News Roundup: New Reports on Hazard Assessment
In a new feature for this newsletter, this month we offer some commentary on two recent news items: EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory Doesn’t Offer Full Picture of Pollution via iWatch News and New Study Links Toxic Chemicals in Consumer Products with Impaired Immune System from NRDC’s Switchboard . Both of these articles reflect two critical points for those that advocate better information about the chemicals used in industry and greater reliance on using comparative hazard assessment to make decisions. The article on the U.S. EPA demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the regulatory approach to adequately monitor and prevent hazardous chemicals from entering the environment. This is only one stage of the life cycle of a hazardous chemical–it may have had an impact in other stages from its manufacture, use in industry, or use in the final product.
The recent study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) referenced in the NRDC Switchboard article is another reminder of the unanticipated effects of chemicals that we know to be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. Perfluorinated chemicals have been the subject of much debate over the past ten years, and this recent study suggests that there is yet another reason to be concerned about the safety of PFCs. The full JAMA report is available for download here.
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