Today EPA released the first part of its long-awaited reassessment of the human health risks posed by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, a chemical considered to be the most toxic of the dioxin compounds and the stuff that made Agent Orange so bad for its victims. It’s bittersweet news: on the one hand, the decades-long stretch between EPA’s first look at dioxin and this document is something we don’t like to see, while on the other, today marks an enormous step forward. The document released today focuses only on non-cancer effects and sets an oral reference dose—the level of exposure below which key health impacts are unlikely to occur. Past EPA assessments looked only at dioxin’s carcinogenic risks, so it is an important development that today’s release looks at the many other adverse health outcomes that might occur, such as “chloracne, developmental and reproductive effects, damage to the immune system, interference with hormones, skin rashes, skin discoloration, excessive body hair, and possibly mild liver damage.”
As Ben Somberg noted here in December, the American Chemistry Council tried to convince EPA that a rider to the FY2012 omnibus spending bill required the agency to pull back the dioxin assessment. CPR President Rena Steinzor and I wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to correct the record on ACC’s false claim. The letter explained how the House had earlier considered a version of the bill that required EPA to rework all draft and final IRIS assessment due out in FY 2012, but ultimately went with a bill that requires revision of only the draft assessments and not the final assessments.
Good for EPA for calling the chemical industry’s bluff!
The most important part of EPA’s dioxin risk assessment is still in the works. The cancer-focused part of the assessment continues to be under review. The National Academy of Sciences undertook a two-year review of EPA’s draft dioxin assessment (both the non-cancer and cancer analyses) in 2004-2006. There’s no question that dioxin is a carcinogen. This protracted fight over the cancer part of the assessment revolves around exactly how dioxin and related compounds cause cancer. It matters because the mode of action determines the shape of the dose-response curve, which will ultimately impact EPA’s best guess as to the “safe” level of dioxin exposure. The lower the level, the more expensive Superfund cleanups become and the more likely it is that guidelines for meat and dairy consumption will have to be rethought. (Dioxin bioaccumulates in fat, resulting in the public’s primary routes of exposure being beef, dairy, and freshwater fish consumption.)
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Matt Shudtz | February 17, 2012
Today EPA released the first part of its long-awaited reassessment of the human health risks posed by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, a chemical considered to be the most toxic of the dioxin compounds and the stuff that made Agent Orange so bad for its victims. It’s bittersweet news: on the one hand, the decades-long stretch between EPA’s first […]
Rena Steinzor | February 17, 2012
The Economist’s February 18 edition offers a cover package of five articles on “Over-regulated America” (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Our British friends want you to know there’s a problem here in the States that needs fixing: A study for the Small Business Administration, a government body, found that regulations in general add $10,585 in […]
Sandra Zellmer | February 16, 2012
Last month, President Obama denied TransCanada’s permit application for the Keystone XL pipeline because a congressionally mandated deadline did not allow enough time to evaluate the project once Nebraska completed its analysis for re-routing of the pipeline around the Sand Hills. A January 26-29 poll from Hart Research Associates found that, after hearing arguments for and […]
Joel A. Mintz | February 15, 2012
Two of my CPR Member Scholar colleagues, Nina Mendelson and Holly Doremus have done a first-rate job of previewing and analyzing the oral argument in Sackett v. EPA – a case now awaiting decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. I fully share Professor Doremus’s hope that, even if the case results in a loss for […]
Thomas McGarity | February 14, 2012
Today marks the first anniversary of an event that received little media attention, but marked a major milestone in the progression of a regulation that is of great importance to thousands of Americans whose jobs bring them into contact with dust particles containing the common mineral silica. Exactly a year ago today the Occupational Safety […]
Robert Verchick | February 13, 2012
Last fall, in a speech I gave at an environmental justice event in Los Angeles, I ruffled some feathers with an impromptu line that went something like this: “Believe it or not, federal environmental statutes say nothing directly about environmental justice.” During the “Q & A” I was challenged by an environmental activist and lawyer […]
Rena Steinzor | February 9, 2012
Political scientists have coined the term “bureaucracy bashing” to connote the temptation now rife among national politicians to beat up on the civil service for reasons that have nothing to do with reality. Ronald Reagan pioneered this art form of disrespecting bureaucrats in the name of downsizing government, even as federal deficit spending on government […]
Rena Steinzor | February 7, 2012
The debate over whether the government protects people exposed to industrial hazards enough—or whether it engages in ruinous “overregulation”—is only occasionally coherent. Sometimes it’s downright bizarre, and never is it for the faint of heart. Consider the case of kids working on farms. Following a series of gruesome accidents involving teenagers as young as 14 who […]
Matthew Freeman | February 6, 2012
In an article in the most recent issue of The Abell Report, the newsletter of The Abell Foundation, CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analysts Aimee Simpson and Yee Huang take a look at what ails the Chesapeake Bay (Spoiler Alert: it involves years of inaction on pollution), and offer up a number of […]