Should Public Health Officials Be Disqualified While "Experts" With Corporate Ties Remain?
WASHINGTON – Under pressure from chemical industry lobbyists, the Bush Administration fired the chair of an expert science panel at the Environmental Protection Agency that was evaluating the safety of a neurotoxic fire retardant, according to documents obtained by Environmental Working Group (EWG).
EPA is to issue by March 7 a reassessment of the human health risks from Deca, an industrial fire retardant used in electronics and other consumer products, and widely found in Americans' blood and breast milk. But last summer EPA removed Dr. Deborah Rice, a Maine state scientist and author of an important study of the chemical, as chair of the external advisory panel for EPA's review of fire retardants.
Her firing came after a protest from the chemical industry, which claimed Rice had a conflict of interest as a result of her testimony before the Maine Legislature, on behalf of her agency, in favor of phasing out Deca. EPA also removed her comments from the panel's final report on Deca's safety.
While the EPA and the chemical industry thought the presence of one of the country's preeminent experts on the toxic fire retardant Deca had no business chairing the advisory panel, scores of individuals with direct financial ties to the chemical industry remain on a number of different external advisory panels.
An EWG review of 7 external expert panels convened last year under EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) found 17 members with direct or potential conflicts of interest, including employees of companies who make the chemicals under review or scientists whose work was funded by industries with a financial stake in the panel's outcome.
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