In the 40 years between enactment of the original Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1976 and its 2016 amendments, EPA regulated less than 1% of the existing chemicals on the market. EPA was even unable to ban cancer-causing chemicals like asbestos, part of the reason Congress updated TSCA to make it easier for regulators … Continue reading EPA’s failure to properly implement TSCA puts lives at risk
Six years have passed since Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), yet EPA still does not have an appropriate method for conducting systematic reviews of chemical risks - the method by which EPA evaluates potential health harms - which is critical to protecting the public’s health. This is the clear conclusion taken from … Continue reading EPA must improve its TSCA systematic review method, scientific review says again
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. BPA is one of many harmful chemicals in … Continue reading Decades of research document the detrimental health effects of BPA – an expert on environmental pollution and maternal health explains what it all means
In the recent ProPublica article, “She’s Supposed to Protect Americans from Toxic Chemicals. First, She Has to Fix Trump’s Mess and Decades of Neglect,” Dr. Michal Freedhoff, PhD, EPA’s head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) said: “You can’t ask companies to spend a bunch of money producing data that already … Continue reading EPA can require chemical companies to provide data on PFAS risks. Why isn’t it?
One of the key issues that the scientific community, EPA’s own Scientific Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC), and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) had with EPA’s original systematic review method (TSCA Method) to evaluate chemical risks under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), was how EPA evaluated the quality of the … Continue reading Where did all the evidence go?
When reviewing long, technical EPA science documents it helps to have an idea of what to look for. If you begin on page 1 and read everything in order, you may never get to some of the most critical content. The buried details can ultimately determine whether EPA’s actions will protect people’s health or leave … Continue reading EPA needs to fix its rules for identifying health effects under TSCA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to use methods “consistent with the best available science" to evaluate scientific evidence on chemical health risks. These methods are critical because they shape EPA’s decision-making on chemicals evaluated under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which has profound implications for public health. In 2018, EPA released its … Continue reading “I swear I’ve changed” – US EPA
Exposures to industrial chemicals and their health consequences remain a preventable source of occupational disease, with workers suffering more than 190,000 illnesses and 50,000 deaths annually related to chemical exposures, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). However, the occupational health community has not yet fully engaged with implementation of an important … Continue reading Occupational health professionals key to TSCA protections
They may be called forever chemicals because they can stay in your body for years, but we don’t have forever to enact health protective decisions on PFAS (per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances). This is especially true given the large body of scientific evidence on prenatal exposures to PFAS and effects on fetal growth that the … Continue reading EPA uses systematic reviews to guide new PFAS drinking water standards
Last week, the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) said EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Assessments "can serve as a model for other EPA programs that are implementing systematic review methods.” We commend the IRIS program and urge EPA to use the IRIS method across every office that conducts chemical evaluations so that we can … Continue reading National Academies of Sciences: EPA should follow IRIS lead
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