbofuran in other countries that grow these foods for U.S. markets, thus putting at much greater risk those foreign workers, their families, and their environment. Today's decision will prevent all food contamination, including imports.

There are still two non-food uses of carbofuran that will remain: spinach seeds and pine seedlings will still be allowed to be treated with a granular form of carbofuran. EPA said that its future intentions are to cancel these uses as well, although today it is only the food uses that are being cancelled.

There is a U.S. production cap of 2,500 lbs per year for domestic uses, although there is more carbofuran that is produced in the U.S. and exported. How much more? That production information is considered confidential business information, not available to the public.

I hope that today's decision by EPA will weaken the ability of FMC to sell its toxic products in other countries.

Stormwater runoff...yeuch. PBS Frontline takes us from sewers to tap water

2009-04-20T16:32:33Z

Ever wonder what becomes of that rainwater that runs off pesticide-treated lawns, golf courses, and farm fields? What about the hormone-disupting pharmaceuticals that we flush down the toilet because they are past their due date, leftover, or unwanted? Where does the polluted runoff from factory farms end up?

PBS Frontline is tracking our nation's dirty secret, our sewer-to-tap water system, in a show called Poisoned Waters that will air April 21 on PBS. Mark your calendars! Dead fish, mutated frogs, its all here!

NRDC has tackled a lot of these issues head on, and supplied solutions that work. For example, our water program co-director, Nancy Stoner, says we can neutralize river damage from sewage and stormwater runoff by using a variety of approaches from traditional sewage treatment plants, underground storage tunnels for the sewage and stormwater mix that flows through the sewers when it rains, building rain gardens and green roofs, to getting people to plant native plants instead of lawns and put trash in waste receptacles or recycling bins instead of into the street (where it washes into the river when it rains).

I have testified in the U.S. Senate on the impact to watersheds from pharmaceuticals improperly flushed down toilets or in waste from factory farms. The Associated Press reported that pharmaceutical residues were detected in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas across the country serving 41 million people. Detected drugs included antibiotics, anti-convulsants, and mood stabilizer drugs.

Our own in-house Smartgrowth expert, Kaid Benfield, is full of success stories of on-the-ground solutions to stormwater runoff that include smart growth and sustainable development.

NRDC is fighting the problem of watershed pollution by promoting smart solutions that are sustainable, practical, and create green jobs.

We want to hear from you! Share your own successful solutions by posting a comment below.

EPA fails to regulate perchlorate rocket fuel, despite new evidence it is in infant formula

2009-04-13T17:26:45Z

Perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel and contaminant of some fertilizer, is also a contaminant in drinking water and in many common foods including milk, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and fruit juice. It has also been found in breast milk and human urine, demonstrating widespread human exposure. Last month government scientists reported elevated perchlorate levels in infant formula.

Perchlorate acts on the thyroid gland to inhibit its ability to make the thyroid hormones that are necessary for normal infant and childhood growth and brain development.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not reversed its Bush-era preliminary regulatory decision not to set a health-protective standard perchlorate in drinking water. Instead, EPA had said that a national primary drinking water regulation for perchlorate would not present "a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems."

In addition to its failure to take action on perchlorate in drinking water, EPA has proposed a Health Advisory Level (HRL) of 15 micrograms per liter (µg/L, equal to parts per billion, ppb) of perchlorate in drinking water, which EPA says would be used as a cleanup level in contaminated sites. However, EPA's own scientific experts calculated that if drinking water were contaminated at that level approximately 400,000 children under one year old would be drinking unsafe levels of perchlorate daily (i.e. they would exceed EPA's calculated daily allowable level (reference dose, RfD) of 0.7 microgram per kilogram body weight per day (µg/kg bw/d).

The report from government scientists last month found that levels of perchlorate in some milk-based infant formula and formula reconstituted with contaminated drinking water were so high that infants drinking these contaminated food sources would exceed the RfD for perchlorate.

It seems clear to us that regulating perchlorate does represent "a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems" that are contaminated with the toxic chemical.

You've done the math, EPA. Now act on it!

(maps of perchlorate contaminated sites can be seen here from the American Water Works Association)

Nanomaterials: Failure to Warn

2008-12-17T22:08:53Z

Today the online information site nanowerk posted a commentary from Skip Lockard, a toxic-tort lawyer based in Atlanta, warning manufacturers and retailers of products containing nanomaterials to take effective and immediate action to protect workers and consumers, because:

'Failure to warn' claims have proven fertile grounds in past personal injury cases and consumer product class actions . . . businesses should think, on a case-by-case basis, about opportunities to mitigate future claims through appropriate disclosures.

NRDC recommends that manufacturers and retailers require that their supply chain identify where materials or ingredients are nanoscale, and provide all available safety data on those materials, including data for a human health hazard assessment, a physicochemical hazard assessment, and an assessment as to whether the material may be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. This is generally consistent with the European REACH requirements for chemicals manufactured or imported at over 10 tonnes/year. NRDC will advocate for these data for all nanomaterials, regardless of volume.

Nanomaterials or nanotechnologies are finding applications in over 800 consumer products, according to self-disclosures by industry in their consumer advertising. At this time, EPA is primarily relying on a voluntary reporting program launched in early 2008, called the Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program (NMSP) to provide oversight of nanomaterials. Companies that sign up are agreeing to submit basic data on the physical and chemical properties of their materials, and any toxicity data they have on hand, but are under no obligation to generate new data. An excellent analysis by Dr. Denison of EDF points out that the NMSP, already weak by its voluntary nature, failed to incorporate recommendations from its advisory committee that in November, 2005 advised EPA to include a deadline by which companies should sign up to participate, definite program requirements and timelines by which the success or failure of industry submissions could be measured.

Where the supply chain will not or cannot supply the above data, manufacturers and retails should be skeptical of using the nanoscale materials. This can be done in advance of regulatory requirements for such data. As Skip Lockard says, "voluntary adherence to guidance documents and industry standards now may demonstrate the kind of good faith efforts necessary to defeat punitive damages claims in future litigation."

New NRDC Report Documents Monitoring Programs Slashed Under the Bush Administration

2008-12-04T01:13:40Z

A report released today by the NRDC Health Program documents many examples of Bush Administration budget cuts to key data collection programs that monitor hazardous pollutants in our air, water, food, and even our bodies.

The loss of these monitoring programs will result in less data, and therefore greater scientific uncertainty. In the absence of public monitoring programs, "free" or "cheap" data are often volunteered by the regulated industries. The lack of resources and staff leaves EPA unable to provide adequate oversight of these data and scientific products, which are often shielded from public scrutiny by confidential business claims. The result is that EPA is increasingly under pressure to make regulatory and policy decisions with inadequate data, or even no data at all.

The NRDC report documents cuts to critical monitoring programs, including the following examples:

Lead air monitors: The number of lead air monitors across the country has been cut in half, from 394 monitors in 1997 to only 188 monitors in 2007. EPA's own calculations show that a network of more than 650 lead monitors are necessary in areas downwind of polluters, and an additional 330 or more monitors are needed in urban areas. In October 2008, EPA finalized a new and more health-protective standard for airborne lead. However, as part of the new plan, the EPA raised the monitoring threshold from a half ton per year of lead emissions to 1 ton per year. That means that polluters who release up to 2,000 pounds of lead each year into local communities will not be monitored under the new lead rule.

National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA): The NAWQA tests for pesticides, volatile organic compounds, metals, and other environmental contaminants. Budget constraints over the last eight years have forced NAWQA to cut three-quarters of its surface-water, fixed-station water quality monitoring sites, from 496 in 2000 to only 113 in 2008. Ground water quality monitoring sites will be cut in half because of a 15 percent ($10 million) cut in funding from FY08 to FY09.

USGS National Streamflow Information Program (NSIP): Serious budget cuts made to the USGS National Streamflow Information Program (NSIP) jeopardize critical flood monitoring. This information is used to develop emergency response plans, predict floods, and measure climate change. The USGS streamgage program has been funded in a 50/50 co-operative with more than 800 state and local agencies (through the co-operative water program). The USGS operates and maintains approximately 7,500 streamgages that provide long-term, accurate information on stream flow.

National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Chemical Usage Survey: This now-defunct survey had been published annually in a publicly accessible database called the Agricultural Chemical Use Database. It provided the public, industry, and regulators with U.S. trends of pesticide use in agriculture, searchable by year, by state, and by crop. The NRDC report recommends that the program budget be restored to at least $9 million annually or a level that will keep the program updated and relevant to all users.

Toxics Release Inventory: The EPA issued a rule in December 2006 modifying the reporting requirements for the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program. TRI requires certain industrial facilities to report if they release any of 666 toxic chemicals or chemical categories to air, land, and water and makes the data publicly accessible over the Internet. Compared to the previous requirements, this rule allows facilities to release four times more pollution before they must provide detailed information to the public.

Environmental Justice monitoring: Under Executive Order 12898, signed by President Clinton on February 11, 1994, the EPA is required to collect human health and environmental data to assess and compare environmental and human health risks to people of various races, national origins, and income level. Under President Bush, the FY09 proposed budget cuts funding to the Office of Environmental Justice's budget by 35 percent.

CDC Biomonitoring: Biomonitoring, which measures toxic substances in blood and urine, is an essential tool in understanding what people are exposed to and how chemicals in the environment affect health. CDC studies have detected more than 100 chemicals in people in the United States. However, most state health departments lack the capacity to conduct this important type of monitoring. States need to do biomonitoring for emergency response as well as to monitor health-related exposures over time, identify communities at risk, and assess the effectiveness of state pollution control programs. Funding for the CDC's biomonitoring program peaked in 2002 and decreased by 18 percent in 2008.

See the full report and NRDC's Dr. Gina's blog for more examples, community impacts, health implications, and recommendations.

NRDC petitions EPA to ban 2,4-D: An Agent Orange chemical doesn't belong on lawns

2008-11-07T00:53:22Z

If you've used a pesticide on your lawn in the past 60 years, there's a good chance you've used 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (aka 2,4-D) - a carcinogen that was also one-half of the recipe for the infamous Agent Orange.

2,4-D is a herbicide in the phenoxy chemical family, used at about 46 million pounds annually in the U.S. - about 30 million pounds in agriculture and 16 million pounds for non-agriculture uses like lawns.

NRDC today petitioned the EPA to ban 2,4-D, the most commonly used active ingredient in "home and garden" pesticides. 2,4-D is also one of the oldest pesticides still legal for use. Even though safer and more effective pesticides are available - 2,4-D is often more affordable.

2,4-D is an endocrine disruptor with predicted human health risks ranging from changes in estrogen and testosterone levels, thyroid problems, prostate cancer and reproductive abnormalities. It's also neurotoxin linked in animal studies to side effects like brain cell death, Parkinson's-like tremors, delays in brain development and abnormal behavior patterns.

Pregnant women and children are most susceptible to these potential effects.

At home, 2,4-D is used to control aquatic weeds in water where people may swim, on athletic fields, golf courses and playgrounds. It's also used agriculturally - sprayed on our food supply, including pasture land, wheat, corn, soybeans, barley, rice, oats and sugar cane.

It shows up in about half of all surface water samples nationwide, and the groundwater of at least five states and Canada. Once tracked indoors - such as from the bottom of a shoe - 2,4-D can stay in your carpet for up to a year. And if you're enjoying a beer or a glass of wine on that carpet - take extra caution. The chemical is absorbed by your body more easily if you're consuming alcohol, wearing sunscreen or using DEET. Infants can take in the chemical through breast milk.

In short - 2,4-D is everywhere, and it's dangerous, particularly for our children. The government has allowed this hazardous herbicide to stay on the market for far too long. In light of all the evidence of the numerous, varied health risks associated with this popular pesticide, the EPA has a responsibility to protect human health and environmental integrity by banning highly hazardous old-school chemicals like 2,4-D.

NRDC wins victory to stop EPA and chemical industry from overturning restrictions on a toxic class of pesticides, the EBDCs

2008-11-05T22:21:27Z

In a great victory for NRDC, public health and worker safety, yesterday the chemical industry capitulated today in their long-running effort to reverse a partial ban on a group of pesticides known as the Ethylene bisdithiocarbamates, or EBDCs for short, primarily used on potato crops.

EPA significantly restricted the use of these chemicals in the early 1990s because of cancer risks to children. But a coalition of chemical companies - including Dow, Dupont, and BASF - had petitioned EPA to reverse itself and allow broader application of the EBDCs.

The EBDCs are a class of fungicides that include mancozeb, maneb, and metiram. They are metabolized to ethylene thiourea (ETU), a chemical that is classified as a carcinogen by EPA based on evidence from rodent studies. It has its toxic effects on the thyroid, and thereby interferes with normal growth and development, and may induce thyroid tumors.

Last year, EPA agreed (a little too eagerly) to reverse itself in response to the industry's request. The NRDC legal team challenged their decision before an Administrative Law Judge, and aggressively opposed the industry's and EPA's combined efforts to narrow the proceeding and exclude key evidence of health risks. Over the course of the past year, the judge repeatedly ruled that NRDC should be allowed to present new evidence regarding the health risks posed by these pesticides, which EPA and the industry were attempting to block.

The judge ruled against EPA and the chemical industry 7 times in the last 12 months, until the industry finally decided to withdraw their claim and concede the case. The judge's rulings significantly increased the burden on the industry to show that their requested reversal was safe, and would have resulted in a lengthy and expensive evidentiary hearing. Rather than attempt to meet that burden, the chemical companies backed down.

This is especially important because of the precedent it establishes: any future attempts to overturn pesticide bans will be held to the stringent standard that we argued for and that the judge ruled must apply. This will make it much harder for chemical companies to demand -- and for EPA to agree to -- reversals of pesticide restrictions that are currently on the books.

Three cheers to the NRDC legal team, for their tireless efforts and great success!

EPA denies NRDC petition to cancel bee-toxic pesticide carbaryl

2008-10-30T02:03:54Z

On January 10, 2005, NRDC petitioned EPA to cancel both agriculture and residential uses of carbaryl. Today, October 29, 2008, EPA finally published in the Federal Register its response to our petition. Unfortunately, its decision is to deny our petition, and thereby allow continued use of this dangerous pesticide.

Carbaryl, trade name 'Sevin', is a broad-spectrum insecticide used on pets, lawns, and gardens as well as agriculture crops that include apples, pecans, grapes, alfalfa, oranges, and corn. About 3.9 million pounds of carbaryl are used annually in the U.S., with about half for agriculture and half for non-agriculture uses.

Carbaryl is classified by EPA as a likely carcinogen, and according to EPA's own fact sheets, "carbaryl can cause cholinesterase inhibition in humans; that is, it can overstimulate the nervous system causing nausea, dizziness, confusion, and at high exposures, respiratory paralysis, and death."

After over two years hearing nothing from EPA, we sued them for unreasonable delay on February 28, 2007. As terms of the settlement, EPA was to respond to NRDC's petition by September 30, 2008.

In our petition, filed almost four years ago, we raised a number of serious concerns with this pesticide. The following major concerns fell on deaf ears with EPA decision-makers:

The EPA assessment found that normal agriculture use of carbaryl would lead to unsafe contamination of rivers and streams (surface water), according to screening-level modeling estimates. EPA ignored its own model predictions, writing that actual water contamination was "likely to be much lower", but failed to present any scientific evidence to support this statement.
We asked that EPA cancel uses of carbaryl in pet flea collars because of the high exposures to children from sleeping and playing with pets. And, less toxic or even non-toxic alternatives are available for these uses.

We also raised serious concerns about how toxic carbaryl is to bees and other pollinators. Our petition said, "Protection of pollinators and other beneficial insects should be the highest priority of the EPA, as without them crops would not produce harvests and wild plant communities would decline." In addition, we noted that there are no data on long-term exposure to bees, despite our repeated request that EPA gather such information. Although EPA is fully cognizant of the terrible repercusions of Colony Collapse Disorder it continues to register pesticides that are toxic to honeybees.

EPA, don't deny the science, and don't ignore your agency staff experts. Cancel carbaryl and other highly toxic pesticides, and protect our families and environment from continued harm.

NRDC testified at Congressional hearings today on Science Under Siege at the U.S. EPA

2008-09-18T12:10:07Z

Today, I provided testimony before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, at hearings entitled: Science under Siege: Scientific Integrity at the U.S. EPA about political interference with Agency scientists, in their efforts to assess and regulate hazardous chemicals.

Throughout the eight years of the Bush Administration, NRDC and others have documented the science under siege at the EPA, to expose the cozy relationship between the regulatory agency and the industries it is tasked with regulating. Not content to simply undermine health standards for a host of toxic chemicals one-by-one, Administration officials have also attacked the foundational process for assessing the risks of toxic chemicals, the EPA Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program that assesses hazardous substances.

Yesterday, two letters were sent to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, one from environmental and health groups, and another from toxicologists relaying concerns with the White House imposed changes to the EPA IRIS chemical evaluation process.

The importance of having timely, robust, reliable chemical assessments on the IRIS database was evident in the testimony today of Mr. Daniel Parshley of the Glynn Environmental Coalition in Georgia. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG), at the request the Glynn Environmental Coalition, has reviewed claims that a Glynn County, GA Superfund site contaminated with Toxaphene, a toxic persistant legacy chemical that was banned in 1990 in the U.S., is receiving inadequate clean up. At the heart of the dispute is a testing method that fails to detect most of the toxic congeners and degradation products of toxaphene, thus underestimating the extent of contamination. Use of the biased testing method was approved by a closed partnership between EPA Region 4, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GaEPD) and Hercules, Inc. that failed to include community representatives. Both the OIG and a previous review by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (2002), have recommended that EPA should discard this flawed method in favor of established tests that identify toxaphene degradation products. Mr. Parshley came all the way to Washington to ask Congress to help his community get justice. They want clean up, so their children won't have to live and go to school near a toxic dump site.

NRDC is asking Congress to defend our public servant scientists as the Nation's brain-trust, and to require IRIS health assessments to be reviewed in an open process, without inappropriate political interference. It is the least that Mr. Parshley's community and others like his across the country deserve!

A cuppa-frappa-mocha morning with GoozNews

2008-08-16T16:09:36Z

The smell of a humid Washington summer is rising from the concrete like steam off a blood-sticky slaughterhouse floor as the Nation's capitol winds down from a week of chasing our tails, and switches to chasing mocha-frappa-cuppa-crappa from head shops that charge the annual GDP of Togo for drinks whose designer-names put the joe-camel PR campaign to shame. It's one of those late Saturday mornings where all the morning chores are done, and it isn't time yet for the afternoon ones, when I lean back with the computer and a cup of iced crappa and catch up on my email.

To my delight, GoozNews.com has just dumped its weekly newsletter into my inbox. Yay! This week is especially intriguiging, with an excellent interview with a bioterrorism expert on the investigative bungling of the anthrax-guy-that-probably-did-it-and-may-have-acted-alone-but-we-will-never-know. The main point is that by diverting funding from medical research to terrorism research we have increased the numbers of lab staff with access to deadly biological materials, failed to employ any additional safety measures on these researchers, and diverted funding away from medical research that would actually save lives.

We interrupt this previously scheduled post for an important announcement: NRDC bloggers are participating during the upcoming week in the inaugural NRDC Bulwer-Lytton © Environmental Blogging Competition to select the worst opening sentence of a post on Switchboard. The competition follows the deliciously dreadful example of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a literary parody contest that San Jose State University sponsors each year. This year’s awesomely awful winner in the actual contest can be read here.

NRDC’s competition will follow the same model, with the difference being that the opening sentence of a Switchboard post must address an environmental or energy or public health topic that an NRDC blogger otherwise would cover. Plus, the blogger must go on to complete a post that otherwise would stand on its own on Switchboard.

The competition will run for a week, starting today, and the winner will be announced at the end of the week after next, following voting by Switchboard’s bloggers. Switchboard readers are encouraged to cast their votes by commenting on individual posts, and those votes will be factored heavily into the final tally.

Let the contest begin!

I'd encourage you to sign up for the GoozNews, grab a cup of enjoyment and dig in to the latest misdeeds of corporate America!

Scientists respond to White House attack on worker protections and public health

2008-08-14T17:26:02Z

Today, a scathing letter was sent to the Department of Labor (DOL) blasting them for their proposed risk assessment rule that would make it even more difficult for the already-slower-than-molasses department to issue workplace safety rules. In this time of global climate change it is safe to say that glaciers melt faster than the labor department issues rules to protect worker health.

The letter was issued by myself and Dr. Celeste Monforton of George Washington University and the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy (SKAPP), and supported with signatures from prominent industrial hygienists, physicians, epidemiologists, toxicologists, and other practitioners involved in workers’ safety and health research and prevention programs. The letter asked that the DOL proposal be withdrawn.

As detailed on the SKAPP website, the DOL proposed rule fails to provide any validated guidance that would improve the current risk assessment methods, and has numerous serious flaws that would weaken current approaches and undermine occupational health rules. It would also add an additional step to the rulemaking process further delaying the development and issuance of needed protections.

DOL's proposed rule must be seen as part of a larger thinly-veiled effort by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to alter risk assessment methods by stealth across the regulatory agencies, after a bolder comprehensive overhaul met with strong agency resistance and finally complete rejection by a committee of experts convened by the National Academies. That expert committee issued its report in January 2007, concluding “that the OMB bulletin is fundamentally flawed” and recommending that, “it be withdrawn.”

Nonetheless, many of the flawed OMB recommendations have re-emerged in this DOL proposal.

Earlier this year NRDC led an effort to prevent similar attacks made under the guise of risk assessment improvements to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. The IRIS database contains expert consensus evaluations of potential human health effects from exposure to more than 540 chemicals, including highly hazardous chemicals such as vinyl chloride, butadiene, benzene, lead, mercury, and asbestos

As NRDC testified in Congressional hearings earlier this summer, the new 2008 IRIS process introduces three new opportunities for the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and other non-health agencies to weigh in on EPA’s health assessments, where previously there was only one. Importantly, interagency comments and OMB comments for all three of the new intervention points are shielded from public view.

The White House OMB proposed changes to risk assessment methods are part of a much broader agenda by the Bush Administration to weaken health protections for workers, the public, and the environment.

NRDC sues Consumer Product Safety Commission for withholding industry correspondence

2008-07-30T20:27:58Z

Today, NRDC filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for their failure to hand over their communications with industry related to a class of toxic plastics chemicals called phthalates.

Phthalates make plastics flexible, like infant products and children's toys, packaging, flexible tubing, and some adhesives. NRDC even found them in air fresheners. The government even found them in our bodies!

Although most types of phthalates are not well studied, we do know that in male rodents exposed before or soon after birth to some kinds of phthalates, many rodent pups showed a variety of developmental and reproductive abnormalities, including undescended testes, feminized reproductive organs, and hypospadias (failure of the penis to form a fully closed tube). Eeewwww! More information is available here and here.

Maybe that is why House and Senate conferees this week agreed to a Bill that contained a provision to ban some types of phthalates from children's toys, effective six months from now. Yay Congress! The bill is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. Although the House and Senate still have to vote on the bill, if passed, it would ban three types of phthalates from children's toys, including DEHP, and temporarily outlaw three others until their health effects are better studied in children and pregnant women. This precautionary move is a welcomed sign of progress since toxic chemicals are usually presumed innocent by regulators until evidence of harm is overwhelming and undeniable.

Way to follow behind those trend-setters, Wal-Mart and Toys R Us, that told their suppliers earlier this year to get phthalates out of the kiddie toys.

The Congressional ban was strongly opposed by Exxon Mobil that, according to the Washington Post, "...spent a chunk of its $22 million lobbying budget in the past 18 months to try to prevent any ban."

Public Citizen, Consumers Union and others did an analysis of CPSC recalls in 2008 and found that in the first six months, "...108 children’s products were recalled, including 45 for lead contamination and 10 for hazardous magnets. Of those 108 products, fifty-three toys have been recalled this year already, totaling 6.2 million units." These recall measures represent a failure to protect the public from hazards in consumer products until millions of toxic toys are already in our children’s bedrooms, playrooms, daycares, and cribs.

Our legal team had requested the documents from CPSC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which obligates all federal agencies to disclose communications (letters, emails, meeting notes, etc.) with outside parties, i.e. the industry. We made our request in April, 2007; it has been over a year and we have received absolutely nothing, despite legal requirements for CPSC to respond within 20 days.

Not taking 'no' for an answer, we took legal action. The public has a legal right to know about the CPSC's communications with Exxon and other manufacturers of these phthalates, and the oil an chemical industries have a duty to tell the public which products might be exposing them to these dangerous chemicals.

This blog will keep you posted as our legal and scientific team sort through the documents we expect to receive!