Flame Fire Retardant

see PFOA forever chems<div>
</div><div>nancy beck
<div>=</div><div>intercept</div><div>...Sense About Science does not always disclose when its sources on controversial matters are scientists with ties to the industries under examination. And the group is known to take positions that buck scientific consensus or dismiss emerging evidence of harm. When journalists rightly ask who sponsors research into the risks of, say, asbestos, or synthetic chemicals, they’d be well advised to question the evidence Sense About Science presents in these debates as well.</div><div data-reactid="212" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"> iN 2002, DICK TAVERNE, an English politician and business consultant, founded Sense About Science “to expose bogus science,” he explains in his memoir, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ghSuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT195&lpg=PT195&dq=%22dick+taverne%22+AND+%22bogus+science%22&source=bl&ots=OZGR2OtqVb&sig=xeCz8LvmrEYtwmqnk2HrOD0_15o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQkNHXx93PAhUFwVQKHQkxBIcQ6AEIHjAA#v=onepage&q=%22dick%20taverne%22%20AND%20%22bogus%20science%22&f=false" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">Against the Tide</a>.” Through his consulting work, Taverne had cultivated relationships with energy, communications, food, and pharmaceutical companies. Sense About Science’s early sponsors included some of Taverne’s former clients and companies in which he owned stock.</div><div data-reactid="215" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Taverne must have known the power of media narratives about science firsthand, because he had experience with the tobacco industry, which labored mightily to change the conversation about its product in the face of evidence that cigarettes were lethal. According to internal documents released in litigation by cigarette manufacturers, Taverne’s consulting company, PRIMA Europe, helped British American Tobacco <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">improve relations with its investors</a> and <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=njpd0116" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">beat European regulations on cigarettes</a> in the 1990s. Taverne himself worked on the investors project: In an <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=tllb0192?" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">undated memo</a>, PRIMA assured the tobacco company that “the work would be done personally by Dick Taverne,” because he was well placed to interview industry opinion leaders and “would seek to ensure that industry’s needs are foremost in people’s minds.” During the same decade, Taverne sat on the board of the British branch of the powerhouse public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which claimed Philip Morris as a client. The idea for a “sound science” group, made up of a network of scientists who would speak out against regulations that industrial spokespeople lacked the credibility to challenge, was a pitch Burson-Marsteller made to Philip Morris in a <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=ygjm0128" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">1994 memorandum</a>.It’s not hard to identify traces of this approach in Taverne’s later work. Writing in his 2005 book, “<a href="http://emilkirkegaard.dk/da/wp-content/uploads/0192804855.Oxford.University.Press.USA.The.March.of.Unreason.Science.Democracy.and.the.New.Fundamentalism.May.2005.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The March of Unreason</a>,” Taverne complained that “eco-fundamentalists” and fearmongers had fomented a backlash against science and technology, which had in turn produced a “multiplication of health and safety regulations.” That year British Petroleum donated 15,000 pounds to Sense About Science, and Taverne <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/vo050223/text/50223-24.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">argued in the House of Lords</a> that as much as 80 percent of global warming might be attributable to solar activity, even though that theory had been <a href="http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4361&method=full" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">discredited</a> two years earlier. Taverne, who stepped down as chairman of Sense About Science in 2012, did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.Sense About Science established an American affiliate in 2014, under the direction of a Brooklyn-based journalist named Trevor Butterworth. In financial documents, Sense About Science claims Sense About Science USA as a sister organization “with close ties and similar aims.” <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/about/corporate-responsibility/sense-about-science" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">High-profile scientific publishers</a>, as well as such reputable institutions as the <a href="http://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/reporting/math-journalist-numbers-statistics-research?utm_campaign=9f242baf8c-2015_Sept_1_A_B_split3_24_2015&utm_term=0_12d86b1d6a-9f242baf8c-79990993&utm_content=buffer3951f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy</a> and the <a href="http://www.cjr.org/analysis/statistical_advisory_board.php" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Columbia Journalism Review</a>, have promoted Butterworth’s services to scientists and journalists.From 2003 to 2014, Butterworth contributed to the website of an organization called STATS, a nonprofit that promoted statistical literacy. STATS had its own connections to the tobacco industry, in this case through founder Robert Lichter, a conservative political scientist and now a communications professor at George Mason University. Lichter also co-founded and continues to run the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which Philip Morris hired in 1994 to survey news reports about tobacco as part of its strategy, <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=hhyh0062" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">outlined in a memo from March of that year</a>, to counter “personal and public bias” in stories about cigarettes’ health risks.</div><div class="img-wrap align-right width-fixed" data-reactid="216" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.5em -184.438px 1em 1.5em; line-height: 1; max-width: 50%; width: 227px; float: right;"><div data-reactid="217" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="caption" andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" word-spacing="word-spacing" display="display" inline="inline" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box;">[pix “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” by Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, S. Fred Singer. <p class="caption source" andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" line-height="line-height" margin="margin" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" em="em" font-size="font-size" color="color" rgb="rgb" word-spacing="word-spacing" display="display" inline="inline" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box;">Photo: Heartland Institute</div></div><div data-reactid="218" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">Lichter, like Sense About Science’s Tracey Brown, has argued that industry money doesn’t necessarily taint the science it supports. In 2003, a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20031202184233/http:/www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/pdfs/pdf_politics_and_science_rep.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">congressional report charged</a> the George W. Bush administration with stacking a government committee on childhood lead poisoning with industry scientists. Lichter appeared as an analyst on <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/se.17.htmlhttp:/www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/08/se.17.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">CNN and said</a>, “Studies have found that scientists who have consulted for industry do not differ in their assessment of risks, of health risks, from scientists who have not consulted for industry.” Lichter did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment or citations to these studies.Before STATS was dissolved in 2014, and its web site adopted by Sense About Science USA, it received regular grants from free-market sources. Between 1998 and 2014, STATS received $4.5 million, 81 percent of its donations, from the Searle Freedom Trust, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, Donors Trust (a fund largely sustained by Charles Koch), and other right-wing foundations. Searle, which <a href="http://www.searlefreedomtrust.org/daniel-c-searle-1926-2007/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">describes its mission</a> as promoting “economic liberties,” gave STATS $959,000 between 2010 and 2014. Anti-regulatory foundations, including these, spent over half a billion dollars between 2003 and 2010 to “manipulate and mislead the public over the nature of climate science and the threat posed by climate change,” according to a 2013 study by Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle.</div><div class="img-wrap align-center width-fixed" data-reactid="219" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 2em 0px 2.25em; line-height: 1; max-width: none; width: 1000px;"><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;">
</div><div data-reactid="220" style="box-sizing: border-box;">wITH THESE ROOTS, Sense About Science should not surprise anyone when it promotes anti-regulatory voices on issues like asbestos. In a 2006 brochure called “Science for Celebrities” and purporting to correct misperceptions about synthetic chemicals, Sense About Science offers John Hoskins, a toxicologist formerly of the <a href="http://www.rsc.org/Membership/Networking/InterestGroups/Toxicology/Committee.asp" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit</a> at the University of Leicester. Under the rubric “Toxic effects depend on dose,” Hoskins reassures us: “Away from the high doses of occupational exposure a whole host of unwanted chemicals finds their way into our bodies. Most leave quickly but some stay: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120917080945/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/47/ScienceForCelebrities.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">asbestos and silica in our lungs</a>, dioxins in our blood. Do they matter? No!”</div></div><div data-reactid="221" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">More than two decades ago, the <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airtoxics/asbes/biddocs/EPA-600-8-84-003F_June%201986_Health%20Assessment.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency</a> and the <a href="http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol1-42/mono14.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a> declared asbestos a proven human carcinogen. Since then, as countries continue to mine asbestos, industry groups have argued that certain varieties, including chrysotile and crocidolite, are not so toxic. In response, several groups, including the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19338241003776104" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Collegium Ramazzini</a>, an international body of occupational and environmental health experts, have issued consensus statements warning that no form of asbestos is safe at any dose. In calling for a universal ban on all forms of asbestos in 2010, the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19338241003776104" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Collegium Ramazzini</a> observed that the asbestos industry’s attacks on evidence that “irrefutably” links its product to cancer “closely resemble those used by the tobacco industry.”Brown maintains that Sense About Science has not disagreed with the scientific consensus on asbestos, and she notes that dose and type of exposure are the issue. But when I asked Hoskins why his position differed from the scientific consensus, he shrugged over email, “Once upon a time the consensus was that the earth is flat.” Hoskins further replied, “Unfortunately, to say that within a population low-level exposure of many chemicals must be dangerous is not borne out by reality, much to the chagrin of those who live in the fantasy world of ‘chemical-free.’ ”Hoskins’s résumé states that he has represented the Chrysotile Institute in “discussion with the governments of several countries.” But he did not disclose this relationship to the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health journal when he co-authored two scientific papers disputing claims that <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/10125" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">chrysotile</a> or <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11167" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">crocidolite</a> caused a rare cancer in exposed populations. When his industry ties came to light, the journal issued errata for <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11450/10606" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">both</a> <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11452/10607" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">papers</a> to disclose this competing interest. (Hoskins denies any conflict of interest, insisting that his role in authoring the papers was confined to providing information the other authors requested. Yet all but one of the other authors had also failed to disclose their asbestos interests, which now appear in the errata.)Soon after the first paper appeared, eight public health researchers wrote a letter to the editors of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health <a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11367/10623" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">expressing outrage</a> that the journal would publish a paper with “<a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11367/10623" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">gross mistakes</a>” and “no scientific content.” A group that included many of the letter’s signatories asked the journal to consider retracting the second paper, citing “<a href="http://ebph.it/article/view/11590/10868" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">seriously misleading information</a>.” But the journal’s editors declined to retract the papers, which remain in the technical literature, casting doubt on the scientific consensus <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajim.10300/epdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">that all forms of asbestos</a> are hazardous to human health.</div><div data-reactid="224" style="font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box;">IT’S HARD TO make a case for the safety of a substance like asbestos, which most people know causes cancer. Other commercial products are easier to defend, not because they are less hazardous, but because consumers are not as familiar with the evidence questioning their safety and utility. Scientists have known since 1997 that flame retardants, for example, can cause cancer. These brominated and chlorinated chemicals are used in a wide range of consumer products, including nursing pads and car seats. For more than three decades, studies in animals and humans have linked them to cancer, developmental delays, and other serious health problems. By 2010, the evidence was so persuasive that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002201/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">nearly 150 scientists from 22 countries</a> signed a statement warning that flame retardants “are a concern for persistence, bioaccumulation, long-range transport, and toxicity.” Flame retardants’ fire safety benefit not only remains unproven, the scientists asserted, but the chemicals form highly toxic byproducts when burned.Sense About Science has long relied on dubious numbers to insist on the efficacy of these chemicals.  In 2006 it published a pamphlet on “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120325143525/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/5/MakingSenseofChemicalStories_July08-Reprint.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">misconceptions about chemicals</a>” in which it claimed that British laws requiring flame retardants in furniture had <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150413142432/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/5/MakingSenseofChemicalStories_July08-Reprint.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">reduced fire deaths by 20 percent, citing</a> a 2000 European Commission report called “Flame Retardants.” A European Commission press officer told me she knows of no such report. “The reference to the 20 percent reduction in fire deaths is repeatedly quoted in papers and publications from flame retardant industries and associations, and they always refer to ‘Flame Retardants, DG Environment Video 2000,’ which we cannot find.” On the contrary, she told me, it is simply “not possible to correlate fire deaths to non-flammability requirements.”Who did make the claim? Flame retardant industry trade groups, including the <a href="http://slidegur.com/doc/1163534/efra-european-flame-retardant-association" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">European Flame Retardant Association</a> and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150501142126/http:/www.bsef.com/uploads/Documents/documents/10%20facts%20about%20flame%20retardants.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Bromine Science and Environmental Forum</a>, run by Philip Morris’s longtime PR firm Burson-Marsteller. The U.S.-based <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20091203075408/http:/www.cffsi.org/news.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Citizens for Fire Safety</a> also repeated the claim until it disbanded, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/09/11749/citizens-fire-safety-smoked-out-front-group-folds-after-expos%C3%A9" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">following revelations</a> in 2012 that leading flame retardant producers ran the organization, not the grassroots group of “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20091203075348/http:/www.cffsi.org/about.aspx" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">staff and volunteers committed to national fire safety</a>” its literature asserted.The same year, Sense About Science again called on John Hoskins, identified as an independent toxicologist, this time to fact-check a <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/es303471d" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">study</a> that found potentially carcinogenic flame retardants in sofas. In his response, Hoskins wrote: “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150928075112/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/resources.php/107/do-flame-retardants-in-sofas-cause-cancer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">The bottom line</a> is that danger of fire is many, many times greater than any imagined danger from chemicals used to prevent it.”“Everything I wrote about flame retardants was taken from published works,” Hoskins told me. “Reviewers at the time found nothing to criticize and I have had no comment from the thousands of people who must have read the pieces.”Sense About Science reprinted its guide on chemicals in 2014. “The trade-off between fire risk and toxicology is changing, and we represented that newer precautionary thinking in our most recent publications,” Brown, the group’s director, told The Intercept in an email. The new guide acknowledged “allegations of side effects” from flame retardants, including persistence in the environment and toxicity to humans and animals. But it also retained the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160729205537/http:/www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/154/MakingSenseofChemicalStories2.pdf" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">unsupported claim</a> that regulations requiring the chemicals saved lives. The guide even retained the text that countered concerns about traces of flame retardants found in children’s bodies by asserting that because the chemicals protected children from death or injury from fire, “To fail to expose them to such chemicals could be regarded as negligent.”<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653513017293" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Scientists who reviewed human studies</a> had come to a different conclusion the year before. They warned that although such links were impossible to prove conclusively, the evidence suggested that children’s exposure to flame retardants could have serious health consequences, including neurobehavioral and developmental problems. The scientists called for regulatory oversight.</div><div data-reactid="227" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">
OF ALL THE controversial chemicals in the public eye, the one Trevor Butterworth, Sense About Science USA’s director, has most fervently defended is bisphenol A, a <a href="https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">compound used to make plastics</a>. BPA is found in hard plastics, the lining of canned drinks and foods, thermal receipts, and other consumer and industrial products, including <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0131-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">cigarette filters</a>. Manufacturers <a href="https://mcgroup.co.uk/news/20131108/bpa-production-grew-372000-tonnes.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">produce billions of pounds</a> of BPA each year. Its market value is projected to <a href="http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/11/12/682387/10107790/en/Global-Bisphenol-A-BPA-Market-Demand-Is-Expected-To-Grow-At-CAGR-of-4-7-From-2014-To-2020-New-Report-By-Grand-View-Research-Inc.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">reach $20 billion by 2020</a>. And numerous studies and scientific <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2726844/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; letter-spacing: 0.01em; box-sizing: border-box;">consensus statements</a> have linked BPA, which can interfere with hormone signaling, to developmental and reproductive disorders.Leading reproductive biologists released a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2967230/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">consensus statement</a> in 2007 warning that “the wide range of adverse effects of low doses of BPA in laboratory animals exposed both during development and in adulthood is a great cause for concern with regard to the potential for similar adverse effects in humans.”Two years later, while working for STATS, Butterworth published a 27,000-word <a href="http://www.metal-pack.org/docs/pdf/00047081.PDF" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">investigation</a> sharply questioning the validity of the scientific studies and news reports about BPA’s health effects. Butterworth’s central claim was that a handful of scientists, journalists, and environmental activist groups had ignored good science in a crusade to paint BPA as “the biological equivalent of global warming.” He singled out a <a href="http://cironline.org/person/susanne-rust" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">widely acclaimed</a> <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/40037607.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">special report</a> by Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger called “<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/34405049.htmlhttp:/www.jsonline.com/watchdog/34405049.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Chemical Fallout</a>.” These reporters, he claimed, relied on flawed studies by independent researchers and unfairly dismissed the industry-funded studies that found no harm. But the independent studies were not, in fact, flawed. Regulators just <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19337501" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">didn’t consider them useful</a>, because, like many such academic studies, they didn’t measure toxicity but tested hypotheses about how BPA could alter living systems.<a href="http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/herMetabolism.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">BPA trade groups</a> have long insisted that the substance is metabolized too quickly to cause harm. Butterworth cites a 2009 <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19440505" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study</a> that measured BPA concentrations in newborns to make the same case. The study, he argues, “provides important evidence that infants — even those born prematurely — are able to detoxify BPA in the same way as adults.”The CDC study he cited was designed to gauge exposure, not metabolism. BPA has been detected in the urine of nearly every American tested. Premature babies’ fragile systems make them particularly vulnerable to environmental contaminants. The researchers suspected that the use of plastic medical devices in neonatal intensive care units might expose premature infants to higher than average levels of BPA. And that’s exactly what they found: Average BPA concentrations in hospitalized premature babies were about 10 times higher than those measured in adults. The authors noted that although premature babies appear to have some ability to metabolize BPA, their detoxification pathways “are not expected to be functional at adult rates until months after birth.”Butterworth ended his critique of what he called “the BPA is dangerous thesis” by suggesting that banning the chemical could result in greater harm: “What if some parents who turned to glass bottles for fear of … ‘leaching’ BPA drop and break them, causing injury to their babies?”Butterworth’s arguments have reverberated across an echo chamber of <a href="https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2014/04/anti-bpa-crusaders-baseless-fearmongering/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">free-market organizations</a>, including <a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yxhb0089" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Philip Morris</a>’s <a href="http://www.masstortdefense.com/2009/08/articles/bpa-update/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">product defense law firm</a>, <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/the-troubling-case-of-bisphenol-a/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Koch-funded think tanks</a>, chemical and <a href="http://www.metal-pack.org/thirdparty.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">food-packaging</a> industry <a href="http://www.thermalpaperfacts.org/archives/158" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">trade groups</a> in <a href="http://www.bisphenol-a-europe.org/index.php?mact=Mediaroom,cntnt01,default,0&cntnt01language=en_GB&cntnt01orderby=published_on%20DESC&cntnt01limit=10&cntnt01type=article&cntnt01page=5&cntnt01returnid=44" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Europe</a> and <a href="http://www.canmaker.com/online/who-will-watch-the-watchdogs/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">the U.S.</a>, and an ostensibly neutral <a href="http://www.ehrf.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/UpdateBisphenolA_5_23_11.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">environmental health research foundation</a> run by a <a href="http://www.odwyerpr.com/profiles/profiles_february_2009_evniron_pa.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">chemical industry PR firm</a>.Reached by email for comment, Butterworth did not account for his questionable characterization of the CDC study. He said that his critique relied on the work of scientists from regulatory agencies involved in risk assessment, and that these scientists had criticized smaller studies that claimed adverse effects. He maintained that studies assessing the effects of low doses of BPA are inconsistent and unlikely to capture significant results because of methodological and statistical problems.The year after Butterworth’s 2009 investigation, the anti-regulatory Donors Trust awarded STATS $86,000 for its “research efforts,” and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which belongs to the BPA Joint Trade Association, gave Lichter’s Center for Media and Public Affairs $10,000 for “research support.” Butterworth continued to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2014/04/09/bpa-the-scientists-the-scare-the-100-million-dollar-surge/#66f8f69463c3" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">defend BPA in news outlets</a> and in 2013 made his case on a blog <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/is-bpa-safe-why-some-are-still-confused-despite-evidence" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">for Coca-Cola</a>, another BPA Joint Trade Association member.That year Coca-Cola <a href="http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/investments-in-health-and-wellbeing/list-of-organisations" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">gave more than $30,000</a> to Butterworth’s future partner, Sense About Science, which hosted a BPA forum the next year. (Since then, Sense About Science has not received corporate donations, which “represented less than 3 percent of our income,” Brown wrote in an email.) In the forum, a <a href="http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/live-plastic-packaging-qa.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">Q&A on</a> social media, Sense About Science put forward a representative of the British Plastics Federation and a toxicologist <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6qYGxPSB7QoJ:https://archive.apvma.gov.au/application_summaries/60514.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">whose longstanding ties to the chemical industry</a> the organization did not disclose. Participants were assured that BPA posed no risk to human health. Several <a href="http://www.foodpackagingforum.org/news/qa-twitter-session-on-plastics" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">plastic industry</a> trade sites <a href="http://www.britishplastics.co.uk/News/q-and-a-makes-sense-of-science-behind-plastics-packaging/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">praised</a> the event. One welcomed Sense About Science’s efforts, reporting that “<a href="http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20140417/NEWS/140419934/using-social-media-to-answer-consumer-questions-about-plastics" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">plastic packaging</a> was stoutly defended.”</div><div data-reactid="230" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span data-shortcode-type="dropcap" class="dropcap" andale="Andale" mono="Mono" monospace="monospace" font-weight="font-weight" bold="bold" font-size="font-size" em="em" color="color" rgb="rgb" line-height="line-height" float="float" left="left" margin-bottom="margin-bottom" px="px" margin-top="margin-top" margin-right="margin-right" box-shadow="box-shadow" white="white" style="box-sizing: border-box;">THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY pioneered tactics to fight regulations by manufacturing doubt about the scientific consensus that cigarettes kill. So it should be no surprise to encounter a strategy among defenders of the e-cigarette that also centers around doubt. </div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">toxic 10 epa rollbacks ewg</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2647067465" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;">From the beginning, the Trump administration has aggressively slashed environmental regulations. A New York Times analysis identified <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">100 environmental protections</a> that have been reversed or are in the process of getting rolled back. The administration's record on chemical safety has been especially hazardous for the health of Americans, <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2020/02/report-after-three-years-trump-kids-are-not-alright" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); outline: none;">especially children</a>.<a href="https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2018/01/trump-s-toxic-wake-8-ways-president-made-chemicals-less-safe-2017" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); outline: none;">One year into President Trump's term,</a> EWG detailed how the Trump administration has stacked the Environmental Protection Agency with industry lawyers and lobbyists, undermined worker safety and cooked the books on chemical safety assessments. <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/05/13-ways-pruitt-s-epa-has-made-your-life-more-toxic" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Midway through his second year,</a> we reported how the EPA reversed a ban on a brain-damaging pesticide, delayed chemical bans and killed a rule to protect kids from toxic PCBs in schools. <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2019/08/10-ways-trump-has-undermined-chemical-safety" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Last year,</a> we reported that the EPA had rescinded safety rules at chemical plants, rubber-stamped untested new chemicals and silenced researchers.As Trump's first term nears its end, things are even worse. Here are 10 more ways the Trump administration has continued to make life more toxic for Americans.<div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-basename="1-failed-to-aggressively-regulate-toxic-forever-chemicals" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline">1. Failed to Aggressively Regulate Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’</h3>The toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS contaminate <a href="https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">more than 2,200 sites</a> across the nation. Because they never break down in the environment, PFAS are often called "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemicals-are-everywhere-and-they-wont-ever-go-away/2018/01/02/82e7e48a-e4ee-11e7-a65d-1ac0fd7f097e_story.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">forever chemicals</a>." They build up in our bodies and are linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harms and reduced effectiveness of vaccines. Even though the EPA has known about the risks from PFAS chemicals <a href="https://www.ewg.org/epa-pfas-timeline/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">since at least 1998</a>, they remain virtually unregulated.In February 2019, the EPA released a toothless PFAS "action plan" that lacked deadlines for action and failed to address the use of PFAS in everyday products, contamination from PFAS air emissions or disposal of PFAS waste, among other concerns. A year and a half later, key goals from the plan, including regulating PFAS under the Superfund law and setting drinking water standards, remain unfulfilled.When Congress stepped in and sought to designate PFOA and PFOS – the two most notorious and well-studied PFAS – as "hazardous substances" and to set deadlines for agency action, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/SAP_HR-535.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">threatened a veto</a>. Trump's EPA also <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/27/2020-13738/long-chain-perfluoroalkyl-carboxylate-and-perfluoroalkyl-sulfonate-chemical-substances-significant" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">weakened a rule</a> designed to regulate <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2020/06/final-decision-epa-fails-protect-public-toxic-forever-chemicals-consumer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">PFAS in consumer products</a>.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem2" data-id="2" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" data-basename="2-allowed-a-rocket-fuel-chemical-to-stay-in-drinking-water" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline">2. Allowed a Rocket Fuel Chemical to Stay in Drinking Water</h3>Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel that also frequently contaminates drinking water sources. Perchlorate can interfere with thyroid function, which can also harm <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2017/11/kids-still-risk-rocket-fuel-chemical-food-and-water" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">childhood brain development</a>.<a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-02-11/html/2011-2603.htm" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Almost a decade ago,</a> the EPA determined that these harms warranted regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency then dragged its feet for years. In 2016, the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2016/160218" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Natural Resources Defense Council sued</a> to force the EPA to finally set a legal limit for perchlorate in drinking water. In a <a href="https://www.freshlawblog.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2016/12/Doc-38-Consent-Decree.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">court-approved consent decree</a>, the EPA agreed to propose a standard by October 2018 and finalize it by 2019. However, the EPA sought extensions and failed to meet these deadlines.The <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/06/26/2019-12773/national-primary-drinking-water-regulations-perchlorate" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">EPA finally proposed a drinking water standard</a> in June 2019 but also suggested that it might not regulate perchlorate after all. <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/21/2020-13462/drinking-water-final-action-on-perchlorate" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">A year later, </a>the EPA withdrew its decision to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-basename="3-allowed-scores-of-new-chemicals-including-new-toxic-pfas-onto-the-market-without-adequate-oversight" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline">3. Allowed Scores of New Chemicals, Including New Toxic PFAS, Onto the Market Without Adequate Oversight</h3>In 2016, Congress substantially changed the way new chemicals are approved under the <a href="https://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/05/new-tsca-bill-falls-short-protecting-americans-toxic-chemicals#.WwLUddMvwWo" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Toxic Substances Control Act</a>, or TSCA.Under the old law, chemicals were frequently approved by default, often <a href="https://www.ewg.org/research/off-the-books-ii-more-secret-chemicals/new-chemicals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">without any health and safety information</a>. As a result, unsafe chemicals were allowed to be used for years or decades before the health and environmental hazards came to light. Inadequate oversight of new chemicals can also lead to <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/harmful-chemicals-removed-from-products-often-replaced-with-something-as-bad-or-worse/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">regrettable substitution</a> – when chemicals are finally found to be unsafe, they are often replaced by unstudied chemicals that may be just as or even more toxic.The 2016 update was supposed to fix the new chemicals program by requiring the EPA to make an affirmative safety finding on new chemicals and restrict use if industry failed to provide sufficient safety data. Nonetheless, the Trump EPA has approved scores of new chemicals in a process that <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/12/09/when-will-epa-fully-explain-and-legally-justify-its-reviews-of-new-chemicals-under-tsca/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">lacks transparency</a> and <a href="https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/20200317_comms_pc_tsca_english_final.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">contravenes the 2016 law</a>. The EPA has also <a href="https://www.edf.org/blog/2018/09/05/trumps-epa-flouting-law-when-approving-new-chemicals-here-are-3-examples" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); outline: none;">ignored known health concerns</a>, <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/02/21/the-trump-epa-is-throwing-workers-facing-risks-from-new-tsca-chemicals-under-the-bus/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); outline: none;">limited its consideration of worker risks</a> and <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/06/03/the-trump-epa-is-illegally-denying-requests-for-public-files-on-new-chemicals/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); outline: none;">denied requests for public files</a> in the new chemicals program.The EPA has also exploited loopholes in the new law to quickly approve new chemicals, including toxic PFAS. <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2020/07/28/greasing-the-skids-the-trump-epa-is-green-lighting-dozens-of-new-pfas-under-tsca/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">A recent investigation</a> found that the EPA has been quietly approving new PFAS chemicals, through a provision known as the low volume exemption in the new chemicals program. As a result, the EPA is greenlighting new PFAS chemicals on an expedited basis, without public scrutiny. One PFAS, <a href="http://blogs.edf.org/health/2020/01/27/what-connects-cross-country-skiing-and-chemical-safety/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">used in ski wax</a>, was approved despite a finding that the chemical could "waterproof the lungs," resulting in severe health impacts.Since the law was updated in 2016, the EPA has reviewed more than <a href="https://www.epa.gov/reviewing-new-chemicals-under-toxic-substances-control-act-tsca/statistics-new-chemicals-review" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">3,000 new chemicals</a> submissions. More than 1,000 of these chemicals have been approved through the low volume exemption, and since 2016, manufacturers have begun producing at least 900 new chemicals, many without adequate safety data. Environmental groups have <a href="https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/final_filed_complaint.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">sued the EPA</a> over its failures to protect the public and the environment from risks from new chemicals.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem4" data-id="4" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" data-basename="4-failed-to-protect-workers-from-a-deadly-paint-stripping-chemical" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline">4. Failed to Protect Workers From a Deadly Paint-Stripping Chemical</h3>Methylene chloride is a highly toxic chemical used in paint strippers that is responsible for <a href="https://saferchemicals.org/us-deaths-from-methylene-chloride/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">more than 60 deaths</a> since 1980. In the final days of the Obama administration, the <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0231-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">EPA proposed a ban</a> on "methylene chloride for consumer and most types of commercial paint and coating removal."After significant pressure from <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-reconsiders-ban-on-potentially-lethal-paint-stripper-chemical-methylene-chloride/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">families who lost loved ones</a> due to methylene chloride exposure, the Trump EPA eventually issued a final rule in 2019. However, the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-bans-consumer-sales-methylene-chloride-paint-removers-protecting-public" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">EPA narrowed the rule</a> so that it would apply only to consumer uses of methylene chloride, not commercial uses. That means workers are not protected, even though a <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/workers-rights/epa-restricts-sales-of-deadly-paint-strippers-after-years-of-delays/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Center for Public Integrity investigation</a> found that most deaths from methylene chloride take place at work.A <a href="https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/final-risk-evaluation-methylene-chloride" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">separate EPA evaluation</a> of methylene chloride found that manufacturing, disposal and several other uses of methylene chloride pose no "unreasonable risk." Environmental groups have filed lawsuits challenging <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2019/trump-s-epa-sued-for-leaving-workers-exposed-to-deadly-chemical-in-paint-strippers" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the rule</a> and the <a href="https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2020/trumps-epa-sued-over-understating-risks-of-deadly-chemical" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">recent evaluation</a>.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem5" data-id="5" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-basename="5-cooked-the-books-on-the-civil-action-chemical" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False"><h3 data-role="headline" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">5. Cooked the Books on the “Civil Action” Chemical</h3>Trichloroethylene is a chemical solvent made infamous by the book and movie "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3PHjIly2N0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">A Civil Action</a>." The EPA considers it to be a known carcinogen, and it is one of the primary contaminants that sickened scores of veterans who served at <a href="https://psmag.com/environment/what-happened-at-camp-lejeune" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Camp Lejeune</a>, in North Carolina.As with methylene chloride, in the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed banning three uses of TCE: <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0163-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">spot cleaning, aerosol degreasing</a> and <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2016-0387-0001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">vapor degreasing</a>. In December 2017, the Trump EPA <a href="https://www.ewg.org/release/trump-epa-indefinitely-delays-bans-deadly-chemicals" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">shelved these proposed bans</a>, claiming that it would study those uses in a separate ongoing risk evaluation of TCE.However, the EPA dramatically rewrote the accepted science on TCE in the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/draft-risk-evaluation-trichloroethylene" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">draft risk evaluation</a> released in February. As <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-and-analysis/2018/06/industry-s-behest-epa-caves-banning-civil-action-carcinogen-lays-ground" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">EWG warned</a> in 2018, the solvents industry aggressively lobbied the EPA to ignore a key <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1241384/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">2003 study</a> finding that TCE causes heart deformities in developing fetuses. TCE's connection with fetal heart defects was an important basis for the Obama EPA's decision to ban three uses of TCE. An <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890623816303240#bib0190" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">independent review</a> of the EPA's science found that "prenatal exposure to TCE can cause human cardiac defects" and that the study "remains a valid choice" for assessing risk.The lobbyists succeeded. The EPA's draft risk evaluation questioned the study's design and minimized its significance. An <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/epa-scientists-found-a-toxic-chemical-damages-fetal-hearts-the-trump-white-house-rewrote-their-assessment/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">investigation by Reveal News</a> compared the draft risk evaluation with a leaked earlier draft. It found that the earlier draft had relied extensively on the 2003 study and used it as a benchmark for the risk calculations. Reveal also reported that then-EPA chemicals safety chief Nancy Beck – "<a href="https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/05/scariest-trump-appointee-you-ve-never-heard" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the scariest Trump appointee you've never heard of</a>" 
<a href="https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/05/scariest-trump-appointee-you-ve-never-heard" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/05/scariest-trump-appointee-you-ve-never-heard</a>– ordered that the risk evaluation be rewritten to downplay the risks of TCE. With the EPA giving significantly less weight to risks from fetal heart deformities, it's unlikely the agency will finalize the proposed bans.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem6" data-id="6" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6" data-basename="6-pressured-epa-scientists-to-drop-evaluations-of-toxic-chemicals-including-formaldehyde" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline">6. Pressured EPA Scientists to Drop Evaluations of Toxic Chemicals – Including Formaldehyde</h3>The Trump EPA is undermining the work of independent scientists within the Integrated Risk Information System program, known as IRIS. The program's work is supposed to be impartial and non-political. Its scientific assessments are intended to support the work of other EPA program offices and regional offices. IRIS is a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/03/epa-iris-toxic-chemicals/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">frequent target of chemical industry attacks</a> because its independent safety assessments often don't align with industry objectives.In 2018, the Trump EPA tried to <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3534381/Combined.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">defund</a> the IRIS program. EPA leadership also pressured IRIS to drop critical health assessments. In March 2019, <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/697212.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">a Government Accountability Office report</a> disclosed that EPA leadership directed agency offices to limit the number of chemicals they wanted IRIS to review, and cut in half the number of IRIS's ongoing or upcoming assessments.One of the halted assessments was IRIS's decades-long review of formaldehyde, a widely used chemical and <a href="https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/profiles/formaldehyde.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">known human carcinogen</a>. This is surprising because former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt indicated to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2018 that the report was complete and <a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Pruitt%20Letter%20formaldehyde%20assessment.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ready for release</a>. However, answering <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/01/29/document_pm_02.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">questions for the record</a> following a 2019 Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said formaldehyde was "not a top priority."Instead of releasing the IRIS study on formaldehyde to the public, the EPA has instead decided that the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention – under the leadership of Nancy Beck – should <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-finalizes-list-next-20-chemicals-undergo-risk-evaluation-under-tsca" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none;">conduct its own assessment</a> of formaldehyde. As with TCE, this action will give the agency an opportunity to distort the science and minimize risks. Because these reviews take years, it will also significantly delay any EPA regulatory action on formaldehyde.</div><div class="rebellt-item col1" id="rebelltitem7" data-id="7" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html?rebelltitem=7#rebelltitem7" data-basename="7-rolled-back-clean-water-protections" data-post-id="2647067465" data-published-at="1598221956" data-use-pagination="False" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 data-role="headline">7. Rolled Back Clean Water Protections</h3></div></div></div></div>ref<a href="https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/05/scariest-trump-appointee-you-ve-never-heard">https://www.ewg.org/planet-trump/2017/05/scariest-trump-appointee-you-ve-never-heard</a><div class="field field-name-field-blog-publication-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; height: auto; position: relative; width: auto; text-transform: uppercase;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit;">MAY 2, 2017</div><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
</div></div></div>The Trump administration just appointed a <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/04/trump-just-put-chemical-industy-hack-charge-assessing-chemicals-epa" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">chemical industry bigwig</a> to a high-level chemical safety position at the Environmental Protection Agency as Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.You read that right. Nancy Beck is coming to the EPA straight from the American Chemistry Council, the powerful lobby whose members include Dow Chemical, DuPont, Monsanto, ExxonMobil Chemical, Chevron Phillips Chemical and Bayer among others. Now she’ll be making decisions as the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the EPA department whose stated mission is to “<a href="https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/about-office-chemical-safety-and-pollution-prevention-ocspp" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">protect you, your family, and the environment from potential risks from pesticides and toxic chemicals</a>.”Here’s three things to know about Nancy Beck:She has helped craft the chemical industry’s political agenda for years.Before being appointed to her new position, Beck worked for the ACC as senior director for regulatory science policy in the Division of Regulatory and Technical Affairs. In that position, she helped draft the industry’s positions on chemical legislation before Congress and key regulations at the EPA and other agencies—including the <a href="https://www.ewg.org/research/under-new-safety-law-20-toxic-chemicals-epa-should-act-now/what-new-chemical-safety-law" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">major chemical reform bill</a> that passed last year. <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/testimony_beck" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Just last month</a>, she testified before a House committee and advocated for EPA to adopt ACC’s scientific approach to evaluating chemical safety. In her new position at EPA she’ll oversee the agency’s decisions on chemical safety—decisions that will directly affect your health as well as the financial interests of ACC’s member companies. A House committee once called her out for “very disturbing” attempts to undermine EPA science.Before joining the ACC, Beck was one of a handful of White House scientists who reviewed EPA regulations for the Office of Budget and Management —a job she started under the Bush Administration in 2002. During her tenure, that office increasingly scrutinized EPA chemical safety evaluations, resulting in significant delays.   In 2009, a report by the House Science and Technology Committee <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/scientific_integrity/miller-iris-report-june-09.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">called her out</a> by name for her efforts to rewrite and at times undermine EPA’s assessments of toxic chemicals. Specifically, the report found a Beck comment on a proposed EPA evaluation of a group of flame retardants to be “very disturbing because it represents a substantive editorial change regarding how to characterize the science.” It went on to say that her proposed changes “appear to enhance uncertainty” and that “the whole point of the exercise was to delay.”In other words, she used her position in the executive branch to water down EPA’s conclusions about chemical safety and unduly delay finalization of risk assessments. Now she’ll be overseeing how those conclusions get drafted at the agency. She’s been a vocal critic of EPA’s chemical safety findings, despite her own “fundamentally flawed” approach to chemical safety.   Beck has been described as a <a href="https://insideepa.com/daily-news/accs-beck-vocal-iris-critic-poised-join-epa-deputy-toxics-chief" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">“powerful critic”</a> of EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS program, which researches chemical toxicity. IRIS assessments have traditionally played a big role in informing the rules that EPA and state governments adopt to protect people from toxic chemicals. Beck has frequently criticized the program and its conclusions, especially when they suggest the need to reduce pollution.When Beck was a scientist in the George W. Bush administration's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, she helped write a controversial draft guidance that would have revamped and undermined the way EPA and other agencies evaluate chemical safety. That guidance was eventually withdrawn and significantly scaled back after the <a href="http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11811" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">National Academy of Sciences</a> criticized her proposed approach as “fundamentally flawed.”In her new post, Beck will be free to ignore IRIS findings and direct her office to make chemical safety decisions based on her preferred kinds of studies and scientific methods. She could also play a role in eliminating the IRIS chemical toxicity assessments altogether—something proposed by the Trump administration in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3535244-Detailed-EPA-Budget-Cuts-as-of-March-21-2017.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: 700; overflow-wrap: break-word;">leaked memo</a>. </div><div></div><div><h2 style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 25px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); margin-bottom: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://join.theintercept.com/go/7246?t=19&utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=2118%2E185521%2EBM4g_t" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); text-decoration-line: none;">Toxic PFAS Fallout Found Near Incinerator in Upstate New York</a></h2><h4 style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 5px; line-height: 16.25px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sharon Lerner</h4>PFAS contamination was found in soil and water near an incinerator in New York state that has been burning firefighting foam for the Department of Defense.<a rel="nofollow" class="yiv9192169444read-more" target="_blank" href="https://join.theintercept.com/go/7246?t=20&utm_source=The+Intercept+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&akid=2118%2E185521%2EBM4g_t" style="color: rgb(102, 83, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: uppercase; display: inline-block;">READ MORE →</a></div><div><a href="https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/08/13/if-john-oliver-wants-be-funny-about-science-non-profits-i-can-help-write-better-material-13303">https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/08/13/if-john-oliver-wants-be-funny-about-science-non-profits-i-can-help-write-better-material-13303</a>berman acsh claims total transparency; oil conf; flame retardent</div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/first-nation-law-bans-all-flame-retardants-big-win-families-and-firefighters">http://www.alternet.org/environment/first-nation-law-bans-all-flame-retardants-big-win-families-and-firefighters</a></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div></div><div> Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF), which Burson-Marsteller created on behalf of chemical companies from the U.S., Israel and Japan who wanted to avoid an EU ban on bromine flame retardants suspected to have serious environmental and health impacts. For years the BSEF (lobbyists from the Brussels offices of Burson-Marsteller) lobbied against the EU ban on these substances, without clearly disclosing the nature of the group and the clients.<div></div><div>
</div><div>pounds and pounds in sofas, tho toxic and does not even work:</div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/11/21/its-official-toxic-flame-retardants-no-longer-required-in-furniture/">http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/11/21/its-official-toxic-flame-retardants-no-longer-required-in-furniture/</a></div><div>Governor Jerry Brown has revised a controversial law he signed into existence during his first stint as governor, back in 1975.</div><div>The obscure-sounding “Technical Bulletin 117″, or TB 117, effectively required furniture manufacturers to inject flame-retardant chemicals into all upholstered furniture sold in the state.With California’s law a de facto national standard, a typical sofa now hits the market with two to three pounds of chemicals that can cause cancer and reproductive problems.Starting in January, 2014, a new flame retardant standard will take effect, eliminating the need for furniture makers to inject the chemicals into upholstered chairs, sofas, and other items.Flame-retardants may also disappear from baby gear, such as booster seats and changing pads, which will no longer be subject to flammability standards.“It’s wonderful, after years of work, to see this become a reality” said Arlene Blum, a visiting scholar in chemistry at the University of California Berkeley and director of the Green Science Policy Institute.<aside class="pullquote alignleft" style="line-height: 19.04px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Starting in January, toxics-wary consumers can look for furniture with the “TB 117-2013″ tag, and ask whether the item has been treated with flame-retardant chemicals.</aside>“I was practically screaming with happiness,” said Blum, who’s been working on the flame retardant issue since the 1970s.The <a href="http://www.bhfti.ca.gov/about/laws/propregs.shtml" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">new law</a>, called “TB 117-2013″ doesn’t forbid furniture manufacturers to use the chemicals. Instead, it sets a new flammability test — known as a “smolder test — that furniture makers can meet without using the flame-retardant chemicals.Instead of injecting chemicals into upholstery foam, manufacturers can line furniture with a fire shield, or use flame-retardant fabrics, which do not emit toxic gases.In its <a href="http://www.bhfti.ca.gov/about/laws/isr.pdf" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">justification </a>for the new rules, state officials cited studies suggesting that furniture foam treated with flame-retardant chemicals can actually be more hazardous in a fire.“Flame retardant foam can actually increase smolder propensity,” wrote officials with the state’s <a href="http://www.bhfti.ca.gov/home.shtml" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">Bureau of Home Furnishings</a>, which sets furniture standards.<div class="ctx-sidebar ctx-sidebar-left ctx-sb-clearfix ctx-sidebar-default" id="contextly-9502d57caf924e7e18aa203d0589273d" style="line-height: 19.04px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="ctx-content-sidebar"><div class="ctx-sb-content"><div class="ctx-sb-link"><div class="ctx-sb-fotmater"><div class="ctx-sb-img">
</div><div class="ctx-sb-text"><a href="http://science.kqed.org/quest/audio/the-political-firestorm-inside-your-sofa/" title="The Political Firestorm Inside Your Sofa " class="ctx-clearfix ctx-nodefs ctx-no-images" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">The Political Firestorm Inside Your Sofa</a></div></div></div></div></div></div>Starting in January, furniture makers will be able to sell furniture with the new “TB 117-2013″ tag.Blum says chemical-wary shoppers should look for the new tag, and then ask furniture sellers whether the sofa or chair has been treated with flame-retardant chemicals.<a href="http://www.bhfti.ca.gov/about/laws/tb_order.pdf" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">The revised law</a> could also effectively remove flame-retardant chemicals from a number of children’s products — including changing pads, nursing pillows, infant swings, strollers — all of which are exempt from flammability standards as of January.“We’re in touch with most of the furniture manufacturing associations and the juvenile products manufacturers associations, and they have told us that their manufacturers are planning to remove the flame retardant chemicals, once it’s legally possible,” says Blum. <div id="ctx-sl-subscribe" class="ctx-clearfix"><div class="row" style="line-height: 19.04px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="large-8 large-offset-1 columns article-footer-tags">Explore: <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/category/chemistry/" rel="category tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">Chemistry</a>, <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/category/health/" rel="category tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">Health</a>, <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/category/news/" rel="category tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">News</a>, <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/arlene-blum/" rel="tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">Arlene Blum</a>, <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/flame-retardants/" rel="tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">flame retardants</a>, <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/green-chemistry/" rel="tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">green chemistry</a>, <a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/science/tag/tb-117/" rel="tag" style="word-wrap: break-word; text-decoration: none;">TB 117</a></div></div><div class="comments-wrap" style="line-height: 19.04px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div class="comments-wrap" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant</div><div class="comments-wrap" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div class="comments-wrap" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</div><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fire safety standards<span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flame_retardant&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: Fire safety standards" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3>Flame retardants are typically added to consumer products to meet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammability" title="Flammability" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">flammability</a> standards for furniture, textiles, electronics, and insulation.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-HFR1-11" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[11]</a>In 1975, California began implementing Technical Bulletin 117 (TB 117), which requires that materials such as polyurethane foam used to fill furniture be able to withstand a small open flame, equivalent to a candle, for at least 12 seconds.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-HFR1-11" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[11]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-TB117-12" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[12]</a> In polyurethane foam, furniture manufacturers typically meet TB 117 with additive halogenated organic flame retardants. Although no other U.S. states have a similar standard, because California has such a large market many manufacturers meet TB 117 in products that they distribute across the United States. The proliferation of flame retardants, and especially halogenated organic flame retardants, in furniture across the United States is strongly linked to TB 117.In response to concerns about the health impacts of flame retardants in upholstered furniture, in February 2013 California proposed modifying TB 117 to require that fabric covering upholstered furniture meet a smolder test and to eliminate the foam flammability standards.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[13]</a> Gov. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brown" title="Jerry Brown" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Jerry Brown</a> signed the modified TB117-2013 in November and it became effective in 2014.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-gov.brown-14" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[14]</a> The modified regulation does not mandate a reduction in flame retardants.However, these questions of eliminating emissions into the environment from flame retardants can be solved by using a new classification of highly efficient flame retardants, which do not contain halogen compounds, and which can also be keyed permanently into the chemical structure of the foams used in the furniture and bedding industries. The resulting foams have been certified to produce no flame retardant emissions. This new technology is based on entirely newly developed "Green Chemistry" with the final foam containing about one third by weight of natural oils. Use of this technology in the production of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_TB_117" title="California TB 117" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">California TB 117</a> foams, would allow continued protection for the consumer against open flame ingition whilst providing the newly recognized and newly needed protection, against chemical emissions into home and office environments.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[15]</a> More recent work during 2014 with this "Green Chemistry" has shown that foams containing about fifty percent of natural oils can be made which produce far less smoke when involved in fire situations. The ability of these low emission foams to reduce smoke emissions by up to 80% is an interesting property which will aid escape from fire situations and also lessen the risks for first responders i.e. emergency services in general and fire department personnel in particular.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[16]</a>In Europe, flame retardant standards for furnishings vary, and are their most stringent in the UK and Ireland.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[17]</a> Generally the ranking of the various common flame retardant tests worldwide for furniture and soft furnishings would indicate that the California test Cal TB117 - 2013 test is the most straightforward to pass, there is increasing difficulty in passing Cal TB117 -1975 followed by the British test BS 5852 and followed by Cal TB133. One of the most demanding flammability tests worldwide is probably the US Federal Aviation Authority test for aircraft seating which involves the use of a kerosene burner which blasts flame at the test piece. The 2009 Greenstreet Berman study, carried out by the UK government, showed that in the period between 2002 and 2007 the UK Furniture and Furnishings Fire Safety Regulations accounted for 54 fewer deaths per year, 780 fewer non-fatal casualties per year and 1065 fewer fires each year following the introduction of the UK furniture safety regulations in 1988.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[18]</a><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Effectiveness<span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flame_retardant&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: Effectiveness" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3>The effectiveness of flame retardant chemicals at reducing the flammability of consumer products in house fires is disputed. Advocates for the flame retardant industry, such as the American Chemistry Council’s North American Flame Retardant Alliance, cite a study from the National Bureau of Standards indicating that a room filled with flame-retarded products (a polyurethane foam-padded chair and several other objects, including cabinetry and electronics) offered a 15-fold greater time window for occupants to escape the room than a similar room free of flame retardants.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[19]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-use1-20" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[20]</a> However, critics of this position, including the lead study author, argue that the levels of flame retardant used in the 1988 study, while found commercially, are much higher than the levels required by TB 117 and used broadly in the United States in upholstered furniture.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-HFR1-11" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[11]</a>Another study concluded flame retardants are an effective tool to reduce fire risks without creating toxic emissions.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[21]</a>Several studies in the 1980s tested ignition in whole pieces of furniture with different upholstery and filling types, including different flame retardant formulations. In particular, they looked at maximum heat release and time to maximum heat release, two key indicators of fire danger. These studies found that the type of fabric covering had a large influence on ease of ignition, that cotton fillings were much less flammable than polyurethane foam fillings, and that an interliner material substantially reduced the ease of ignition.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-use2-22" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[22]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-use3-23" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[23]</a> They also found that although some flame retardant formulations decreased the ease of ignition, the most basic formulation that met TB 117 had very little effect.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-use3-23" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[23]</a> In one of the studies, foam fillings that met TB 117 had equivalent ignition times as the same foam fillings without flame retardants.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-use2-22" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[22]</a> A report from the Proceedings of the Polyurethane Foam Association also showed no benefit in open-flame and cigarette tests with foam cushions treated with flame retardants to meet TB 117.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[24]</a> However, other scientists support this open-flame test.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[25]</a><h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); line-height: 1.3; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Environmental prevalence[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flame_retardant&action=edit&section=10" title="Edit section: Environmental prevalence" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>In 2009, the U.S. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospheric_Administration" title="National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)</a> released a report on polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and found that, in contrast to earlier reports, they were found throughout the U.S. coastal zone.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">[26]</a> This nationwide survey found that New York’s Hudson Raritan Estuary had the highest overall concentrations of PBDEs, both in sediments and shellfish. Individual sites with the highest PBDE measurements were found in shellfish taken from Anaheim Bay, California, and four sites in the Hudson Raritan Estuary. Watersheds that include the Southern California Bight, Puget Sound, the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Tampa and St. Petersburg, in Florida, and the waters of Lake Michigan near Chicago and Gary, Indiana, also were found to have high PBDE concentrations.<h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);">Health concerns<span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;">[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flame_retardant&action=edit&section=11" title="Edit section: Health concerns" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h3>The earliest flame retardants, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_biphenyls" title="Polychlorinated biphenyls" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">polychlorinated biphenyls</a> (PCBs), were banned in the U.S. in 1977 when it was discovered that they were toxic.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-toxicpcbs-27" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[27]</a> Industries used <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brominated_flame_retardant" title="Brominated flame retardant" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">brominated flame retardants</a> instead, but these are now receiving closer scrutiny. In 2004 and 2008 the EU banned several types of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybrominated_diphenyl_ethers" title="Polybrominated diphenyl ethers" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">polybrominated diphenyl ethers</a> (PBDEs).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-EHP2008-28" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[28]</a> Negotiations between the EPA and the two U.S. producers of DecaBDE (a flame retardant that has been used in electronics, wire and cable insulation, textiles, automobiles and airplanes, and other applications), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albemarle_Corporation" title="Albemarle Corporation" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Albemarle Corporation</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtura_Corporation" title="Chemtura Corporation" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Chemtura Corporation</a>, and the largest U.S. importer,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_Industrial_Products" title="ICL Industrial Products" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">ICL Industrial Products</a>, Inc., resulted in commitments by these companies to phase out decaBDE for most uses in the United States by December 31, 2012, and to end all uses by the end of 2013.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-29" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[29]</a> The state of California has listed the flame retardant chemical chlorinated Tris (tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate or TDCPP) as a chemical known to cause cancer.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[30]</a> In December 2012, the California nonprofit Center for Environmental Health filed notices of intent to sue several leading retailers and producers of baby products<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[31]</a> for violating California law for failing to label products containing this cancer-causing flame retardant. While the demand for brominated and chlorinated flame retardants in North America and Western Europe is declining, it is rising in all other regions.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-Market_Study_Flame_Retardants-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a>Nearly all Americans tested have trace levels of flame retardants in their body. Recent research links some of this exposure to dust on television sets, which may have been generated from the heating of the flame retardants in the TV. Careless disposal of TVs and other appliances such as microwaves or old computers may greatly increase the amount of environmental contamination.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[32]</a> A recent study conducted by Harley et al. 2010<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_retardant#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[33]</a> on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnant_woman" title="Pregnant woman" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">pregnant women</a>, living in a low-income, predominantly Mexican-immigrant community in California showed a significant decrease in fecundity associated with PBDE exposure in women....<div class="comments-wrap" style="line-height: 19.04px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div id="ctx-module" class="ctx-module-container ctx-clearfix" widget-type="blocks2" style="line-height: 19.04px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="ctx-content-block2 ctx-nodefs ctx-module-sec6"><div class="ctx-sections-container ctx-nomar"><div class="ctx-section ctx-clearfix ctx-section-previous"><div class="ctx-links-header ctx-clearfix"><div class="ctx-links-content ctx-nodefs ctx-clearfix"><div class="ctx-link">
</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>