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News Coverage

EPA To Release Edited Report On Flame Retardant, Group Says

Greenwire, Russell J. Dinnage
Published February 29, 2008

U.S. EPA will likely release an edited report at the end of this month on health risks posed by a controversial flame retardant, a Washington-based advocacy group said yesterday. The Environmental Working Group said EPA would replace an assessment of the chemical, deca-BDE, it released last February with a report that removes comments from the former chairwoman of the assessment panel, toxicologist Deborah Rice of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The group says EPA fired Rice after the American Chemistry Council accused her of being "biased" in a May 3, 2007, letter because she recommended phasing out the chemical in a Maine legislative hearing last year. Deca belongs to a family of flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers. Two others -- penta-BDE and octa-BDE -- have largely been phased out worldwide. Environmentalists say deca can leach into groundwater and soil, enter the food chain and be absorbed by humans. Rice's panel reviewed health risks associated with deca-BDE exposure for EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a database of toxicity values for chemicals that the agency uses for regulatory purposes. EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment administers IRIS and is responsible for assembling unbiased advisory panels to assess available scientific literature and then assign toxicity values to chemicals. The environmental group's executive director, Richard Wiles, said his organization has identified 17 IRIS advisory panel members who have conflicts of interest associated with substances they are assessing. Wiles said Rice's removal shows an EPA double standard on chemicals. "It's obvious that if you have a bias, that doesn't disqualify you from being involved in one of these panels," Wiles said. "But if you raise concerns about the risks a chemical might pose that does disqualify you from involvement. "That's worse than a double standard," Wiles added. "EPA is kicking people off these panels if their views are protective of public health." Studies misrepresented While largely avoiding controversy, the unedited deca-BDE report includes Rice's comments about research on the chemical being misrepresented by the agency in the packet of studies that her panel reviewed. "The documents do not adequately present the potential for metabolism of [flame retardant chemicals] to lower-brominated compounds that are also toxic," Rice wrote in a section that the environmental group says EPA is removing from the final document. "This is especially relevant for [deca-BDE], which is metabolized (and degraded in the environment) into toxic [sub-chemicals]." Rice said today that she has never held an anti deca-BDE stance in any of her research, nor purposefully drawn conclusions in studies she has conducted on the chemical to suggest that it has negative human health effects. "Members of the Maine Legislature asked me to review and assemble research on the human health effects of deca-BDE and I did just that," she said. "I did my job." Rice also confirmed that, last year, EPA informed her that she was no longer going to serve as chairwoman of the panel reviewing the chemical and that all of her comments in the final report on the chemical originally set for release in February 2007 were being removed. She added this effectively ended her tenure on the panel. EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said that the agency will likely release the report on the human health effects of deca-BDE at the end of next month, but that its release might be delayed even longer "due to discussions with ACC." The American Chemistry Council expressed concern in its letter to EPA's assistant administrator for research, George Gray, "about both the composition of and process for forming the agency's external peer review panel, especially by the appearance that the peer review panel's leadership might lack the impartiality and objectivity necessary to conduct a fair and impartial review of the data." The council also wrote that a key study reviewed by the panel "fails to meet the agency's standards for accurate and reliable data." It asked Gray to "personally review [its] concerns and take appropriate actions before the draft Toxicological Review [for deca-BDE] is issued in final form." "The importance of the IRIS Review cannot be underestimated because the IRIS data base is relied upon by various EPA offices and numerous other bodies, including federal and state regulatory agencies; thus, it is imperative that the IRIS reassessment be based upon credible information," the council's products division vice president, Sharon Kneiss, wrote. While not mentioning Rice's name, the council said there were "genuine 'appearance' issues ... relating to independence and objectivity of the peer review panel chairperson." "Earlier this year, the chairperson testified before the Maine Legislature, on behalf of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, specifically advocating that the state mandate a phase out of deca-BDE," the letter says. "EPA staff had to know or should have known that the chairperson has been a fervent advocate of banning deca-BDE -- the very sort of policy predisposition that has no place in an independent, objective peer review." The chemical industry trade group did not return calls requesting comment on its letter to EPA. In June 2007, Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D) banned the use of deca-BDE in consumer goods such as furniture, bedding materials and electronics making Maine the second state, behind Washington, to ban the chemical. Deca-BDE bans are also being considered in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Montana and New York (E&ENews PM , June 14, 2007).
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