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UCS tallies assaults on science during Trump’s first six months

lborkowski — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 06:04:13 +0000

UCS tallies assaults on science during Trump’s first six months

Members of the public health community are aware of many of the ways the Trump administration and the 115^th Congress are hindering and reversing evidence-based actions for public health – from an executive order requiring agencies to scrap two regulations each time they create a new one to advancing legislation that would make it harder for EPA to obtain and use the most up-to-date science in its work. With so many threats to public health arising each month, it can be hard to catch all of them, though. The Union of Concerned Scientists has performed a tremendous service by producing the report Sidelining Science from Day One: How the Trump Administration Has Harmed Public Health and Safety in Its First Six Months.

The authors of the UCS report – Jacob Carter, Gretchen Goldman, Genna Reed, Peter Hansel, Michael Halpern, and Andrew Rosenberg – remind us it’s so important for the US government to encourage, conduct, and make use of science:

Research in the 1970s about the neurological effects of lead on children resulted in policies to phase-out its use in paint and gasoline. Research on chemicals and metals has improved the quality of our air, water, and soil. Research on infectious diseases has saved innumerable lives by helping governments prevent or anticipate responses to future outbreaks. Advancements in technology have made household appliances, automobiles, and other consumer products safer, cleaner, and more cost-effective and energy-efficient. Government science has improved weather predictions, and climate studies have helped communities across the United States prepare for rising sea levels, drought, extreme heat, and other impacts of climate change.

All modern presidents have politicized science to some degree, they write, but “these threats to the federal scientific enterprise have escalated markedly” under the Trump administration. Here’s their summary of the current situation:

President Trump and his advisors and appointees, along with allied members of Congress, have willfully distorted scientific information, targeted scientists for doing their jobs, impeded scientists’ ability to conduct research, limited access to taxpayer-funded scientific information, disregarded the science in science-based policies, and rolled back science-based protections aimed at advancing public health. They have appointed officials with severe conflicts of interest to oversee industries to which they are tied, and, in some cases, they now lead agencies they have previously disparaged or even sued. They have dismissed climate science despite overwhelming evidence of the devastating impacts of climate change. And they have restricted agencies from considering scientific evidence fully in the decision-making process. Further, the president’s budget blueprints reveal the administration’s desire to scrap investments in basic data collection and research at major agencies, threatening the government’s ability to enforce our nation’s public health and environmental laws.

Attacking work on climate and other aspects of public health
It’s not a surprise that many of the harmful actions the report describes focus on climate change. These include the cancelation of CDC’s Climate and Health Summit; temporary media blackouts focused on agencies doing climate work; instructing employees at the Energy Department’s Office of International Climate and Clean Energy to avoid using the term “climate change” in written communications; removing language on climate change and sea level rise from a press release on new work by US Geological Survey scientists; failing to link greenhouse gas emissions and human activity in a NOAA news release; and an executive order reversing and stalling multiple climate-related policies from the Obama administration. And, of course, President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement will have grave consequences for public health.

The UCS report also catalogs some of the many public-health regulations that the Trump administration has delayed, with serious consequences for those who work with hazardous substances and live in communities with high levels of pollution. For instance, the administration is re-reviewing regulation of vehicle emissions standards; delayed implementation of the Risk Management Plan program intended to prevent disasters like the deadly fertilizer facility fire in West, Texas; put off the effective date of a regulation to better protect workers exposed to beryllium; rejected a petition to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which studies have linked to neurodevelopmental problems; delayed enforcement of a rule to reduce workers’ exposure to lung-destroying crystalline silica; delayed implementation of a 2015 ozone pollution rule; and made chemical-industry-friendly changes to EPA rules implementing the updated Toxic Substances Control Act.

Although environmental and occupational health got the brunt of anti-regulatory fervor, other aspects of public health haven’t gone unscathed. The Department of Health and Human Services quietly removed a question about sexual identity from a survey of older individuals and abruptly terminated multi-year projects on teen pregnancy prevention. FDA has indefinitely delayed rollout of a nutrition label that reports added sugars. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has declined to renew the National Commission on Forensic Sciences that the Obama administration created in 2013.

Executive Order 13771, which instructs federal agencies to rescind two existing regulations each time it adopts a new one, considers the financial costs of regulations without appropriately recognizes their public-health benefits – and will mean fewer health-protective regulations overall. Public Citizen, NRDC, and Communications Workers of America have sued to block it.

In some cases, Congress and the administration have worked together to roll back public health protections and make it harder for public health agencies to do their jobs. Congress passed and Trump signed laws rescinding the Obama administration’s Stream Protection Rule, which limited the dumping of coal mine waste into streams, and Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which sought to reduce the extent to which federal contracts are awarded to companies engage in wage theft or violate laws on workplace safety.

The House has also passed the REINS Act, which would require regulations with $100 million in projected annual impact to be reviewed by a political appointee before taking effect; the HONEST Act and EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, which would make it much harder for EPA to receive and use up-to-date scientific advice and information; and the Regulatory Accountability Act, which would significantly disrupt the science-based rulemaking process at all agencies.

Making life harder for federal scientists

The day before the six-month mark of the Trump administration, federal employee Joel Clement took a brave and important step. With an opinion column in the Washington Post, he blew the whistle on the Trump administration’s involuntary reassignment of dozens of senior Department of Interior employees. Clement writes:

Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.

I am not an accountant — but you don’t have to be one to see that the administration’s excuse for a reassignment such as mine doesn’t add up. A few days after my reassignment, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke testified before Congress that the department would use reassignments as part of its effort to eliminate employees; the only reasonable inference from that testimony is that he expects people to quit in response to undesirable transfers. Some of my colleagues are being relocated across the country, at taxpayer expense, to serve in equally ill-fitting jobs.

I believe I was retaliated against for speaking out publicly about the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities. During the months preceding my reassignment, I raised the issue with White House officials, senior Interior officials and the international community, most recently at a U.N. conference in June. It is clear to me that the administration was so uncomfortable with this work, and my disclosures, that I was reassigned with the intent to coerce me into leaving the federal government.

Clement has filed a complaint with the US Office of Special Counsel, but we don’t need to wait for their decision to know that the environment has grown harsher for federal employees whose work involves science. The UCS report notes that the House of Representatives’ revival of the 1876 Holman Rule, which allows members of Congress to target specific federal offices or employees for elimination and reduce an individual employee’s salary, can create a climate in which federal employees feel pressured to avoid releasing information or issuing regulations that members of Congress are known dislike. Congress may also get distorted information from federal agencies if political appointees pressure agency employees or advisors to revise their testimony – something that happened to EPA Science Advisory Board’s Deborah Swackhamer as she prepared to testify to the House Science Committee on the role of states in environmental policy. And, when scientists are told not to attend conferences – for instance, the Alaska Forum on the Environment or an international conference on nuclear energy – it makes it harder for them to stay current and connected in their fields. Throw in a few political appointees who are underqualified and antagonistic to the agency’s work, and you’ve got a climate that seems engineered to demoralize federal employees involved with science.

Moving forward

As the UCS report notes, members of the scientific and public-health communities are mobilizing to defend federal science and evidence-based rulemaking against recent attacks. Carter and his co-authors write:

Recognizing the stakes, scientists and science supporters are speaking up, taking advantage of the momentum of successful marches and new opportunities for political engagement. Scientists and science supporters are connecting the administration’s actions to consequences for public health and the environment. By understanding current and evolving threats and taking advantage of new vehicles for advocacy, we can defend the scientific enterprise our democracy depends on and preserve the public health, safety, security, and environmental protections that make our nation great. Scientists and science supporters, Congress, and the media can all play a role.

They make recommendations for scientists and science supporters, Congress, and the media:

Scientists and science supporters should scrutinize administration and congressional actions and sound the alarm when science is misused. They can also play a unique role in articulating to others the importance of science in our daily lives. Communicating the importance of science and science-based policies to the public and decisionmakers is crucial to fighting attacks on science in this highly charged political environment.
Congress should use its oversight authorities to investigate and hold accountable the administration for actions that threaten scientific integrity and science-based policies, and it should act to protect whistleblowers. With the growing trend of abuses against science in the Trump administration, Congress must exercise its full authority as a check against the executive branch. Also, Congress should pass legislation to better protect federal scientists and the integrity of science in our federal agencies.
Journalists must continue to hold administration officials and members of Congress accountable for their words and actions and investigate cases of suppressing, misrepresenting, manipulating, or otherwise politicizing science, along with related allegations of wrongdoing in our federal government. The media should seek out scientists as sources when possible and call out agencies that place unnecessary barriers on communications between journalists and government scientists.

Without strong action to oppose current assaults on science, it will only become harder to address threats to public health from infectious diseases, pollutants, and unsafe consumer products. Agency efforts to encourage healthier behaviors and built environments may see recent gains reversed and future progress stalled. Responding to the threats described in the the UCS reports is essential for the health of future generations.

To download a copy of Sidelining Science from Day One and see an interactive timeline of Trump Administration and Congressional Actions, visit the UCS website.

lborkowski Mon, 07/24/2017 - 02:04

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Environmental health

Food and Drug Administration

Union of Concerned Scientists

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Health advocates threaten lawsuit against firm importing asbestos to U.S.

cmonforton — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 10:18:57 +0000

Health advocates threaten lawsuit against firm importing asbestos to U.S.

[This post is dedicated to Doug Larkin. Doug was the co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. He suffered in recent years with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and passed away yesterday.]

Dallas-based OxyChem imports about 300,000 pounds of asbestos each year. Yes, asbestos. The deadly mineral that most Americans think is banned (it's not) and responsible for about 15,000 U.S. cancer deaths annually.

OxyChem is likely the largest asbestos importer in the U.S. The company is required under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to report its asbestos imports to the EPA. A group of health advocates assert that the firm failed to do so. The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO); Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF); and Environmental Health Strategy Center are using TSCA's “citizen enforcement” provision (15 USC 53 §2619) to alert OxyChem of their “notice of intent to file suit” because of company’s failure to report their asbestos imports.

OxyChem uses asbestos in its outdated chloralkali technology to produce chlorine. Plants in Europe, however, have moved to more advanced and safer technology which doesn't rely on the deadly carcinogen. Of the 31 countries of the European Union and European Free Trade Association, only one chloralkali plant out of 75 is still using asbestos in their chlorine production process.

The health groups relied on commercially-available U.S. Customs and Border Protection records to identify OxyChem’s asbestos imports. The records revealed imports totally nearly 900,000 pounds during 2013 through the end of 2015. Most of the shipments---more than 20 in total---come from the one remaining asbestos mine in Brazil. The import data, however, does not match up with records required by EPA. The health groups found this out by filing a FOIA request with EPA to determine whether OxyChem complied with EPA’s Chemical Data Reporting (40 CFR, Part 711.) It requires firms to report every four years their use of certain "significant" chemicals. Asbestos is one of those "significant" chemicals and users are required to report quantities that exceed 2,500 pounds per facility per year. OxyChem's use of asbestos over the last four years should have been reported to EPA by October 31, 2016.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) recently submitted comments to EPA on documents the agency is preparing pursuant to the 2016 amends to TSCA. In their comments, ACC insists that asbestos can be used safely. That EPA should believe ACC's assertions that chloralkali plants, such as OxyChem's, are pristine, error-free operations in which asbestos never touches human hands or enters the air or surrounding environment. ACC also conveniently ignores the life cycle of the toxic, from the asbestos exposure that occurs in the Brazilian mining town of Minacu, the processing and shipping, to the handling, use and disposal of asbestos somewhere in the U.S.

I tip my hat to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF), the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), and Environmental Health Strategy Center for using TSCA's "citizen enforcement" provision. OxyChem and EPA have until the end of July to respond to the health groups' notice of intent to sue. If EPA fails to take action to compel OxyChem to comply with the TSCA reporting provision, the health groups could file a lawsuit in a U.S. district court.

cmonforton Tue, 06/13/2017 - 06:18

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asbestos

cancer

Toxic Substances Control Act

Legal

regulation

Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization

OxyChem

Safer Chemicals Healthy Families

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Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 16 May 2017 13:35:10 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At BuzzFeed, Kate Moore tells the story of the “radium girls,” the hundreds of women during WWI who worked painting watch dials with luminous radium paint — a substance that would eventually poison and kill them even though they were told it was perfectly safe. What followed was years of employers covering up and denying evidence that radium was killing workers, while berating the women for attempting to get help with their mounting medical bills.

Eventually, Moore writes, their fight for justice led to one of the first cases in which an employer was held responsible for the health of workers, helping lay the foundations of modern labor law. Among the many watch painters highlighted in the story was Molly Maggia, whose illness began with a toothache and then traveled to her limbs, eventually leaving her unable to walk:

By May 1922, Mollie was desperate. At that point, she had lost most of her teeth and the mysterious infection had spread: Her entire lower jaw, the roof of her mouth, and even some of the bones of her ears were said to be "one large abscess." But worse was to come. When her dentist prodded delicately at her jawbone in her mouth, to his horror and shock, it broke against his fingers. He removed it, "not by an operation, but merely by putting his fingers in her mouth and lifting it out." Only days later, her entire lower jaw was removed in the same way.

Mollie was literally falling apart. And she wasn’t the only one; by now, Grace Fryer, too, was having trouble with her jaw and suffering pains in her feet, and so were the other radium girls.

On September 12, 1922, the strange infection that had plagued Mollie Maggia for less than a year spread to the tissues of her throat. The disease slowly ate its way through her jugular vein. At 5 p.m. that day, her mouth was flooded with blood as she hemorrhaged so fast that her nurse could not staunch it. She died at the age of 24. With her doctors flummoxed as to the cause of death, her death certificate, erroneously, said she’d died of syphilis, something her former company would later use against her.

As if by clockwork, one by one, Mollie’s former colleagues soon followed her to the grave.

Read the full story at BuzzFeed.

In other news:

Reveal (Center for Investigative Reporting): Jennifer Gollan reports that even though a new OSHA rule requires employers to electronically submit their injury and illness records by July 1, the agency doesn’t yet have a working website where employers can actually comply with the law. Instead, the OSHA site says: “OSHA is not accepting electronic submissions at this time.” The reporting rule, which also protects workers against retaliation for reporting injuries, is currently being contested in court by a number of industry groups, including the National Association of Home Builders and National Association of Manufacturers. Gollan quotes former OSHA chief David Michaels: “Because the secretary of labor is not allowing OSHA to post this website, it means tens of thousands of employers will be in violation of the law. …Law-abiding employers are asking where to send their information in. OSHA is ignoring the law.”

Mother Jones: Tom Philpott reports that local public health officials believe that more than 50 farmworkers outside of Bakersfield, California, were exposed to the highly toxic pesticide chlorphyrifos, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had been close to banning. Then in March, agency Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to greenlight the chemical for continued agricultural use. After learning of the incident, Kern County public health officials urged anyone exposed to seek medical attention immediately. In humans, chlorphyrifos can cause a range of problems, from vomiting and diarrhea to tremors and blurred vision. Philpott reports: “A spokesman for (Kern County Department of Agriculture and Measurement Standards) said test results pinpointing the chemical are pending but would not be done for at least a week. Dow AgroSciences, one of the main makers of the chemical, did not respond to phone calls and emails.”

Rewire: Nicole Knight reports that two former Walmart employees have filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the company discriminated against them and many more pregnant workers by failing to provide appropriate on-the-job accommodations. One of the pregnant workers said after her doctor said to avoid heavy lifting, her supervisor “told her she had seen a pregnant Demi Moore do a somersault on television, and pregnancy was therefore ‘no excuse.’” It was only after lifting a 35-pound tray sent her to the hospital that she was allowed to do more sedentary work. She was later fired after asking about pregnancy leave. Knight quoted a representative of A Better Balance, one of the groups filing the complaint: “In 2017, it’s incredible that major companies like Walmart are discriminating against pregnant women — who are simply asking to keep on working and have a healthy pregnancy.”

Texas Observer: Gus Bova reports that a much-needed bill to improve housing conditions for Texas’ 200,000 migrant farmworkers has died in the state legislature. According to a 2016 investigation by the Austin American-Statesman, nine out of 10 Texas farmworkers lack access to licensed housing, with many workers forced to sleep packed together on the floors of houses that lack running water, ventilation or electricity. The bill aimed at improving such conditions would have mandated state officials regularly inspect farmworker housing and follow up on complaints, increased fines for violators, and enabled workers and advocates to appeal state licensing decisions. Bova quoted state Rep. Ramon Romero Jr.: “The biggest takeaway for me is that 50 or 60 years after my dad came here as a farmworker, the state of Texas hasn’t improved farmworker conditions, and is actually going in the opposite direction.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Tue, 05/16/2017 - 09:35

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Occup Health News Roundup

Occup Health News Roundup

OSHA

paid leave

Public Health - General

pregnancy discrimination

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 02 May 2017 15:47:15 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At ProPublica, Michael Grabell investigates how U.S. companies take advantage of immigrant workers, focusing on Case Farms poultry plants, which former OSHA chief David Michaels once described as “an outrageously dangerous place to work.” He reports that Case Farms built its business by recruiting some of the world’s most vulnerable immigrants, who often end up working in the kind of dangerous and abusive conditions that few Americans would put up with.

Grabell chronicles the history of Case Farms and how it first began recruiting refugees from Guatemala who were fleeing a brutal civil war in their home country. A former Case Farms human resource manager said of the new Guatemalan workforce in a book cited in the article: “Mexicans will go back home at Christmastime. You’re going to lose them for six weeks. And in the poultry business you can’t afford that. You just can’t do it. But Guatemalans can’t go back home. They’re here as political refugees. If they go back home, they get shot.”

The article begins with the story of worker Osiel López. Grabell writes:

On April 7, 2015, Osiel put on bulky rubber boots and a white hard hat, and trained a pressurized hose on the plant’s stainless steel machines, blasting off the leftover grease, meat and blood.

A Guatemalan immigrant, Osiel was just weeks past his 17th birthday, too young by law to work in a factory. A year earlier, after gang members shot his mother and tried to kidnap his sisters, he left his home, in the mountainous village of Tectitán, and sought asylum in the United States. He got the job at Case Farms with a driver’s license that said his name was Francisco Sepulveda, age 28. The photograph on the ID was of his older brother, who looked nothing like him, but nobody asked any questions.

Osiel sanitized the liver giblet chiller, a tublike contraption that cools chicken innards by cycling them through a near-freezing bath, then looked for a ladder, so that he could turn off the water valve above the machine. As usual, he said, there weren’t enough ladders to go around, so he did as a supervisor had shown him: He climbed up the machine, onto the edge of the tank, and reached for the valve. His foot slipped; the machine automatically kicked on. Its paddles grabbed his left leg, pulling and twisting until it snapped at the knee and rotating it 180 degrees, so that his toes rested on his pelvis. The machine “literally ripped off his left leg,” medical reports said, leaving it hanging by a frayed ligament and a five-inch flap of skin. Osiel was rushed to Mercy Medical Center, where surgeons amputated his lower leg.

Back at the plant, Osiel’s supervisors hurriedly demanded workers’ identification papers. Technically, Osiel worked for Case Farms’ closely affiliated sanitation contractor, and suddenly the bosses seemed to care about immigration status. Within days, Osiel and several others — all underage and undocumented — were fired.

Read the entire investigation, which was co-published with the New Yorker, at ProPublica.

In other news:

Washington Post: Drew Harwell reports that workers in the Chinese factory that produces Ivanka Trump’s fashion line work about 60 hours a week for little more than $62 per week. According to a factory audit, inspectors with the Fair Labor Association found two-dozen violations of international labor standards at the factory, where workers were getting at or below China’s minimum wage. The story comes as Ivanka Trump is positioning herself as an advocate for women in the workplace. Harwell reports: “Fewer than a third of the factory’s workers were offered legally mandated coverage under China’s ‘social insurance’ benefits, including a pension and medical, maternity, unemployment and work-related injury insurance, inspectors found. The factory also did not contribute, as legally required, to a fund designed to help workers afford housing, inspectors said.”

California Healthline (via KQED): Pauline Bartolone reports that advocates are calling on California lawmakers to approve a bill that would require cosmetic companies to disclose ingredients in products used in professional salons. The bill, which already passed the state Assembly health committee, would mandate product labeling that flags hazardous chemicals and require that manufacturers provide ingredient lists on their websites. Right now, federal labeling laws pertain to consumer products, but not to professional products used in salons. Bartolone reports: “Dr. Thu Quach, a researcher at the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, says informing workers of potential risks is especially important given their level of exposure to salon products. Beauty salon workers may absorb chemicals both through their skin and the air they breathe, Quach said. A cosmetologist could apply a chemical-laden treatment to customers 10 times a day, or work in a space where chemicals are recirculating in the air all day, she added.”

Seattle Times: Janet Tu reports that a superior court judge has denied a motion from business trade groups to void the state’s new minimum wage and paid sick leave law, which Washington voters approved last year. In his ruling, the judge said plaintiffs had failed to prove the new laws violated the state constitution. The voter-approved initiative raises the state minimum wage to $13.50 by 2020 and requires paid sick leave for workers. Tu reports: “Judge Sparks wrote in a letter accompanying his ruling that he tries to adhere to the ‘bedrock principle’ that judges should not interfere with laws enacted by the people, whether through referenda or elected officials, unless there is a clear legal necessity.”

Reveal (Center for Investigative Reporting): Jennifer Gollan reports on Trump’s proposal to cut $60 million in grants from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Affairs, which addresses child and forced labor abroad. In the budget proposal, Trump suggests that the agency should instead focus on ensuring trade agreements are fair for American workers. Gollan cites a 2014 report on conditions inside Malaysia’s electronics industry as an example of the work the grants support. That report, which revealed highly abusive labor conditions, led to increased scrutiny of the industry and stronger safeguards against trafficking. Gollan writes of the proposed Trump budget cut: “The cuts would hobble one of the country’s key methods for combatting child and forced labor around the globe, and potentially limit the federal government’s ability to help countries comply with labor provisions in 13 free trade agreements. In addition, the cuts could effectively do the opposite of what Trump intends by forcing U.S. companies to increasingly compete with overseas companies that flout worker safeguards and pay meager wages.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Tue, 05/02/2017 - 11:47

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OSHA

paid leave

poultry plants

Public Health - General

safety

workers' compensation

workers' compensation

The times, they are a'changin'. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum.

The article about the chicken processor leads to a difficult question: would it be better for all of the chicken to be processed by machines so no one is hurt, even if it means those people are out of work?

Similarly, $62/week is a lot better than $0/week.
The more work that goes to China, the more wages increase, and the more the government can afford to pay people to implement the kinds of regulations and oversight that we have recently developed in our country.

Revolving door from chemical industry to EPA: No way to boost public confidence

cmonforton — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 17:19:25 +0000

Revolving door from chemical industry to EPA: No way to boost public confidence

The Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Richard Denison, PhD tipped me onto news that the chemical industry’s chief trade association now has one of its own in a key EPA office.

Nancy Beck, PhD began work on Monday as second in command of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Immediately prior to her appointment, Dr. Beck was with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) in the position of Senior Director of Regulatory Science Policy. Prior to that she worked in the White House's regulatory czar's office during parts of the G.W. Bush's and Obama's administrations.

President Trump has a funny way of "draining the swamp." Just a few weeks ago, ACC was recommending that EPA appoint Dr. Beck to its Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC). Now the ACC has achieved much more than that----Dr. Beck will be running part of the show.

EDF's Denison highlights the problem with Beck’s appointment to the Office of Chemical Safety:

“…[she] is expected to play a key role in implementing the new reforms made to TSCA, including in critical decisions that EPA will be making literally any day now, many of them driven by firm statutory deadlines.

These decisions will directly affect the financial interests of the companies represented by ACC. And they will involve deciding whether or not the agency should take positions for which Dr. Beck has advocated on behalf of her former employer, as recently as last month. Any reasonable person would see a conflict here, one sufficient to seriously question whose interests Dr. Beck will be representing in playing such a role in TSCA implementation.”

He asks:

What aspects of her work at EPA would constitute a conflict of interest or an appearance of a lack of impartiality? Will she recuse herself from any deliberations or decisions at EPA? If so, which ones?

In his blog post "Foxes, henhouse and TSCA implementation," Denison reminded me of a theme that has swirled for decades around U.S. chemical safety policy. It was one of the reasons that the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) gained traction. The public has little confidence in the current system for determining the safety of chemicals we encounter in our homes, workplaces and communities.

Dr. Beck agreed. She expressed a similar sentiment while with the ACC. She wrote that more transparency in the process of assessing the health risks of chemicals:

“…will surely ….boost the public’s confidence in the results.”

In her new position at EPA, Dr. Beck can move right away in that direction. She should start by answering the questions posed by Richard Denison. How does Dr. Beck plan to gain the public's trust? Will her decisions be grounded in the letter and spirit of the law and not on positions she advocated on behalf of chemical manufacturers?

Before President Trump was elected, Dr. Beck wrote of the important policy decisions the EPA is facing with the 2016 amendments to TSCA. She wrote that the revisions:

"....suggests the need for regulatory action when there is an 'unreasonable risk.' However, what constitutes unreasonable risk is not fully articulated in the LCSA. The science policy determination...will be left to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in their implementation of the statute."

She may not have realized at that time, but those decisions now will be left to her and other Trump appointees. I wonder whether building public confidence will be on their minds.

cmonforton Thu, 04/20/2017 - 13:19

Tags

Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act (LCSA)

regulation

Toxic Substances Control Act

Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention

EDF

Nancy Beck

Formaldehyde, scientists, and politics

cmonforton — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 12:10:19 +0000

Formaldehyde, scientists, and politics

A new commentary by CUNY School of Public Health professor Franklin Mirer is timed perfectly for this weekend's Marches for Science.

Mirer writes about the ongoing interference by Members of Congress on the science behind the designation of formaldehyde as a carcinogen. His commentary, "What’s Science Got to Do with It?" appears in the current issue of April issue of the Synergist, a membership publication of the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

Mirer's example concerns a rule published by EPA in December 2016 on testing formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products (e.g., plywood and particle board.) Mirer recaps the formaldehyde risk assessments prepared by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the National Toxicology Program (NTP), and the National Academy of Sciences. All have concluded there is sufficient evidence to classify formaldehyde as a human carcinogen. They note causal association between exposure to formaldehyde and leukemia and upper airway cancers.

But the Formaldehyde Council and other industry groups are threatened by the science. They've found friends on Capitol Hill to assist them in questioning the conclusions of authoritative scientific bodies. As Mirer notes, one of those lawmakers was David Vitter (R-LA). In 2009, the Senator insisted that the EPA request an independent review of its formaldehyde risk assessment from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). (Vitter, by the way, retired from the Senate in 2017 and now works for the lobbying firm Mercury.) EPA and NAS did what Vitter asked, but that wasn't enough delay for the industry. Congress again directed additional taxpayer money for NAS to evaluate the NTP's determination that formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen. (More here and here on the formaldehyde saga.)

In Mirer's "What’s Science Got to Do with It?" he highlights the consequences of the political interference and the delay in public protections from formaldehyde. He also offers the following lessons:

First, authoritative scientific conclusions are derived from institutions governed by senior scientists and from processes that encompass expert review. Science is what scientists say it is.

Second, initial scientific skepticism about whether formaldehyde inhalation causes leukemia (based on epidemiology) has become a minority position, although it’s not a denialist position. Most skeptics have industry funding.

Finally, a political process continues to delay the incorporation of the majority scientific opinion into the EPA risk assessment for formaldehyde.

Shortly after President Trump took office the White House issued a memorandum to all agency heads entitled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review.” As a result, the effective date for EPA's testing rule on formaldehyde has been delayed until May 22, 2017. I'll be looking to Dr. Mirer for updates on the rule and no doubt further industry-driven interference by non-scientist lawmakers.

cmonforton Wed, 04/19/2017 - 08:10

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cancer

Occup Health News Roundup

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 17:22:32 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Sacramento Bee, Ryan Lillis and Jose Luis Villegas report on the effects that Trump’s immigration crackdown is having on California farms, writing that fear of deportation is spreading throughout the state’s farming communities. While many farmworkers believe immigration raids are inevitable, farm operators, many who voted for Trump, hope the president will bring more water to the region and keep immigration officials off their fields. Lillis and Villegas write:

Fear is everywhere. The night before, the local school board became one of the first in California to declare its campuses a “safe haven” for students and families, meaning it won’t ask about students’ immigration status or allow federal immigration authorities onto school property.

That anxiety stretches throughout the southern San Joaquin Valley, among the most fertile and productive agricultural regions on Earth. As the spring picking season approaches, farmworkers are convinced the fields will be raided by federal agents intent on rounding up undocumented immigrants and shipping them back to Mexico or Central America. With many fearing the authorities will also set up checkpoints on the highways, the United Farm Workers union said the labor flow has already been cut in half at some farms.

“If they don’t need us here to work the fields, who’s going to do the work?” said a 54-year-old farmworker named Metorio, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and a father of three. The Sacramento Bee is only using his first name because he fears deportation.

“The workers who do this work are the Mexicans, the Latinos,” he said. “I hope President Trump will see how much the farmers need us.”

To read the full article, visit the Sacramento Bee.

In other news:

Toronto Star: Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on the “epidemic of violence” that Ontario’s nurses and other health care workers face on the job – experiences that Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, recently wrote about in a letter to Ontario’s minister of labor. In that letter, Hurley said the threat of violence that health care workers face goes “unacknowledged, dismissed or tolerated by administrators and regulators.” Within the Canadian province, health care workers experience the second-highest number of reported injuries, ahead of industries such as construction, mining and manufacturing. Mojtehedzadeh writes: “Dianne Paulin, a registered practical nurse from North Bay with 25 years of job experience, says she would have been spared her life-changing injures if the psychiatric ward she worked on had implemented common sense policies like bolting down furniture. Instead, she was assaulted by a patient who pinned her against his room door with a chair and repeatedly punched her, leaving her with a bulging neck disc, post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks.”

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Ken Ward Jr. reports that the West Virginia Senate is now considering an industry-backed bill that would dismantle the state’s miner safety laws. Among the changes proposed: state safety inspectors wouldn’t inspect mines anymore, they would conduct “compliance visits and education”; violators of health and safety standards wouldn’t receive fines, but “compliance assistance visit notices”; and state regulators wouldn’t have the authority to write safety and health regulations, but could only focus on improving compliance assistance. Ward Jr. writes: “One thing that is clear is that the bill would maintain and encourage the use of ‘individual personal assessments,’ which target specific mine employees — rather than mine operators or coal companies — for violations, fines and, possibly, revocation of certifications or licenses needed to work in the industry.” In related news, the New York Times Editorial Board recently published an opinion arguing that Trump’s promise to resurrect coal’s “heyday” is prompting the health and safety onslaught in state legislatures.

Bloomberg BNA: Sam Pearson reports that industry groups, along with House Republicans, are pushing for an infinite delay of OSHA’s updated beryllium standard. In a letter to OSHA, Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., said the agency had made a mistake by issuing standards for construction and shipyards, as its 2015 proposed rule only applied to general industry. Pearson writes: “In public comments, Sammy Almashat and Emily Gardner of Public Citizen countered that the postponement was ‘simply the latest in a 16-year-long series of delays of a rule that the entire scientific community agrees is urgently necessary to save thousands of workers from the risk of needless suffering and death.’”

BuzzFeed: Cora Lewis reports that nearly 350,000 service workers nationwide plan to strike on May 1, with tens of thousands of California SEIU members joining the protest. The strike is being driven by organized labor, but an overriding goal is to use the gathering to highlight “alt-labor” groups, such as worker centers. Lewis writes: “The Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) United, a food industry worker advocacy group, will also be participating in the strike, according to Saru Jayaraman, its co-director. ROC United and its network of restaurant owners and workers were instrumental in organizing the recent Day Without Immigrants protest, which shuttered hundreds of restaurants in cities across the country. America’s last major general strike was the first such Day Without Immigrants, in 2006, in which more than a million workers struck.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 03/21/2017 - 13:22

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