[Pharmwaste] Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law

DeBiasi,Deborah Deborah.DeBiasi at deq.virginia.gov
Mon Jan 4 12:26:24 EST 2010


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR201001
0302110.html


Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 4, 2010; A01 
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States -- from
flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners -- nearly 20 percent
are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their
names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all
public officials under a little-known federal provision. 
The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a
highly competitive industry. But critics -- including the Obama
administration -- say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it
impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for consumers
to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to. 
At a time of increasing public demand for more information about
chemical exposure, pressure is building on lawmakers to make it more
difficult for manufacturers to cloak their products in secrecy. Congress
is set to rewrite chemical regulations this year for the first time in a
generation. 
Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, manufacturers must report
to the federal government new chemicals they intend to market. But the
law exempts from public disclosure any information that could harm their
bottom line. 
Government officials, scientists and environmental groups say that
manufacturers have exploited weaknesses in the law to claim secrecy for
an ever-increasing number of chemicals. In the past several years, 95
percent of the notices for new chemicals sent to the government
requested some secrecy, according to the Government Accountability
Office
<http://projects.washingtonpost.com/politicsglossary/general/Government-
Accountability-Office/> . About 700 chemicals are introduced annually. 
Some companies have successfully argued that the federal government
should not only keep the names of their chemicals secret but also hide
from public view the identities and addresses of the manufacturers. 
"Even acknowledging what chemical is used or what is made at what
facility could convey important information to competitors, and they can
start to put the pieces together," said Mike Walls, vice president of
the American Chemistry Council. 
Although a number of the roughly 17,000 secret chemicals may be
harmless, manufacturers have reported in mandatory notices to the
government that many pose a "substantial risk" to public health or the
environment. In March, for example, more than half of the 65
"substantial risk" reports filed with the Environmental Protection
Agency involved secret chemicals. 
"You have thousands of chemicals that potentially present risks to
health and the environment," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president
of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that
documented the extent of the secret chemicals through public-records
requests from the EPA. "It's impossible to run an effective regulatory
program when so many of these chemicals are secret." 
Of the secret chemicals, 151 are made in quantities of more than 1
million tons a year and 10 are used specifically in children's products,
according to the EPA. 
The identities of the chemicals are known to a handful of EPA employees
who are legally barred from sharing that information with other federal
officials, state health and environmental regulators, foreign
governments, emergency responders and the public. 
Last year, a Colorado nurse fell seriously ill after treating a worker
involved at a chemical spill at a gas-drilling site. The man, who later
recovered, appeared at a Durango hospital complaining of dizziness and
nausea. His work boots were damp; he reeked of chemicals, the nurse
said. 
Two days later, the nurse, Cathy Behr, was fighting for her life. Her
liver was failing and her lungs were filling with fluid. Behr said her
doctors diagnosed chemical poisoning and called the manufacturer,
Weatherford International, to find out what she might have been exposed
to. 
Weatherford provided safety information, including hazards, for the
chemical, known as ZetaFlow. But because ZetaFlow has confidential
status, the information did not include all of its ingredients. 
Mark Stanley, group vice president for Weatherford's pumping and
chemical services, said in a statement that the company made public all
the information legally required. 
"It is always in our company's best interest to provide information to
the best of our ability," he said. 
Behr said the full ingredient list should be released. "I'd really like
to know what went wrong," said Behr, 57, who recovered but said she
still has respiratory problems. "As citizens in a democracy, we ought to
know what's happening around us." 
The White House and environmental groups want Congress to force
manufacturers to prove that a substance should be kept confidential.
They also want federal officials to be able to share confidential
information with state regulators and health officials, who carry out
much of the EPA's work across the country. 
Walls, of the American Chemistry Council, says manufacturers agree that
federal officials should be able to share information with state
regulators. Industry is also willing to discuss shifting the burden of
proof for secrecy claims to the chemical makers, he said. The EPA must
allow a claim unless it can prove within 90 days that disclosure would
not harm business. 
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is trying to reduce secrecy. 
A week after he arrived at the agency in July, Steve Owens, assistant
administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic
Substances, ended confidentiality protection for 530 chemicals. In those
cases, manufacturers had claimed secrecy for chemicals they had promoted
by name on their Web sites or detailed in trade journals. 
"People who were submitting information to the EPA saw that you can
claim that virtually anything is confidential and get away with it,"
Owens said. 
The handful of EPA officials privy to the identity of the chemicals do
not have other information that could help them assess the risk, said
Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official and a pediatrician and
epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 
"Maybe they don't know there's been a water quality problem in New
Jersey where the plant is located, or that the workers in the plant have
had health problems," she said. "It just makes sense that the more
people who are looking at it, they're better able to put one and one
together and recognize problems." 
Independent researchers, who often provide data to policymakers and
regulators, also have been unable to study the secret chemicals. 
Duke University chemist Heather Stapleton, who researches flame
retardants, tried for months to identify a substance she had found in
dust samples taken from homes in Boston. 
Then, while attending a scientific conference, she happened to see the
structure of a chemical she recognized as her mystery compound. 
The substance is a chemical in "Firemaster 550," a product made by
Chemtura Corp. for use in furniture and other products as a substitute
for a flame retardant the company had quit making in 2004 because of
health concerns. 
Stapleton found that Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient similar in
structure to a chemical -- Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP -- that
Congress banned last year from children's products because it has been
linked to reproductive problems and other health effects. 
Chemtura, which claimed confidentiality for Firemaster 550, supplied the
EPA with standard toxicity studies. The EPA has asked for additional
data, which it is studying. 
"My concern is we're using chemicals and we have no idea what the
long-term effects might be or whether or not they're harmful," said
Susan Klosterhaus, an environmental scientist at the San Francisco
Estuary Institute who has published a journal article on the substance
with Stapleton. 
Chemtura officials said in a written statement that even though
Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient structurally similar to DEHP does
not mean it poses similar health risks. 
They said the company strongly supports keeping sensitive business
information out of public view. "This is essential for ensuring the
long-term competitiveness of U.S. industry," the officials said in the
statement. 
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report. 


Deborah L. DeBiasi 
Email:   Deborah.DeBiasi at deq.virginia.gov (NEW!)
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov 
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality 
Office of Water Permit Programs 
Industrial Pretreatment/Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) Program 
PPCPs, EDCs, and Microconstituents
www.deq.virginia.gov/vpdes/microconstituents.html 
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218 
Location:  629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA  23219 
PH:         804-698-4028 
FAX:      804-698-4032 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.dep.state.fl.us/pipermail/pharmwaste/attachments/20100104/6b1b52fb/attachment.htm


More information about the Pharmwaste mailing list