By David Michaels âRisk assessment data can be like a captured spy: if you torture it long enough, it will tell you anything you want to know.â – William Ruckelshaus, first EPA Administrator, Risk assessment, explicit and implicit, is the motor that drives regulation. It can be a valuable tool for assisting regulatory agencies in […]
by Robert Shull With the Bush administrationâs war on science raging all around us, itâs nice to be able to report a win for the public. In January 2006, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a draft bulletin proposing to impose one-size-fits-all criteria […]
By David Michaels In todayâs Wall Street Journal (sub required), Jeffrey Ball reports that ExxonMobil has decided to stop funding several of the groups that have been in the forefront of attacking the scientific evidence on global warming. The campaign to shame ExxonMobil appears to be working. Earlier this week, the Union of Concerned Scientists […]
Flavoring Workers' Lung (Popcorn/Diacetyl)
Union Petition for Diacetyl Standard Advances in California
By David Michaels In July, two unions, backed by a group of scientists, petitioned both federal OSHA and California OSHA to issue rules to protect workers from diacetyl, the chemical implicated in dozens of cases of lung disease in the food industry (See our earlier post âArtificial Butter Flavor is (Still) Killing Workersâ). Federal OSHA […]
by PotomacFeverish In the first of what may be numerous resignations, Scott Gottlieb, MD has announced that he will leave his post as Deputy Commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration. He has been at the center of the political science practiced at the FDA as noted by Time last year: Nowhere in the federal […]
By David Michaels This morningâs AP wire brings news of yet another E. Coli outbreak, this one resulting in 14 hospitalizations (so far) among customers of a âTaco Johnâsâ restaurant in Cedar Falls, Iowa. This follows the Taco Bell E. Coli outbreak, with more than 60 cases in 5 states. Which followed the spinach E. […]
Health and environmental bloggers have covered a wide array of topics this week. Some highlights: Steve at Omni Brain (don’t click the link while eating) displays graphic warnings from Belgian and Thai cigarette packs Merrill Goozner at GoonzNews posts an excerpt from his just-published article (cover story of The Scientist, for those with subscriptions) on […]
Earlier this year, President Bush nominated Susan E. Dudley of the Mercatus Center to replace John Graham, PhD, as the head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). The office oversees all of the Administrationâs regulatory policies, including public health and environmental rules, and is often the last major hurdle faced by agencies like […]
By David Michaels According to a report in the Wall Street Journal published last December (by Peter Waldman, 12/23/05), product defense experts at ChemRisk pulled off a particularly audacious scam on behalf of Pacific Gas and Electric, the California utility that was being sued for contaminating drinking water with hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen. ChemRiskâs scientists […]
By David Michaels In my post Monday, I wrote that breathing diacetyl, the chemical in artificial butter flavor, is killing and crippling workers around the country. It is now more than six years since the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was first notified that workers in a popcorn plant in Missouri had developed […]