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FDA Under Pressure for BPA Food Safety Rules

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Elaine Shannon

As a key deadline approaches, scientists and environmental health advocates are ramping up pressure on the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to rein in food contamination from bisphenol A (BPA), a plastic component and synthetic estrogen detected in the bodies of 93 percent of Americans tested.

During the Bush administration, the FDA contended that traces of BPA leached into food and drink from packaging were safe, even for pregnant women, infants and young children. Despite contradictory findings from the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which last year said that BPA might damage the brains, reproductive systems and behavior of fetuses, infants and children, the FDA has refused to restrict BPA use in food packaging, provoking protests from scientists and environmental and health advocates.

Since President Obama took office, the agency’s leadership has given mixed signals, on one hand promising a “fresh look” at BPA safety but suggesting, on the other, that further studies could delay decisive regulatory action.

FDA officials have indicated they would detail their plans for the BPA issue later this month. Meanwhile, several developments are intensifying the spotlight on BPA — and putting FDA on the spot:

Thirty-three university and independent experts on BPA and other chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system have written FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg urging her not to postpone restrictions on BPA while agency scientists conduct a five-year, $10 million study of the chemical.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has awarded $30 million in federal stimulus funds to fill research gaps on BPA.
Consumer Reports, published by the non-profit Consumers Union, has made public new tests of canned foods, finding that nearly all brands tested contained BPA that had migrated from the containers. Even foods labeled “organic” and packaged in “BPA-free” cans showed low levels of BPA contamination, Consumers Union said.

BPA leaching in canned goods

The Consumers Union project augments and amplifies 2007 tests by Environmental Working Group that found BPA in more than half of 97 cans of common canned goods, including infant formula. BPA, made from feedstock tracing back to the petrochemical benzene, is an integral ingredient in epoxy resin, used in industrial paints and coatings, including food and beverage can linings. The chemical is also essential to the manufacture of polycarbonate plastic, found in thousands of products, from computer and cell phone casings and hard hats to water jugs and, until recently, baby bottles and sports bottles.

BPA-based synthetics are notoriously unstable. Studies documenting widespread BPA migration into the food supply have moved an increasing number of scientists and environmentalists to press for enforceable regulatory curbs.

“If you can demonstrate that a chemical is endocrine-active,” said R. Thomas Zoeller, Ph.D. an endocrine system specialist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and lead author of the 33-scientists’ letter to FDA chief Hamburg, “then I think you need to look very serious at allowing every man, woman and child in this country to come in contact with it, period.”

More funds for basic research

On a second track, NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., who also heads the National Toxicology Program, using stimulus money to fund basic research into how BPA and other chemicals that act like hormones in the body may be causing subtle changes in vital systems and gene expression, including behavioral changes, obesity, diabetes, reproductive system cancers adn other disorders, asthma, cardiovascular diseases and gene-level changes that transcend generations.

“The kind of sophisticated research that is being sponsored by NIEHS is required for us to understand endocrine disruptors in a broader way, “ Zoeller said, “not just BPA and not just estrogen. There are tentacles of endocrine disruptors in the environment that are acting like weak drugs, that are being exposed to everybody on a daily basis.”

Significantly, the NIEHS stimulus awards are going to a number of researchers who have been highly critical of the FDA. Among them: Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., a biologist at the University of Missouri at Columbia whose research team is credited with producing the first hard evidence that low doses of BPA caused irreversible damage to the male reproductive system.

“Even if BPA were banned in all products immediately,” said Vom Saal, “there would still be billions of pounds of this product out in the environment. There is a need for research to identify in more detail what the hazards are, what the molecular mechanisms are, particularly looking at infants. We have very little information about how much BPA is actually present in infants.”

Lynn Goldman on board at FDA

To date, the FDA has not moved aggressively, as its critics had hoped. Last August, EWG asked Hamburg to replace Mitchell Cheeseman, Ph.D., the agency’s lead scientist for the BPA review, on grounds that he was reported to have consulted closely with chemical industry officials and that his team continued to rely heavily on just two chemical industry studies that found BPA exposure to be relatively benign.

A course correction may be in the works. EWG has learned that Jesse Goodman, M.D., M.P.H., the FDA’s Science Advisor, has engaged Lynn Goldman, M.D., M.P.H., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a pioneer in research on endocrine-disrupting chemicals and a leading voice for strong environmental health policy, to act as a part-time consultant on BPA and related issues.

Industry opposition expected

Any effort by FDA to restrict BPA exposure is sure to be fought by chemical makers, who reap an estimated $6 billion yearly in global sales of BPA, and food processors hoping to avoid the expenses of developing alternative packaging and retooling assembly lines.

Advocates for a ban on BPA in food packaging argue that it constitutes a small percentage of the BPA market – and in any case, public health should take priority over corporate bottom lines, as the federal Pure Food Act intended.

Vom Saal: FDA legal threshold met

“If you have a thousand papers and they’re showing that this estrogenic chemical impacts every system you look at adversely,” says Vom Saal, “ how can you possibly say, we’re going to tell you it’s safe? We cannot tell the American public this chemical is safe.”

Posted in BPA, FDA, Featured Articles, Regulators | Tagged Bisphenol a, BPA, children's health, FDA, food safety | 3 Comments

Be Smart About School Cleaning Supplies

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Nils Bruzelius

What’s in Your Bucket?
– and in the One at Your Kid’s School?

That slightly pungent “clean” smell that you sometimes notice in a freshly scrubbed classroom, restroom — or your kitchen — may be telling you something a lot less appealing.

Environmental Working Group (EWG) studied a sampling of 21 cleaning products that are widely used in schools in California and elsewhere and came up with findings that should concern parents, teachers, custodians and school administrators.

EWG’s tests showed that as a group, these 21 products release into the air no fewer than 457 distinct chemicals, some of which are no doubt the source of that nice clean smell. The trouble is, six of those airborne substances are known to cause asthma and another 11 are known, probable or possible cancer-causers in humans.

As it happens, some of the products tested are also under the sink in millions of American homes. One of them, Comet Disinfectant Powder Cleaner, released 143 contaminants into the air – including formaldehyde, benzene, chloroform and four others that California has formally identified as causers of cancer or reproductive problems. None of Comet’s competitors was tested in this limited sampling.

EWG’s study, conducted by Senior Scientist Rebecca Sutton Ph.D., didn\’t attempt to link the presence of these airborne contaminants to actual illnesses in children who attend school the 13 California districts that provided information about the cleaning supplies they use. Cause-and-effect relationships between environmental pollutants and human disorders are virtually impossible to prove. But it’s well known that asthma has been on the increase in American children for decades, as have several childhood cancers. No one knows for sure why we’re seeing these trends, but plenty of people are worried about them. As Sutton said:

“What this means is that parents are sending their children into classrooms that expose them to something else besides an education.”

It’s hardly a big leap to think that it’s a good idea to keep noxious chemicals out of the air wherever young and not-so-young children spend hours every day. Ironically, the students who stay after school to take part in extra-curricular activities – not to mention detention – probably get an extra dose of whatever is in the air, since custodians often do a lot of their work after classes let out.

Worries about indoor air pollution are not new, of course. The issue came to the fore a few decades ago, driven in part by efforts to reduce energy use by insulating and sealing once-drafty homes and other buildings. Schools are hardly exempt. A U.S. Department of Education survey in 2007 found that one in four public schools has inadequate ventilation and one in five has unsatisfactory indoor air. It’s a good bet that chemicals released by school cleaning supplies often foul the air.

Well, what to do?

EWG’s study also looked at “green certified” cleaning products to see if they were less likely to release potentially harmful contaminants. Independent organizations (Green Seal, EcoLogo) that rate products on health-based standards had given them high marks. Both in individual product tests and in simulated classroom cleaning situations comparing them with conventional cleaners, the “green certified” ones came off much better. Overall, conventional general purpose cleaners emitted nearly 5 times more air contaminants than green cleaners. But EWG’s testing showed that even some products certified green had undesirable emissions, indicating the certifying process isn’t airtight.

EWG is urging parents, government officials and school administrators to take these findings to heart. Eight states have already passed laws requiring or encouraging the use of green cleaners in schools. EWG and its supporters are calling on the California legislature to follow suit. (A similar measure failed last year.)

Government officials can and should also require comprehensive labeling of cleaning products to identify all their ingredients. There’s no such requirement today. And governments should also require safety testing of chemicals in cleaning products. That rarely happens.

Consumers can also take action to clean safely at home. EWG’s tips can help.

Schools can act on their own to adopt green cleaning practices, of course, and a number have done that, in California and elsewhere. Some measures are cost-free: for instance, schools should be cleaned only when students are out of the building.

Finally, manufacturers could voluntarily disclose all ingredients on their product labels and eliminate all that have known risks to health.

But we’re not holding our breath.

Posted in Featured Articles | Tagged green cleaners, green cleaning, healthy schools, school cleaning supplies | 5 Comments

New Studies Link Cell Phone Radiation, Tumors

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Elaine Shannon

Two new international studies implicating cell phone in some forms of brain tumors are deepening scientists’ worries about the long-term consequences of human exposure to cell phone radiation, especially among children and heavy cell phone users.

An Australian-European research team reported in the September 2009 issue of Surgical Neurology that using a cell phone for a decade “approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with a brain tumor on the same (“ipsilateral”) side of the head as that preferred for cell phone use.”
U.S. and South Korean scientists, evaluating data from 23 worldwide studies in the October 2009 Journal of Clinical Oncology, cited “evidence linking mobile phone use to an increased risk of brain tumors, especially among users of 10 or more years.”

“Academic studies with data over 10 years are consistently finding an increased risk of tumors, exactly as we have reported,” said Environmental Working Group Senior Scientist Olga Naidenko, Ph.D..

EWG study echoed

Naidenko, lead author of EWG’s September 2009 report, Cell Phone Radiation: Science Review on Cancer Risks and Children\’s Health, says both new studies bolster EWG findings that over the long term, people should take steps to minimize exposure to cell phone emissions, especially their children’s use of the devices.

“Now that four-fifths of the American population are using cell phones,\” Naidenko said, \”the U.S. government should take a hard look at these findings and update its last-century standards.”

Industry studies found lower risks

Joel Moskowitz, Ph.D., director of the University of California-Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health, and an author of the U.S.-South Korean analysis, said he and his colleagues had observed a “very disconcerting” pattern: “a large discrepancy” between rigorously-designed studies, generally those conducted by financially independent research institutions and “low-quality” studies funded mostly by the cell phone industry.

Industry-financed studies, Moskowitz said, tended to conclude that cell phone use was harmless, or actually beneficial. “It almost seems like they’ve stacked the deck to not find an effect” from cell phone radiation, Moskowitz told Environmental Working Group in an interview last week.

The industry-backed studies “do find some inflated risks in terms of long term users,” Moskowitz said, “but they dismiss [these findings] as not significant.”

By contrast, he said, “the higher quality studies have produced “very systematic and consistent evidence that there are [health] effects, and they see stronger effects where you’d most expect to see them — with longer exposure and on the same side of the brain where the phone is used.”

Conflicts of interest questioned

Because of reservations about potential conflicts of interest, the team, led by researcher-physician Seung-Kwon Myung of the South Korean National Cancer Center, who conducted the initial research while a visiting scholar at U.C.-Berkeley, took the unusual step of analyzing studies according to financial backing. “We feel the need to mention the funding sources for each research group,” the research paper noted, “because it is possible that these may have influenced the respective study designs and results.”

Scientists urge global cell phone regulation reviews

The Australian-European study, led by Vini Khurana, Ph.D., of the Canberra Hospital Department of Neurosurgery and the Australian National University, reviewed 11 international studies of epidemiological data concerning long-term cell phone users. The scientists found significant associations between glioma, an often malignant brain tumor and acoustic neuroma, a usually benign tumor, but not another generally benign brain tumor called a meningioma.

Although more study should be done, the scientists said, enough is known about the dangers of cell phone radiation to warrant “reassessment by governments worldwide of cell phone and also mast radiation exposure standards and the usage and deployment of this technology.” They added:

“If the epidemiologic data continue to be confirmed, then in the absence of appropriate
and timely intervention and given the increasing global dependence on cell phone technology especially among the young generation, it is likely that neurosurgeons will see increasing numbers of primary brain tumors, both benign and malignant.”

Cautions for youthful cell phone

Moskowitz agreed. “You certainly don’t want to be exposing your adolescents, children or babies to unnecessary risks when there are simple things you can do to protect them,” he said.

He advocated encouraging young cell users to send text-messages, because holding a phone 10 inches from the head reduces radiation exposure by a factor of 400. As well, he said, children and adults alike should not keep their phones in pants pockets or in belt holsters because the devices are emitting radiation whenever they’re switched on.

None of this is the last word on cell phone radiation. Other studies are in the works, including a nine-year, multi-national research project under the aegis of the World Health Organization and a series of studies backed by the U.S. government\’s National Toxicology Program. Many more academic and government studies are underway. There\’s no guarantee that any of these efforts will provide definitive answers.

So in the meantime, consumers are smart to take sensible, practical precautions, for themselves, and especially for their children.

Posted in Featured Articles, Regulators | Tagged cell phone radiation, children's health | 9 Comments

Trick or treat? How about lead instead.

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Alex Formuzis

Laboratory tests commissioned by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) have found lead, a potent neurotoxin, in 100 percent of 10 popular children’s face paints. The amounts were low – but, as CSC points out, there’s no safe level of lead exposure, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends protecting children from it.

The Campaign’s tests also found 6 of 10 face paints contaminated with nickel, cobalt or chromium, known skin allergens.

Of course, the timing of this report wasn’t an accident. Three days from now, on Halloween, millions of small trick-or-treaters will roam their neighborhoods with painted faces. Those who wear face paints will be exposed to toxic substances as a result of lax federal safety standards for the cosmetics industry.

Not the trick they and their parents should expect.

The personal care and cosmetics industries have been allowed to load up their products with almost any chemical ingredient they wish without first testing for safety. As a result, every day, people of all ages are slathering on all sorts of stuff laced with hazardous materials.

You can read the entire study here: Pretty Scary: Heavy Metals in Face Paints

Posted in Cosmetic chemicals, Featured Articles, Pollution in People | 3 Comments

Curbing the Erin Brockovich Chemical

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Elaine Shannon

Back in 1991, a young paralegal poking around in some real estate files noticed a peculiar concentration of cancer in tiny Hinkley, CA.

The rest was almost history.

Erin Brockovich’s find led to Pacific Gas and Electric Company, whose compressor station, California state investigators determined , had polluted the soil and groundwater with millions of gallons of wastewater contaminated with toxic hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6. In 1996, the giant utility settled with 600 Hinkley residents for $333 million, a U.S. record.

But moviegoers who watched Julia Roberts’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Brockovich’s triumph might be surprised to learn that California authorities are only now getting around to setting a “safe” maximum for chromium-6 in tap water, estimated to affect 20 million to 33 million Californians. On Oct. 19, state officials set up shop in Oakland to hear Bay area citizens voice their views.

Front and center were Environmental Working Group and other environmentalists, including Brockovich.

“Wow, it\’s been 18 years since I started working to fight this poison, and we\’re finally looking at trying to set standards,\” Brockovich said, according to The Oakland Tribune. \”It\’s high time we had stricter standards, better regulation and definitely more enforcement.\”

Renee Sharp, director of EWG’s California office, told a press conference that a major reason for the long delay was “industry skullduggery.” A 2005 EWG investigation, entitled Chrome-Plated Fraud, documented how a consulting firm in the pay of Pacific Gas and Electric had distorted a key study to minimize the danger of chromium-6 contamination in food and water. The altered study influenced a blue-ribbon panel to advise California authorities against attempting to regulate chromium-6 in tap water.

After EWG exposed the consultant’s actions and conflicts of interest, California officials reopened the issue, culminating last August in a proposed safety goal for chromium-6 of .06 parts per billion in drinking water. Once the goal is established, regulators plan to embark on a rule-making process to set a legally enforceable upper limit for chromium-6 in the state’s water supply.

Sharp said the new goal, if translated into a legal cap, should afford Californians far more protection than the current state limit of 50 parts per billion total chromium in drinking water and also the federal safe drinking water rule of 100 parts per billion total chromium.

EWG contends that regulating total chromium fails to distinguish between dangerous chromium-6 compounds, which the U.S. government lists as known human carcinogens when inhaled, and less toxic forms of chromium , including chromium-3, a trace mineral considered essential for health. Both human and animal research, including a definitive 2007 study by the National Toxicology Program , links chromium-6 in drinking water to cancer

“Chromium-6 in drinking water is a carcinogen and should be specifically regulated,” Sharp said. “Right now, it’s really not. The state and federal standards are way out of date and not nearly strong enough to protect public health.”

Sharp said EWG would like to see the proposed safety goal lowered to reflect new state guidelines that call for more rigorous assessment of early life exposures to suspected carcinogens. “Otherwise, the special risks to California’s children won’t be adequately addressed,” Sharp said. She also noted that some scientists suggest a lower chromium-6 cap is needed to protect adults with compromised health

But for the present, she said, California deserves environmentalists’ support as the first state to move toward regulating chromium-6 pollution in drinking water.

Photo: Renee Sharp, EWG, and Erin Brockovich

Posted in Featured Articles, State and Local | Tagged chemical policy reform, chromium-6, erin brokavich, pacific gas and electric company, pg&e, safe drinking water | Leave a comment

A Historic Conference: The Future of U.S. Chemicals Policy

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Colleen Hutchings

More than 150 representatives of industry, government, academia and the environmental community voiced a broad consensus this week that the time has come for comprehensive reform of the outdated federal law created to ensure that Americans’ health is not threatened by the thousands of chemicals they encounter in daily life. Click here to read the rest of EWG\’s wrap-up.

Highlights from The Future of U.S. Chemicals Policy

Conference Multimedia Resources
Click here to watch The Future of U.S. Chemicals Policy in full.
Click to watch all of EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson\’s speech.
Click here to see a slide show of this historic conference.

Read reactions from EWG staff
Key stakeholders share ideas about TSCA reform
The morning session of today’s historic conference exploring routes to federal chemical policy reform made clear that there is now a strong consensus among key stakeholders – industry, the EPA and the White House, the environmental health community – on the need to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Thanks to today’s event, we now have the pleasure of discussing them.Click here to read the rest of the morning wrap-up.

You can help us keep reform moving forward!
Help us keep the pressure on Congress to reform TSCA. Sign our Declaration today to tell your Represenatives that you think children being born prepolluted is morally wrong. Click here to add your voice today.

Posted in Legislation | Tagged American Chemistry Council, BPA, Cal Dooley, Environmental Working Group, EPA, Ewg, Kid Safe Chemical Act, Lisa Jackson, TSCA, TSCA reform | 12 Comments

EWG Conference Finds Broad Consensus on Toxic Chemicals Reform

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Nils Bruzelius

In the course of a daylong conference that participants repeatedly described as “historic,” a diverse group that has frequently had difficulty in finding common ground agreed that the 33-year old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is failing to do the job for either industry or the public. None minimized the challenge that lies ahead in reaching agreement on specifics, but most said the surprising degree of agreement on basic principles has created a powerful momentum for early action in Congress to update the law, potentially in the current term.

The session was highlighted by a morning speech by Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who one week earlier had released her agency’s own list of six principles it will follow in working with Congress to rewrite the law.

“We’re at a transformative moment,” Jackson said. Acknowledging “there are differences of opinion,” she added, “I salute you for getting together in the room to talk about it.”

Strange Bedfellows
“Talk about strange bedfellows,” said Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), as he looked around the room at the opening session. Like others who spoke during five panel discussions over the course of nine hours, Cook called the session unprecedented and congratulated all sides for their willingness to come together. EWG co-sponsored the session, held at the gleaming conference center of the Pew Charitable Trusts, in collaboration with the Pew Health Group and eight other environmental and industry groups.

“This is too important an issue for us not to take some risks,” Cook told the participants. “We cannot afford not to do this.”

Speaking for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, President and CEO Pam Bailey agreed that “this is really an historic opportunity. We are doing what we should be doing. This is the first step, but not the last step.”

And Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council, said “the only way we’re going to be successful is for a broad set of interests to come together” to present Congress with a comprehensive reform proposal.

Paying attention to children
Among the many broad points of agreement was the need to create risk-based standards for evaluating chemical risks that specifically take into account the greater vulnerability of children and other groups who may be affected by levels of toxic substances that pose little or no threat to adults. In her speech, EPA’s Jackson referred to studies conducted by EWG that detected up to 287 industrial chemicals in umbilical cord blood that nourishes unborn children.

Other key principles on which many speakers agreed included: the importance for assessing both existing and new chemicals based on both hazard and exposure data; the importance of focusing efforts first on substances judged to pose the greatest risk; the need for industry to provide regulators with more information about its products; and EPA’s lack of adequate staff and funding to properly evaluate the data.

EWG senior vice president for policy and communications Richard Wiles noted that in 2008, tens of millions of dollars were spent on studying levels of chemicals in human adults, fish and dirt, but “no dollars” were spent on testing children under age six. Jane Houlihan, EWG’s senior vice president for research, noted that a new chemical is synthesized every 2.6 seconds and the EPA approves two a day without adequate evaluation, particularly of the risks of low-dose, long-term exposure.

Prospects for action
During a late-day session on the prospects for updating the federal law, three of four panelists voiced optimism that the current Congress would be able to act on a consensus chemicals safety bill despite the pressures of pending health care and climate change legislation.

“A healthy chemical industry needs a regulatory structure that is effective and builds public confidence that the public’s health and individual health is protected,” said Neil C. Hawkins, Dow Chemical Co.’s vice president for sustainability and environmental health and safety.

“When you talk about children’s health, when you talk about pollution in people, this issue has entered the mainstream. People are concerned. This issue is a winner politically,” said Heather White, EWG’s chief of staff and general counsel. “In principle we’re very much aligned. The policy differences we can hammer out.”

Anne Rolfes, president of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental justice group that works with communities neighboring that state’s oil refineries and chemical plants, said, “It is good to talk to people who have different views. A lot of times we don’t get into the room or the conversation doesn’t keep going. These happen to be great times when a conversation can happen. I hope that can continue.” Last October Anne was recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a Community Health Leader.

“The time has come to fix this law that ought to have been fixed a long time ago,” said EWG President Cook as he summarized the day’s discussions.

The other conference sponsors were Rachel’s Network, Community Against Pollution, The Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the American Chemistry Council, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the Turner Foundation, the Soap and Detergent Association and the Consumer Specialty Products Association.

To watch the conference webcast, click here.

Posted in Featured Articles | Tagged Cal Dooley, EPA, Future of US CHemicals Policy, Kid Safe Chemicals Act, Lisa Jackson, Toxics, TSCA reform | 2 Comments

Key stakeholders share ideas about TSCA reform

Posted on October 6, 2009 by Lisa Frack, EWG

The morning session of today’s historic conference exploring routes to federal chemical policy reform made clear that there is now a strong consensus among key stakeholders – industry, the EPA and the White House, the environmental health community – on the need to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Thanks to today\’s event, we now have the pleasure of discussing them.

Historic consensus to reform TSCA

A stakeholder consensus to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is now in place. There is agreement that EPA should have greater authority to assess chemicals before they hit the market. A sincere will to sort out policy differences both to boost consumer confidence and protect public health now exists. Stakeholders come to this position for different reasons and from different angles, but we’re there, sharing a commitment to reform that can take us from today all the way to a new law.

There is an upbeat feeling in the room this morning about working together to modernize TSCA – quickly. As Cal Dooley, President & CEO of the American Chemistry Council, aptly described, the goal of this important conversation is to bring stakeholders with diverse perspectives down from the 30,000-feet view of TSCA reform – where there’s much consensus (modernize it!) – to 10,000 feet, then 5,000, 1,000, then ultimately in sight of the air strip.

Of course, the last 10 feet can be the most critical part of any landing, and there are some significant differences to tease out before we reach the ground. But, importantly, the sincere will is there and the necessary stakeholders are ready for this much-needed descent to consensus.

And now for those devilish details…

Once aboard this historic flight, we got down to the work we came together to do: defining our areas of agreement, sorting out our differences, and thinking of ways to move the reform process forward. One main commonality is the drive to serve consumers. Industry is driven by the need to restore consumer confidence in its products, which it knows has been seriously eroded. Environmental health advocates, too, are driven by the interests of consumers, though their goal is to protect their environmental health rather than to boost their confidence in government and industry.

Important discussion points arose during the audience Q & A sessions that are likely to be on the reform coalition’s “to do” list:

How labeling requirements will take shape under TSCA reform.
How the use of Confidential Business Information (CBI) claims will be monitored and abuses prevented so that claims are used only when legitimately needed to protect industry innovation.
How bio-monitoring can best be used as a tool to prioritize chemicals for regulation.
How industry-funded data will be substantiated so that the information will be accepted by all stakeholders.
How multiple chemical exposures will be measured and assessed.
Determine what use & exposure data industry – both chemical and product manufacturers - already has that can be used to inform EPA’s chemical safety assessments.
Define what constitutes a data gap, versus a data need, for evaluating chemical safety.

Presenting the presenters

This morning, we heard from EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson (right), who shared her agency’s important new emphasis on TSCA reform, and two panels with nine experts from a variety of stakeholders:

Panel 1: Chemicals policy for the 21st century

Suzie Canales, President, Citizens for Environmental Justice (participant in EWG’s 2009 body burden analysis)
Pamela Bailey, President and CEO, Grocery Manufacturers Association
Cal Dooley, CEO, American Chemistry Council
Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group
Peter deFur, Virginia Commonwealth University, Center for Environmental Studies
Chris Cathcart, President and CEO, Consumer Products Specialty Association
Moderated by Erik Olson, Director of Food & Consumer Product Safety, Pew Health Group

Panel 2: Providing adequate information on hazard, exposure, and use

Leo Trasande, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Mt. Sinai Medical Center
Tom Zoeller, Professor of Biology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Mary Marrero, Regulatory Affairs Manager, Proctor & Gamble
Richard Sedlak, Senior Vice President, Technical and International, Soap and detergent Association
Moderated by David Baker, Community Against Pollution

The next live post from this conference will cover our afternoon panels:

Panel 3 – Prioritizing EPA review of chemicals,
Panel 4 – Modernizing the TSCA safety standard, and
Panel 5 – The policy outlook.

Today is the first conversation in this collective stakeholder process, but certainly not the last. To continue the apt airplane metaphor introduced by ACC President Cal Dooley, each conversation will bring us closer to the landing strip – even if by just a few hundred feet each time.

Catch the conference live, it\’s almost as good as being here.

Posted in House status, Legislation, Senate status | Tagged American Chemistry Council, Cal Dooley, endocirne disruptors, EPA, Ewg, ken cook, Lisa Jackson, modernize tsca, toxic substances control act, tsca modernization | 3 Comments

The Future of U.S. Chemicals Policy Conference Webcast

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Dean

Click here to read the Conference Speaker Bios.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Beginning of the (long overdue) end for federal toxics program?

Posted on October 2, 2009 by Alex Formuzis

What happened this week in San Francisco was nothing less than historic.

Lisa Jackson, EPA’s chief and the president’s point-person on environmental policy, began something that should have happened 33 years ago: drive a stake into the heart of the horrendous federal chemicals regulatory program that has left an entire population polluted, beginning in the womb.

EPA plans to modernize the nation\’s chemicals policy

Jackson laid out EPA’s plan to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) with more rigorous testing and safety standards and greater EPA authority to protect the public from the dangers of toxic chemical exposure. The Obama administration’s “principles” for reform are:

Chemicals should be reviewed against risk-based safety standards based on sound science and protective of human health and the environment.
Manufacturers should provide EPA with the necessary information to conclude that new and existing chemicals are safe and do not endanger public health or the environment.
EPA should have clear authority to take risk management actions when chemicals do not meet the safety standard, with flexibility to take into account sensitive subpopulations, costs, social benefits, equity and other relevant considerations.
Manufacturers and EPA should assess and act on priority chemicals, both existing and new, in a timely manner.
Green Chemistry should be encouraged and provisions assuring Transparency and Public Access to Information should be strengthened.
EPA should be given a sustained source of funding for implementation.

The importance of bio-moniotoring

During a conference call this week with environmental and public health groups and industry representatives, Jackson spent considerable time discussing the importance of bio-monitoring as an effective tool to identify which chemicals should be reviewed first, since some are substantially more toxic to human health than others.

Later in the day, in a speech at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, Jackson cited an EWG study conducted in 2005 that found hundreds of industrial chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of 10 babies born in the United States. She noted:

A 2005 study found 287 different chemicals in the cord blood of 10 newborn babies – chemicals from pesticides, fast food packaging, coal and gasoline emissions, and trash incineration.

The Administration\’s new “principles” embrace positions long advocated by environmentalists, including EWG, federal and state lawmakers who back TSCA reform, and for the first time ever, the chemical industry, which has laid out its own principles for modernizing TSCA. Cal Dooley, President and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, said:

The chemical industry is committed to the safety of our products. Any effort to modernize our nation’s chemical management system must start with consumer safety as its highest priority. Current law is more than 30-years old and the law must be updated to keep pace with science.

EPA calls for a changing burden of proof

Perhaps the most important element in the new Obama/Jackson vision for a modern chemical review process is the call to reverse the law’s assumption that a chemical is safe for human and environmental exposure unless proven otherwise. Currently, the burden of proof falls on EPA to show that a chemical is unsafe, and it can do so only after the chemical has been introduced into use.

As a result, it has been been virtually impossible for the agency to ban or even restrict the use of any chemical. Even asbestos, the deadly material that causes serious disease in roughly 10,000 Americans every year, has escaped federal regulation. Administrator Jackson described it well:

As with existing chemicals, the burden of proof falls on EPA. Manufacturers aren’t required to show that sufficient data exist to fully assess a chemical’s risks. If EPA has adequate data and wants to protect the public against known risks, the law creates obstacles to quick and effective action.

Since 1976, EPA has issued regulations to control only five existing chemicals determined to present an unreasonable risk. Five from a total universe of almost 80,000 existing chemicals. In 1989, after years of study, EPA issued rules phasing out most uses of asbestos, an exhaustively studied substance that has taken an enormous toll on the health of Americans. Yet, a court overturned EPA’s rules because it had failed to clear the many hurdles for action under TSCA.

The beginning of a new era

Jackson’s announcement signals the beginning of new era of toxics policy in America and will continue to build momentum for Congressional efforts to reform the federal toxics program. For the past three Congresses, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Congressman Henry Waxman (D- CA, 30th) have been the champions of toxics reform with their legislation, “The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act.” Congressman Bobby L. Rush (D- IL, 1st) is expected to lead the efforts on toxics reform in the House in this Congress.

What a difference new leadership at EPA has made. In April, 2008, a top EPA official testified on toxics reform before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. This is what Jim Gulliford, then-Assistant EPA Administrator for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, had to say:

Overall, I believe that TSCA provides broad authority for the Agency to adequately control new and existing chemicals and to address emerging chemical issues as they arise.

I believe that TSCA provides EPA with the statutory tools necessary to protect public health and environment.

Next week, as the effort to reform and modernize federal regulation of toxic chemicals gets underway, environmentalists, public health advocates, chemical industry leaders and Lisa Jackson will convene an historic conference to discuss what a new federal chemicals policy should look like. It should be a lively, frank debate and one I’m looking forward to.

Posted in EPA | Tagged commonwealth club, EPA, Lisa Jackson, toxic substances control act, TSCA | Leave a comment

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