Washington, D.C. – 10/26/2014 - Officials with the Environmental Working Group said on October 15 that they were “deeply disappointed” that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had decided to approve a toxic weed killer known as Enlist Duo, despite overwhelming opposition from the scientific and public health community.
Enlist Duo, manufactured by Dow AgroSciences, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company, is a toxic combination of the herbicide 2,4-D and glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. The EPA’s decision means Dow can sell Enlist Duo in conjunction with its new genetically engineered products, 2,4-D-tolerant corn and soybean seeds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved Dow’s application to market these seeds.
Dow has announced plans to start marketing Enlist Duo in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
“The EPA ignored science pointing to the serious health risks – especially to children – associated with 2,4-D,” said Mary Ellen Kustin, EWG’s senior policy analyst. “Giving a chemical company the green light to bring a known harmful weed killer to market for use on millions of acres of crops puts public health and the environment in danger.”
Last summer, 35 doctors and scientists warned the EPA against expanding the use of 2,4-D, highlighting links between pesticide exposure and health problems such as suppressed immune function and greater risk of Parkinson’s disease. Later, 50 members of Congress asked EPA and USDA to reconsider their approval of the 2,4-D-tolerant seeds and weed killer.
The USDA estimates that use of 2,4-D will triple by 2020, compared to current usage. EWG research shows that more than 480 elementary schools nationwide are within 200 feet of corn and soybean fields that could be sprayed with 2,4-D.
“Children who are most vulnerable and susceptible to these toxic weed killers will have an increased risk of being exposed to a defoliant linked to cancer and Parkinson’s disease,” added Kustin.
In addition to toxicity concerns, increasing the use of weed killers could further escalate the evolution of “superweeds” resistant to known herbicides.
“This continued arms race between chemical companies and superweeds is a threat to sustainable farming and public health,” added Kustin. “EPA’s decision to up the ante of Roundup by approving Enlist Duo is unconscionable.”
Source: Environmental Working Group
Showing posts with label chemicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chemicals. Show all posts
EWG Questions White House, EPA Over Decision
WASHINGTON, D.C. – 11/26/2013 - The Environmental Working Group has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to the White House to learn whether industry improperly influenced the government’s decision to drop two proposals to strengthen public health protections from toxic chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency withdrew the proposals in September after they had been bottled up at the White House Office of Management and Budget for more than a year.
“Once again red tape appears to have choked EPA efforts to enhance environmental and human health protections, forcing EPA to go back to the drawing board,” EWG’s General Counsel Thomas Cluderay said.
Under the leadership of former EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, the agency had launched two initiatives to protect the public from toxic chemical exposures, relying on its limited authority under the weak federal law known as the Toxic Substances Control Act. In 2010, EPA proposed a regulation to establish a short list of chemicals thought to pose a risk to public health. Then in 2011, the agency set out to require chemical companies to disclose more information about their products.
As required by law, EPA submitted the proposals to OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the White House’s powerful gatekeeper that oversees rulemaking by federal agencies. The proposed rules never cleared OMB, and on Sept. 6, EPA surprised the public interest groups by abandoning the effort. Officials said the rules had been made unnecessary by other steps EPA had taken and that requiring companies reveal the identity of chemicals in health and safety studies submitted to the agency would cause industry to stop providing its studies.
The public had no opportunity to weigh in on either initiative because they were never published for public comment, but White House records show that OMB met with a host of special interests to discuss the rules, particularly representatives of the chemical industry.
“The public deserves to know what hand the chemical industry had in pressuring OMB to hold up, and EPA to fold on, these efforts to protect public health,” Cluderay said. “EWG will use the requested records to answer that very question.”
EPA’s backpedaling is particularly relevant to the ongoing debate over reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act. The chemical industry is backing the proposed Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013, a deeply flawed bill that, among other defects, would expand companies’ ability to keep information about chemicals confidential.
Source: Environmental Working Group
“Once again red tape appears to have choked EPA efforts to enhance environmental and human health protections, forcing EPA to go back to the drawing board,” EWG’s General Counsel Thomas Cluderay said.
Under the leadership of former EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, the agency had launched two initiatives to protect the public from toxic chemical exposures, relying on its limited authority under the weak federal law known as the Toxic Substances Control Act. In 2010, EPA proposed a regulation to establish a short list of chemicals thought to pose a risk to public health. Then in 2011, the agency set out to require chemical companies to disclose more information about their products.
As required by law, EPA submitted the proposals to OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the White House’s powerful gatekeeper that oversees rulemaking by federal agencies. The proposed rules never cleared OMB, and on Sept. 6, EPA surprised the public interest groups by abandoning the effort. Officials said the rules had been made unnecessary by other steps EPA had taken and that requiring companies reveal the identity of chemicals in health and safety studies submitted to the agency would cause industry to stop providing its studies.
The public had no opportunity to weigh in on either initiative because they were never published for public comment, but White House records show that OMB met with a host of special interests to discuss the rules, particularly representatives of the chemical industry.
“The public deserves to know what hand the chemical industry had in pressuring OMB to hold up, and EPA to fold on, these efforts to protect public health,” Cluderay said. “EWG will use the requested records to answer that very question.”
EPA’s backpedaling is particularly relevant to the ongoing debate over reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act. The chemical industry is backing the proposed Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013, a deeply flawed bill that, among other defects, would expand companies’ ability to keep information about chemicals confidential.
Source: Environmental Working Group
Web Tool Expands Access to Info on Chemicals
“This online tool will improve access to chemical health and safety information, increase public dialogue and awareness, and help viewers choose safer ingredients used in everyday products,” said James Jones, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “The tool will make chemical information more readily available for chemical decision-makers and consumers.”
The ChemView web tool displays key health and safety data in an online format that allows comparison of chemicals by use and by health or environmental effects. The search tool combines available TSCA information and provides streamlined access to EPA assessments, hazard characterizations, and information on safer chemical ingredients. Additionally, the new web tool allows searches by chemical name or Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number, use, hazard effect, or regulatory action.
It has the flexibility to create tailored views of the information on individual chemicals or compare multiple chemicals sorted by use, hazard effect or other criteria. The new portal will also link to information on manufacturing, processing, use, and release data reported under the Chemical Data Reporting Rule, and the Toxics Release Inventory. In the months ahead, EPA will be continuously adding additional chemicals, functionality and links.
When fully updated, the web tool will contain data for thousands of chemicals. EPA has incorporated stakeholder input into the design, and welcomes feedback on the current site. By increasing health and safety information, as well as identifying safer chemical ingredients, manufacturers and retailers will have the information to better differentiate their products by using safer ingredients.
In 2010, EPA began a concerted effort to increase the availability of information on chemicals as part of a commitment to strengthen the existing chemicals program and improve access and usefulness of chemical data and information.
This included improving access to the TSCA inventory, issuing new policies for the review of confidential business information claims for health and safety studies, and launching the Chemical Data Access Tool.
This included improving access to the TSCA inventory, issuing new policies for the review of confidential business information claims for health and safety studies, and launching the Chemical Data Access Tool.
The recent launch of the ChemView provides the public with a single access point for information that has been generated on certain chemicals regulated under TSCA. View and search ChemView at: http://www.epa.gov/chemview
Source: U.S. EPA
EPA: Dry Cleaning Chemical is Likely Carcinogen
Washington, D.C. – 2/10/2012 - The federal Environmental Protection Agency has declared tetrachloroethylene, or PERC, a chemical used by many dry cleaners, a “likely human carcinogen.”
"The evidence against this ubiquitous dry cleaning chemical piled up for years, like dirty laundry in the corner of the room," said David Andrews, Ph.D., a senior scientist with Environmental Working Group. "It’s encouraging that EPA is completing this assessment so that health measures can be taken to protect workers and the public."
The EPA’s decision is based on the 2010 recommendation of the National Research Council, an independent scientific body that advises the federal government.
Tetrachloroethylene is a chlorinated solvent long used in dry cleaning, industrial cleaning and production of other chemicals and consumer products. Biomonitoring surveys have detected it in the bodies of a significant number of Americans. It has also been found in drinking water across the country including at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and at EPA Superfund hazardous waste sites.
Once in the environment, the chemical breaks down into other known human carcinogens, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and vinyl chloride.
Consumers should take their dry cleaning to businesses that do not use tetrachloroethylene. The substance can remain on clothes and evaporate into the air at home, unnecessarily exposing the residents.
EWG’s Tap Water Database can be searched to identify local tap water where tetrachloroethylene has been found.
"The evidence against this ubiquitous dry cleaning chemical piled up for years, like dirty laundry in the corner of the room," said David Andrews, Ph.D., a senior scientist with Environmental Working Group. "It’s encouraging that EPA is completing this assessment so that health measures can be taken to protect workers and the public."
The EPA’s decision is based on the 2010 recommendation of the National Research Council, an independent scientific body that advises the federal government.
Tetrachloroethylene is a chlorinated solvent long used in dry cleaning, industrial cleaning and production of other chemicals and consumer products. Biomonitoring surveys have detected it in the bodies of a significant number of Americans. It has also been found in drinking water across the country including at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and at EPA Superfund hazardous waste sites.
Once in the environment, the chemical breaks down into other known human carcinogens, including trichloroethylene (TCE) and vinyl chloride.
Consumers should take their dry cleaning to businesses that do not use tetrachloroethylene. The substance can remain on clothes and evaporate into the air at home, unnecessarily exposing the residents.
EWG’s Tap Water Database can be searched to identify local tap water where tetrachloroethylene has been found.
Source: Environmental Working Group.
New Robotic System to Screen 10,000 Chemicals
(NIH) - 12/13/2011 - A high-speed robotic screening system, aimed at protecting human health by improving how chemicals are tested in the United States, begins today to test 10,000 compounds for potential toxicity. The compounds cover a wide variety of classifications, and include consumer products, food additives, chemicals found in industrial processes, and human and veterinary drugs. A complete list of the compounds is publicly available at www.epa.gov/ncct/dsstox
Testing this 10,000 compound library begins a new phase of an ongoing collaboration between the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, referred to as Tox21. NIH partners include the National Toxicology Program (NTP), administered by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC), part of the NIH Center for Translational Therapeutics (NCTT), housed at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
“There has never been a compound library like this before,” NIEHS/NTP Director Linda Birnbaum said.
Birnbaum is especially excited that some of the compounds the NTP has brought forward for testing are mixtures of chemicals. “All of us are exposed to many different chemicals at the same time, not just one chemical at a time,” she said. “These new technologies allow us to more rapidly advance our understanding of not only individual chemicals, but mixtures of chemicals as well.”
A subset of the NTP portion of the 10,000 compound library will focus on pilot testing several formulations or mixtures of compounds, a priority area for NIEHS/NTP. The library constituents were selected after a thorough analysis of existing scientific studies, more than 200 public chemical databases, and chemical nominations received from internal and external partners. Each test compound will undergo a thorough chemical analysis to verify its identity and determine its purity, concentration, and stability.
The goal of the testing is to provide results that will be useful for evaluating if these chemicals have the potential to disrupt processes in the human body to an extent that leads to adverse health effects.
The compounds will be tested in the Tox21 robotic screening system at the NCGC in Rockville, Md. The Tox21 robot, unveiled earlier this year, was purchased with funds provided by the NTP as part of its contribution to the Tox21 partnership.
“The robot has undergone rigorous testing since it was installed and unveiled earlier this year. It’s ready to start testing this large compound library,” NHGRI Director Eric Green said. “This is a milestone for Tox21, because it will allow us to test chemicals at a rate previously impossible for anyone to do by hand.”
The development of methods for evaluating chemical toxicity has the potential to revolutionize the assessment of new environmental chemicals and the development of new drugs for therapeutic use.
“We are happy to contribute NCGC’s pharmaceutical collection of approximately 3,500 compounds of approved and investigational drugs as part of the Tox21 program,” NCTT Scientific Director Christopher Austin said. “Drug toxicity is one of the primary reasons that the development of new drugs fails and approved drugs are removed from the market, and the ability to better predict toxicity would improve the efficiency of drug development enormously.”
The EPA seeks to understand the molecular basis of such chemicals to better protect human health and that of the environment.
“The Tox21 partnership integrates revolutionary advances in molecular biology, chemistry, and computer science, to quickly and cost-effectively screen the thousands of chemicals in use today,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator of the EPA Office of Research and Development. “The innovative robotics screening technology will generate chemical toxicity data that EPA has never had before.”
The FDA, also a partner in Tox21, emphasizes the value of this effort for the public. “The Tox21 rapid assessment of drug toxicity can become a powerful safety tool for protecting the American public. It also has the potential to help bring innovative drugs to market by allowing drug developers to identify unsafe candidate drugs early,” said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
All testing results will be available to the public through NIH and EPA chemical toxicity databases. In addition, NCTT has created a Tox21 chemical inventory browser freely available at http://tripod.nih.gov/tox21chem to provide researchers with additional about the chemicals. For more information about Tox21, visithttp://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/assets/docs_p_z/ntp-tox21.pdf
The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on environmental health topics, visit www.niehs.nih.gov. Subscribe to one or more of the NIEHS news lists to stay current on NIEHS news, press releases, grant opportunities, training, events, and publications.
The NTP is an interagency program established in 1978. The program was created as a cooperative effort to coordinate toxicology testing programs within the federal government, strengthen the science base in toxicology, develop and validate improved testing methods, and provide information about potentially toxic chemicals to health, regulatory, and research agencies, scientific and medical communities, and the public.
Testing this 10,000 compound library begins a new phase of an ongoing collaboration between the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, referred to as Tox21. NIH partners include the National Toxicology Program (NTP), administered by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC), part of the NIH Center for Translational Therapeutics (NCTT), housed at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
“There has never been a compound library like this before,” NIEHS/NTP Director Linda Birnbaum said.
Birnbaum is especially excited that some of the compounds the NTP has brought forward for testing are mixtures of chemicals. “All of us are exposed to many different chemicals at the same time, not just one chemical at a time,” she said. “These new technologies allow us to more rapidly advance our understanding of not only individual chemicals, but mixtures of chemicals as well.”
A subset of the NTP portion of the 10,000 compound library will focus on pilot testing several formulations or mixtures of compounds, a priority area for NIEHS/NTP. The library constituents were selected after a thorough analysis of existing scientific studies, more than 200 public chemical databases, and chemical nominations received from internal and external partners. Each test compound will undergo a thorough chemical analysis to verify its identity and determine its purity, concentration, and stability.
The goal of the testing is to provide results that will be useful for evaluating if these chemicals have the potential to disrupt processes in the human body to an extent that leads to adverse health effects.
The compounds will be tested in the Tox21 robotic screening system at the NCGC in Rockville, Md. The Tox21 robot, unveiled earlier this year, was purchased with funds provided by the NTP as part of its contribution to the Tox21 partnership.
“The robot has undergone rigorous testing since it was installed and unveiled earlier this year. It’s ready to start testing this large compound library,” NHGRI Director Eric Green said. “This is a milestone for Tox21, because it will allow us to test chemicals at a rate previously impossible for anyone to do by hand.”
The development of methods for evaluating chemical toxicity has the potential to revolutionize the assessment of new environmental chemicals and the development of new drugs for therapeutic use.
“We are happy to contribute NCGC’s pharmaceutical collection of approximately 3,500 compounds of approved and investigational drugs as part of the Tox21 program,” NCTT Scientific Director Christopher Austin said. “Drug toxicity is one of the primary reasons that the development of new drugs fails and approved drugs are removed from the market, and the ability to better predict toxicity would improve the efficiency of drug development enormously.”
The EPA seeks to understand the molecular basis of such chemicals to better protect human health and that of the environment.
“The Tox21 partnership integrates revolutionary advances in molecular biology, chemistry, and computer science, to quickly and cost-effectively screen the thousands of chemicals in use today,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator of the EPA Office of Research and Development. “The innovative robotics screening technology will generate chemical toxicity data that EPA has never had before.”
The FDA, also a partner in Tox21, emphasizes the value of this effort for the public. “The Tox21 rapid assessment of drug toxicity can become a powerful safety tool for protecting the American public. It also has the potential to help bring innovative drugs to market by allowing drug developers to identify unsafe candidate drugs early,” said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
All testing results will be available to the public through NIH and EPA chemical toxicity databases. In addition, NCTT has created a Tox21 chemical inventory browser freely available at http://tripod.nih.gov/tox21chem to provide researchers with additional about the chemicals. For more information about Tox21, visithttp://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/assets/docs_p_z/ntp-tox21.pdf
The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on environmental health topics, visit www.niehs.nih.gov. Subscribe to one or more of the NIEHS news lists to stay current on NIEHS news, press releases, grant opportunities, training, events, and publications.
The NTP is an interagency program established in 1978. The program was created as a cooperative effort to coordinate toxicology testing programs within the federal government, strengthen the science base in toxicology, develop and validate improved testing methods, and provide information about potentially toxic chemicals to health, regulatory, and research agencies, scientific and medical communities, and the public.
The NTP is headquartered at the NIEHS. For more information about the NTP, visit http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov.
Source: National Institutes of Health release of December 7, 2011.
Cosmetic Industry Declares Formaldehyde Unsafe
(EWG) - Washington, D.C. (10/3/2011) - The mainstream cosmetics industry has, for the first time, declared formaldehyde unsafe at any level in hair straighteners.
Citing undisputed health risks, frequent consumer complaints and a lack of evidence of safety, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel, a scientific advisory board established by the major American cosmetics manufacturers, has effectively disavowed expensive salon products sold by a handful of small companies such as the Los Angeles maker of Brazilian Blowout.
The federal Food and Drug Administration has yet to bar formaldehyde from hair straighteners, even though the U.S. Department of Health and Human Safety has labeled it a known human carcinogen. However, last month the FDA issued a formal warning that publicly admonished Brazilian Blowout. The agency declared the company’s hair-smoother adulterated, because it contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde, and misbranded, because it claimed to be free of formaldehyde.
Last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with overseeing workplace safety, escalated its warning to hair salons and employees after investigators found that two popular brands of hair straighteners exposed salon workers to dangerous levels of formaldehyde. OSHA officials also instructed the manufacturer of Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution, one of the products that failed OSHA’s tests, to stop suggesting that OSHA tests had found its product safe. Brazilian Blowout’s hair-straightener, though labeled “formaldehyde free,” was found by OSHA to contain significant amounts of the chemical.
"Misleading or inadequate information on hazardous product labels is unacceptable," said OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels. "Salon owners and workers have the right to know the risks associated with the chemicals with which they work and how to protect themselves.
Though OSHA singled out Brazilian Blowout and Brasil Cacau Cadiveu, an investigation earlier this year by the Environmental Working Group uncovered 15 companies that claimed to use little to no formaldehyde, yet whose products contained substantial amounts of the chemical. As a result of its investigation, EWG urged the federal Food and Drug Administration to ban formaldehyde as an ingredient in hair straighteners.
The agency declined to do so, responding that it was “looking to [the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel] to get additional information … that we need to be able to take an action. Right now we are not there.”
It is unclear how the industry panel’s assertion that no level of formaldehyde can be considered safe will affect FDA’s decision-making on a possible ban.
An April 2011 survey by EWG found dozens of top salons still promoting formaldehyde-laced hair straighteners despite the mounting evidence of the risks to stylists and clients.
"The incentive to downplay mounting health concerns is substantial when you can charge several hundred dollars for a single treatment," said Thomas Cluderay of the Environmental Working Group. "Until regulators pull the plug on Brazilian Blowout, I think it's clear the company is prepared to do just about anything to peddle these products."
Source: Environmental Working Group release of 9/28/2011
Citing undisputed health risks, frequent consumer complaints and a lack of evidence of safety, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel, a scientific advisory board established by the major American cosmetics manufacturers, has effectively disavowed expensive salon products sold by a handful of small companies such as the Los Angeles maker of Brazilian Blowout.
The federal Food and Drug Administration has yet to bar formaldehyde from hair straighteners, even though the U.S. Department of Health and Human Safety has labeled it a known human carcinogen. However, last month the FDA issued a formal warning that publicly admonished Brazilian Blowout. The agency declared the company’s hair-smoother adulterated, because it contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde, and misbranded, because it claimed to be free of formaldehyde.
Last week, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with overseeing workplace safety, escalated its warning to hair salons and employees after investigators found that two popular brands of hair straighteners exposed salon workers to dangerous levels of formaldehyde. OSHA officials also instructed the manufacturer of Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution, one of the products that failed OSHA’s tests, to stop suggesting that OSHA tests had found its product safe. Brazilian Blowout’s hair-straightener, though labeled “formaldehyde free,” was found by OSHA to contain significant amounts of the chemical.
"Misleading or inadequate information on hazardous product labels is unacceptable," said OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels. "Salon owners and workers have the right to know the risks associated with the chemicals with which they work and how to protect themselves.
Though OSHA singled out Brazilian Blowout and Brasil Cacau Cadiveu, an investigation earlier this year by the Environmental Working Group uncovered 15 companies that claimed to use little to no formaldehyde, yet whose products contained substantial amounts of the chemical. As a result of its investigation, EWG urged the federal Food and Drug Administration to ban formaldehyde as an ingredient in hair straighteners.
The agency declined to do so, responding that it was “looking to [the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel] to get additional information … that we need to be able to take an action. Right now we are not there.”
It is unclear how the industry panel’s assertion that no level of formaldehyde can be considered safe will affect FDA’s decision-making on a possible ban.
An April 2011 survey by EWG found dozens of top salons still promoting formaldehyde-laced hair straighteners despite the mounting evidence of the risks to stylists and clients.
"The incentive to downplay mounting health concerns is substantial when you can charge several hundred dollars for a single treatment," said Thomas Cluderay of the Environmental Working Group. "Until regulators pull the plug on Brazilian Blowout, I think it's clear the company is prepared to do just about anything to peddle these products."
Source: Environmental Working Group release of 9/28/2011
