EPA employed suspect chemical industry lab to declare perchlorate safe

As the clock runs out on the Bush administration, officials at EPA handed industry another victory last month: it relied on a chemical industry-funded consulting firm to justify its decision not to set safety standards for the toxic rocket fuel component perchlorate in drinking water - a move that would have cost defense and aerospace contractors hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup costs. Instead of using real-world data, EPA officials contracted the perchlorate assessment out to the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT), which its website says was created in 1974 by "chemical industry leaders." The consulting firm devised a computer model for the assessment that suggested that perchlorate-contaminated water and food presented relatively minor risks to humans. EPA officials used the CIIT data as a basis for refusing to crack down on water pollution caused by perchlorate. A CDC national survey found perchlorate in the urine of every person tested and found that children between 6 and 11 had perchlorate levels 1.6 times higher than adults. Even more alarming, CDC researchers found that exposure to perchlorate at levels that are considered safe by EPA resulted in significant changes in thyroid hormone levels in the one third of U.S. women tested whose iodine levels are on the low side. These findings of high levels of human exposure have aroused great concern because tests show that the chemical disrupts production of thyroid hormones at these levels, and inadequate levels of thyroid hormones interfere with normal brain development and growth in infants and children. "It's simply mind-boggling that the EPA would base its actions on any advice from the chemical industry, which has millions of dollars at stake in EPA's position on perchlorate," said Environmental Working Group (EWG) senior scientist Anila Jacob, a medical doctor. "Worse yet, this particular industry consultant is notorious for cooking its results to please the industry. Its computer model is voodoo science, plain and simple." "If President Bush moves forward with this giveaway to industry, we will ask the incoming Obama administration to reverse course immediately and implement stringent safety standards to protect future generations from exposure to this toxin," added Jacob. CIIT is no stranger to controversy. Its 2004 risk assessment for formaldehyde claimed the chemical was 2,500 to 10,000 times less dangerous than EPA had previously asserted. Since 1981, the U.S. federal government has listed formaldehyde as a "probable human carcinogen." (Formaldehyde-treated plywood and other components were found to have sickened Hurricane Katrina survivors living in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.) The U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia overturned EPA's formaldehyde loophole in 2007. Even so, EPA has continued to use CIIT assessments instead of making its own calculations or turning to risk assessment experts independent of the chemical industry. In a September 18 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) raised questions about CIIT's insistence that people are at low risk from formaldehyde emissions. CIIT researchers, GAO said, did not take into account 2003 and 2004 studies by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health that found a "relationship between formaldehyde and certain cancers, including leukemia." EPA issued its preliminary decision not to regulate perchlorate on Oct. 10. At that time, the agency set a deadline of 30 days, to Nov. 10 for public comments. EWG and other environmental groups pressed for a 60-day extension, to Jan. 9, 2009, to allow more time for discussion. Yesterday [Nov. 10], EPA granted an 18-day extension, to Nov. 28. EWG responded by renewing its request for an extension to Jan. 9.