Systematic review specialists say a recent peer-review of EPA’s draft TSCA model for applying that tool to risk evaluations shows the agency still has not acted on what they say is repeated advice from expert panels for fundamental changes to its approach, spurring “frustration” with a process they say is slowing chemical rules crucial to protecting public health.
Last month the Federal Drug Administration announced it would reconsider the safety of the chemical bisphenol-a (BPA), which is commonly found in food packaging and that California has already deemed toxic to reproductive health.
A top EPA official says the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will take “a year-ish” to complete its peer review report on the draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde, further delaying release of a final assessment and narrowing the window even more for including it in a TSCA evaluation of the chemical. Speaking at a July 13 session of the Toxicology Forum’s summer meeting in Arlington, VA, EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD)’s Chemical and Pollutant...
An influential academic program is criticizing key aspects of EPA’s new draft risk assessment of formaldehyde, echoing industry claims that the agency has not fully engaged with the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) past recommendations and unduly limited public input, but also environmentalists’ argument that the new review understates leukemia risks. In recently released comments on the draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) formaldehyde assessment, scientists associated with the University of California-San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment...
Whether or not you’ve heard of the chemical bisphenol A, better known as BPA, studies show that it’s almost certainly in your body. BPA is used in the manufacturing of products like plastic water bottles, baby bottles, toys and food packaging, including in the lining of cans.
Episode 128: Toxic substances/pollutants are materials contaminating the environment that cause death, disease and/or birth defects in the organisms that ingest or absorb them. The quantities and length of exposure necessary to cause these effects can vary widely.
Companies claim there’s bad stuff in our homes and bodies, and we should pay to purge it. What’s worth worrying over?
New research finds widespread chemical exposure in the modern world. A recent U.S. study of 171 pregnant women found more than 9-in-10 had potentially harmful chemicals in their bodies. While exact health effects are unknown, researchers worry such exposures could be harmful and driving up rates of human disease and developmental disorders. Meanwhile, another report found air and water pollution now causes 1-in-6 deaths worldwide. Experts say it's a crisis akin to climate change and needs new global solutions.
The number of deaths world-wide caused by industrial pollution, including from chemicals and the burning of fossil fuels, rose between 2015 and 2019 even as the toll exacted by household pollutants and unsafe drinking water fell, new research shows.
For years, researchers have warned that chemical pollutants tied to fossil fuels have become so pervasive that they would be impossible for anyone to avoid. A study released earlier this week may be the first indication of how widely some chemicals have spread. Researchers found multiple classes of potentially harmful chemicals where they’ve never been measured before: in the bodies of pregnant women.
Exposure to potentially harmful chemicals is on the rise among pregnant women in the United States, a new study warns.
A national study looking at women who were pregnant in the last 12 years found that exposure to chemicals from plastics and pesticides has increased over time, even as some compounds have been banned.
Three former EPA officials are renewing calls for the agency to use TSCA authority to order Chemours to conduct new toxicity testing of dozens of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pushing back on claims from EPA’s chemicals chief that the data “already exist” even as they sue over the agency’s failure to order the tests.
A strategy the EPA is using to decide what scientific data it will use to decide whether a chemical’s potential to harm people or the environment is so great it must be regulated could ignore potential harms, academic scientists and an environmental group said Tuesday.
A few days after the inauguration of President Joe Biden, Michal Freedhoff settled into her cramped home office in a suburb of Washington, D.C., to get to work as the nation’s new top chemical regulator.