styrene
cmonforton | September 11, 2012Let's say you're curious to know whether there's evidence that a particular compound is carcinogenic to laboratory animals or to humans. Maybe you're wondering about UV radiation from tanning beds, or wood dust, or the drug tamoxifen. Do you want to rely solely on the opinion of the compound's producer or an industry trade association, or might you like to know the views of a panel of independent scientists?
Hearing from the latter was the vision for the U.S.'s Report on Carcinogens. It is a program put in place in 1978 by Public Law 95-622 with amendments to the Public Health Service Act…
egrossman | May 23, 2012by Elizabeth Grossman
As it pursues its anti-regulatory agenda, the Republican-led House of Representatives appears to be setting its sights on a non-regulatory program, the National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinogens (RoC). The House Republicans’ scrutiny of the RoC coincides with industry objections to the Report’s listing of styrene as a possible carcinogen. It also follows a strategy common to previous debates over chemical regulation – that of sowing doubt about scientific findings in hopes of averting action on a hazardous substance.
For those not familiar with it, the RoC was…
egrossman | June 22, 2011by Elizabeth Grossman
On June 10th the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Toxicology Program released the department's 12th Report on Carcinogens, adding eight new substances to the overall list that now includes 240 compounds (or classes of compounds) known or reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens. Two of these eight - the industrial chemical formaldehyde and the botanical compounds known as aristolochic acids - are listed as known human carcinogens. Six others - styrene, certain inhalable glass wool fibers, o-nitrotoluene, captafol, cobalt-tungsten…