Toxic America: Time for Reform
Of more than 80,000 chemicals used in the U.S. over the last few decades, only about 200 have been required to get tested for safety. And only one group of chemicals – PCBs – has ever been fully banned.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), America's main law governing chemical safety, requires the government prove chemicals are harmful instead of requiring manufacturers to prove they're safe. As a result, virtually every American is exposed to hundreds of toxic chemicals every day.
We recently had the opportunity to speak with two EDF scientists in this field: Richard Denison, EDF's Senior Scientist specializing in policy, hazard and risk assessment and management for industrial chemicals and nanomaterials; and Caroline Baier-Anderson, EDF's Health Scientist providing technical and scientific support on chemical regulatory policy, air toxics and nanotechnology.
EDF: Toxics have been an issue for a long time. Why is it finally getting attention on a larger scale?
Richard Denison: I think what’s brought it to the forefront now is a drumbeat of high-profile stories over the last few years that vividly illustrate the failing of government in ensuring the safety of chemicals. These include the widespread exposure to formaldehyde of people who were forced to live in trailers provided by FEMA after hurricane Katrina; the steady flow of imported toys and other products from China that are contaminated with lead or other heavy metals; contamination of pet food with a chemical that killed dogs and cats; and probably most recently and most visibly the inability of government to regulate a chemical -- bisphenol A (or BPA) -- that has been used extremely widely in food can linings, baby bottles, infant formula cans and many other products.
Caroline Baier-Anderson: These products are governed by various laws and agencies; the regulatory patchwork is complicated, but the bottom line message is simple: Chemicals and consumer products made from them are not being properly regulated by our federal government. The Toxic Substances Control Act is in most dire need of an overhaul.
RD: Part of the problem is that we have isolated different types of chemicals, or even the same chemical in different uses, across different agency jurisdictions. BPA, when it finds its way into a baby bottle or a food can, is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but that same chemical when it shows up in a cash register receipt could be regulated by EPA under TSCA. Nobody has been charged with looking at the big picture: all of the sources of exposure to a chemical. We think that EPA should have that authority under TSCA because it was envisioned as being an all-encompassing law that would help to fill the gaps in other laws and be able to consider the full life cycle of the chemical across all of its uses.
CBA: As you can imagine, if you have a chemical that is being used in dozens of different products regulated by different agencies, it is incredibly difficult to pull all the information together in one place to make rational decisions about how a chemical should be used. I think under a reformed TSCA that's exactly the kind of authority EPA needs.
EDF: So what factors are driving the momentum for TSCA reform we see now?
RD: In the absence of action by the Federal Government, many states in the US have either banned individual uses of certain chemicals or enacted their own policy changes in order to deal with chemicals within their own borders. That always brings industry to the table at a federal level because they don't like individual states having different laws that they argue interfere with commerce.
Much of the rest of the world is already ahead of us in dealing with this problem as well. The European Union recently enacted sweeping reform of its chemicals legislation, and that is changing the landscape because it is essentially becoming a set of global standards. Anyone who sells chemicals in Europe, which is just about every company that produces chemicals on the globe, has to comply with this new policy.
And finally, and probably most important, the downstream users of chemicals—companies that buy chemicals and put them in their products or that buy or sell products that contain chemicals—are demanding more information and more evidence of safety. That customer demand is the major factor driving chemical producers, for the first time ever, to say it’s time for us to modernize and reform TSCA.
CBA: Information about what products chemicals are being used in is not systematically collected, not by EPA, not by FDA, not by anybody, so it took a lot of years of digging and a lot of groundwork on the part of many different individuals representing non-profits and the press to explain the problems we're now seeing. And the scientific understanding of chemical effects has advanced in recent years: We now recognize that some chemicals can have adverse impacts during early human development or at very low levels of exposure, and those findings have served to heighten the concern.
RD: We now know that all of us carry hundreds of synthetic chemicals in our bodies; indeed, even newborn infants come into the world with hundreds of synthetic chemicals in their bodies because of exposure of their mothers before or during pregnancy. That is a huge wake-up call. For example, BPA is found in 93% of Americans' bodies—a staggering revelation that has made everybody begin to wonder, is BPA safe? And if it's in combination with hundreds of other chemicals in my body, what about the interactions and the synergies between those chemicals?
CBA: No one would have predicted 20 years ago that we would be exposed to BPA like that. It's really hard for a scientist, even an industry scientist, to stand up and say, "Oh, I'm sure it's fine." No one is going to believe that. No one is going to accept that. So, you have fetal exposures to hundreds of chemicals—there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that allows that to happen.
RD: When TSCA was first passed over 30 years ago, it may have seemed logical to assume that we weren't going to be exposed to these chemicals, or they wouldn't be harmful to us if we were. But once we realized that we are all being exposed, it was surprising how little information we had about the safety of these chemicals. So that's why we are calling for a shift in the burden of proof from the presumption that most chemicals are safe and puts the onus on government—and hence the public—to have to prove harm in order to act, to a new approach that requires companies to demonstrate the safety of their products as a condition for entering or staying on the market.
EDF: You mentioned earlier that humans have hundreds of different chemicals in their bodies. Is this more of a problem in the U.S. right now, or internationally as well?
CBA: We know that Europeans are similarly exposed, although we also know that where Europe has taken precautionary action on certain chemicals, there are measurable reductions in their body burden compared to what we have in the US. This is particularly true for chemicals like flame retardants, where the exposures are still very, very high in the US and they're actually going down in parts of Europe because they phased these chemicals out well before we began to take action on them. Beyond the U.S. and Europe, since a lot of our hazardous materials and waste gets shipped overseas, that's an open question and an important one.
RD: Certain chemicals, especially those that are very persistent in the environment and tend to build up in the environment or people's bodies, are being found far removed from the industrialized parts of the world. Some of the highest levels of brominated flame retardants found in any people have been found in native Alaskans, who subsist on a diet that consists of large amounts of fish and other food sources that accumulate chemicals. So, we know that these chemicals don't stay put, they tend to migrate long distances, and populations that are not exposed to those chemicals industrially or even through product use are showing some of the highest levels. So we know we have a problem that is global in nature.
EDF: You mentioned the FEMA trailers in New Orleans earlier, and how the materials used to build them was brought in by China. But it wouldn't be legal to sell that wood in China, is that correct?
RD: The Chinese producers of pressed wood products, including plywood, produce different grades of products for export to different countries. Because Europe and Japan, and now California, have stringent limits on formaldehyde in such products, they produce a line of products that can be sold into those markets. The rest of the U.S. has no such limit and that is how the high-formaldehyde plywood came into the U.S. and was used in making the FEMA trailers. China itself has imposed limits on the emission of formaldehyde from such products. So the products they are selling to the U.S. could not even be sold for domestic use in China.
EDF: Is there anything the average person can do to avoid toxic chemicals?
CBA: Yes, there are products like shampoo and dish soap and laundry detergent that market themselves as being made with safer chemical ingredients, and a variety of eco logos are on products that have been certified as being made with safer chemical ingredients. It becomes a little more challenging when we talk about the big-ticket items such as carpeting and furniture and mattresses and things like that—these are products that we live with for many years. Companies like IKEA, which is based in Sweden, have made an effort to remove many known chemicals of concern from their products. So safer products are out there, they are available, but they are hard to find and often it can be really confusing to the average consumer. Ultimately the solution is regulatory reform so that we have standards in place that protect all citizens.
RD: Even the most informed and motivated individual consumers are limited in what they can do to protect themselves, in part because most products are not required to disclose their ingredients. Some companies have taken voluntary efforts to label their products. But what we really need is a more uniform system that requires companies to disclose which chemicals are in their products. Ultimately though, it should not be up to individual consumers to take steps to protect themselves. We need government to provide the policies and regulations needed to ensure that chemicals in products and in widespread use are safe.
EDF: Tell us about what's happening with the TSCA bill. Is there anything the average person can do to help put pressure on the government to reform this bill?
RD: The US Congress is for the first time in many decades seriously considering new legislation that would reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. A bill was introduced in both Houses back in 2008, and that Bill is being updated and expanded considerably. We expect it could be introduced into the House of the Senate as soon as this month. We are hopeful that bill will signal the beginning of a legislative debate that will culminate in passage of legislation that reforms TSCA in a fundamental way.
People need to get informed about what the issues and needs are for a good chemicals policy; and then weigh in with their legislators to let them know that they care about this issue, that they want strong and fundamental reform, and that they will vote accordingly and support Members of Congress that support strong reform. One source of information is the website of a broad coalition of health, environmental and labor groups that EDF is part of, called the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition: www.saferchemicals.org.
CBA: And I want to make a pitch for the consumer to seek out products that are made with safer chemicals. Even though it is hard to do and it can be confusing, it sends an important message to retailers and to manufacturers that there is a consumer interest in products made with safer chemicals. Reducing your body burden even by a little bit can make a difference, but I think the most important reason to seek out products made with safer chemicals is the incentive it provides to retailers and manufacturers. Often representatives from companies I communicate with say that they are not seeing sufficient demand for safer products at the retail level. By letting them know that we do care, we can play an important role in pressing for change.
EDF: EDF is known for taking a transformational approach to policy. What is the core transformational idea here?
RD: The cornerstone of what we are seeking in chemical policy reform is to create the conditions that allow the market to function. I would argue that we have a very dysfunctional market right now, for two reasons. One, the vast majority of chemicals have little or no information about their safety; that means that the millions of decisions that get made every day about chemicals, by everyone from individual consumers all the way up to huge companies, are ill-informed and don't adequately account for safety because the information isn't there. If we have a policy that drives the development and propagation of that information, the market itself will be able to make much better decisions. Second, we also need a government that is able to differentiate between a safe chemical and an unsafe chemical and has the resources and authority needed to drive the market towards safer chemicals and safer products. That's the kind of fundamental transformation that I think we need.
EDF: Do you have a positive outlook on how this will end up?
RD: We have new leadership in the Administration and at EPA that has acknowledged the priority that this issue needs; and that's a significant departure from the past. With the executive branch acknowledging that time has come for change, that helps the legislative process to move along in a way that often doesn't happen if those two branches of government are at odds with each other. So I think for the first time in many years, we have stars aligning in a way that makes it quite likely we'll get the first fundamental reform of this law in more than three decades.
Posted: 09-Feb-2010; Updated: 04-Feb-2010
