NYT:Environmental Groups Are Praising the E.P.A. for Updating Cancer-Risk

[DeepModem Mom]

Environmental Groups Are Praising the E.P.A. for Updating Cancer-Risk Guidelines
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Published: April 4, 2005


WASHINGTON, April 3 - A remarkable thing happened here last week: the Environmental Protection Agency announced a set of guidelines, and environmental groups were largely complimentary in response.

The agency's new approach to assessing chemicals that might cause cancer won praise for replacing guidelines that were nearly 20 years old and for taking into account, for the first time, the likelihood that children may be more vulnerable to exposure than adults.

***

Cancer guidelines inform agency regulators how a substance might cause cancer in humans. When the first risk assessments were adopted in 1986, they generally reflected research on laboratory animals, leading to uncontroversial assumptions by agency scientists that if a substance caused cancer in an animal, it would also cause cancer in a human. The assessments influence new regulations on chemicals found in air, water, pesticides, waste and former Superfund sites.

In recent years, however, a growing number of studies have refined efforts to analyze the impact of chemicals on humans, in some cases leading agency scientists to determine that substances harmful to animals do not necessarily pose risks for humans. Newer studies also show that some substances may be more harmful to humans than once thought. Dr. Farland cited research that now suggests that benzene, a chemical used in the manufacture of a variety of products, is a potential threat to humans at lower levels than previous studies showed.

The new guidelines also reflect how more recent studies show the differences between cancer-causing chemicals in adults and young children, recognizing the possibility that children younger than 2 might be 10 times more at risk and children from 2 to 16 might be 3 times more at risk....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/politics/04cancer.html

[camitche]

1. That's great and all, but I think the onion has says it best

EPA To Drop 'E,' 'P' From Name
WASHINGTON, DC—Days after unveiling new power-plant pollution regulations that rely on an industry-favored market-trading approach to cutting mercury emissions, EPA Acting Administrator Stephen Johnson announced that the agency will remove the "E" and "P" from its name. "We're not really 'environmental' anymore, and we certainly aren't 'protecting' anything," Johnson said. "'The Agency' is a name that reflects our current agenda and encapsulates our new function as a government-funded body devoted to handling documents, scheduling meetings, and fielding phone calls." The change comes on the heels of the Department of Health and Human Services' January decision to shorten its name to the Department of Services.


http://www.theonion.com/index.php?issue=4112

[Zorra]

2. This article does not mention a single environmental group that

responded in a genuinely complimentary way to the new EPA guidelines. In fact, the only environmental group mentioned by name in the posted article was this one, and it is not exactly bubbling over with praise for the EPA:

"They mostly did the right thing," John Walke, the director of the Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the new guidelines. "They're long overdue and responsible in the way they update protections for children."

Mr. Walke's organization was one of the few environmental groups to temper its appreciation for the new guidelines by raising concerns over language inserted by the Office of Management and Budget that allows outside groups to challenge scientific conclusions before they become part of the new guidelines. Dr. Jennifer Sass, a defense council senior scientist, said that such "expert elicitation" provides an open invitation to the chemical industry to weaken the guidelines and to delay their being put in place.

What kind of journalism is that? The headline of this article is misleading, not backed up by the content of the article, and unfortunately, given today's journalistic climate, leads me to suspect it is straight from the WH propaganda mill.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. You are absolutely correct -- which env. groups? nt