Donald TrumpEnvironmental Protection Agency (Environmental Protection Agency) is offering increase exposure to highly carcinogenic formaldehyde, which he considers safe. If successful, experts and advocates say, people will continue to be exposed to massive amounts of the toxin in thousands of everyday products used in the economy.
Formaldehyde, a caustic, colorless gas at room temperature, is found in a variety of cosmetics, personal care products, household cleaning products, craft products, leather goods, furniture, clothing, plastics, building materials and other everyday products. For Joe BidenEPA scientists have taken an important step toward curbing a broad societal risk by issuing a finding that any level of exposure to formaldehyde can cause cancer, and very low levels cause health harms not related to cancer, according to EPA scientists.
Chemical manufacturers who typically produce up to 5 billion pounds formaldehyde annually in the US, strongly opposes the findings of the Biden-era risk assessments. The same industry leaders involved in EPA formaldehyde charges in recent years were appointed this year Trump administration to lead the relevant departments of the agency – and now they are attacking science from within.
proposed changes represent the scenario many public health advocates feared if Trump handed over the EPA to industry. Simply put, these changes will preserve industry profits while scaling back efforts to better protect public health.
“When you have chemicals that are so common and so toxic, they really require tough regulations,” said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an Earthjustice attorney who litigates toxic chemicals issues. “You really need the government to do its job and provide protection.”
Besides being famous carcinogenformaldehyde is associated with breathing problems, miscarriages and fertility problems.
Too strong opposition to the chemical industry, Biden's Environmental Protection Agency completed a risk assessment of formaldehyde in January. conclusionswhich serve as the basis for developing regulations that limit or prohibit the use of this substance in consumer products and the workplace.
Formaldehyde is ubiquitous in consumer products, in part because it is so versatile. Companies add it to cosmetics, personal care products, paints and craft supplies because it is an effective preservative. It is also often added as a binder to composite woods such as chipboard, which are used to make furniture, cabinets and other home products. Bamboo products, including cutting boards, are often held together with formaldehyde glue.
The substance is added to clothing or textiles to prevent mold growth and decay, and is also used in plastics such as cookware to help foods resist heat. Manufacturers of furniture foam and mattresses use it as an adhesive or antimicrobial agent.
Because formaldehyde is released from foods in which it is added, inhalation of this chemical is considered the biggest risk. Risk assessments by both the Biden and Trump teams focused on inhalation.
Toxic chemical regulations have a serious flaw in that they do not take into account the cumulative effects of substances. For example, when regulators consider the risk posed by formaldehyde in cosmetics, they do not evaluate how levels are exacerbated by formaldehyde that may also be in desks, car interiors, or other products that people may also be exposed to throughout the day.
That's partly why Biden's EPA findings were so important: They would reduce risks across nearly every front. Biden's Environmental Protection Agency found There are 58 scenarios in which formaldehyde could pose an “undue risk” to human health, and the Trump administration is eliminating five of them.
The law requires the Environmental Protection Agency to impose restrictions on uses that the agency deems to pose an unreasonable risk. No new restrictions will be introduced for these five scenarios. Trump administration on the contrary, which Kalmus-Katz said is due to exposure in industrial settings.
For the remaining 53 scenarios in which Biden's EPA found unreasonable risk, weakened risk assessment results would result in weaker restrictions. Consumer products that the EPA has found to pose an unreasonable risk of exposure to formaldehyde include furniture, wood products and automotive products.
“Any defense would be much weaker than it could be,” said Maria Doa, director of chemical policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, which litigates toxic chemicals.
This step is part broader efforts to weaken risk assessments around toxic chemicals, and the industry has waged a decades-long war against stricter formaldehyde regulations.
At the heart of Trump's EPA reassessment is how agency scientists assess cancer risk. Previously, DNA-damaging carcinogens were considered among the most dangerous, since any exposure poses a risk of cancer.
EPA scientists assessed the chemicals using a “linear” risk assessment, meaning it assumes cancer risk down to “zero” exposure to formaldehyde or other carcinogens. This approach has long been an EPA standard and an industry goal.
The Trump administration's new approach sets a threshold at which whistleblowing is considered a risk. Any exposure level below this threshold is considered safe. In short, exposure levels that are currently considered a cancer risk will not be so if the changes are approved.
The Environmental Protection Agency and its chemical safety division are led by two former leaders of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents nearly 200 of the nation's leading chemical manufacturers and has welcome new agency position.
Nancy Beck is now the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Lynn Dekleva is the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. More recently, in 2022Dekleva helped lead the attack on the EPA's findings on formaldehyde, which she is now working to overturn from the inside. The Environmental Protection Agency has defended Dekleva and Beck's participation in the new risk assessments, insisting they comply with federal ethics rules.
Proposed changes push science away through federal government and independent researchers which reached a broad consensus regarding the risks associated with formaldehyde. This offer also corresponds usual industry instructions is that he argues that there is no consensus on the risks.
The Environmental Defense Fund's Doa said the new risk assessment has “cherry-picked” the data to reach its conclusions, but the lawsuit can't be filed until the regulatory process is complete. “What they are doing is scientifically terrible and wrong,” Doa added. “This is such impudence.”
