The Toothless Law and the New Test<\/strong><\/p>\nIt’s surprising to learn how little evidence there is for the safety of chemicals all around us, in our walls and furniture, in our water and air. Many consumers assume there is a rigorous testing process before a new chemical is allowed to be a part of a consumer product. Or at least some process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still don\u2019t have any kind of decent law on the books that requires that chemicals be tested for safety before they come to market,\u201d Landrigan said.<\/p>\n
The law we do have is the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA, pronounced toss-ka among those in the know). Passed in 1976 under President Gerald Ford, it is still today the primary U.S. law regulating chemicals used in everyday products. On its face intended to protect people and the environment from dangerous chemical exposure, it is widely acknowledged to have fallen short of its magnanimous goal. It only requires testing for a small percentage of chemicals, those deemed an \u201cunreasonable risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just an obsolete, toothless, broken piece of legislation,\u201d said Landrigan. \u201cFor example, in the early 1990s, EPA was unable to ban asbestos under TSCA.\u201d This was after the National Toxicology Program had classified asbestos as a known cancer-causing agent, and the World Health Organization had called for a global ban. The EPA did briefly succeed in banning asbestos in the U.S. in 1989, but a court of appeals overturned the ban in 1991. Asbestos is still used in consumer products in the U.S., including building materials like shingles and pipe wrap, and auto parts like brake pads.<\/p>\n
Landrigan also calls it \u201ca particularly egregious lapse\u201d that when TSCA was enacted, the 62,000 chemicals already on the market were grandfathered in, such that no toxicity testing was required of them. These chemicals were, as Landrigan puts it, \u201csimply presumed safe\u201d and allowed to remain in commerce until a substantial health concern came to public attention.<\/p>\n
In the nearly 40 years since the law\u2019s passage, more than 20,000 new chemicals have entered the market. \u201cOnly five have been removed,\u201d Landrigan says. He notes that the CDC has picked up measurable levels of hundreds of these chemicals in the blood and urine of \u201cvirtually all Americans.\u201d Yet, unlike food and drugs, they enter commerce largely untested.<\/p>\n
Landrigan and Grandjean\u2019s purpose in declaring a silent pandemic was less about the 12 named substances and more about using them as cautionary tales. They named in their list a few chemicals that still appear be imminent threats, but they also include some that have been highly restricted in their use for a long time. And at least one of them, fluoride, has proven beneficial in small doses.<\/p>\n
\u201cFluoride is very much a two-edged sword,\u201d Landrigan said. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that, at low doses, it\u2019s beneficial.\u201d Flouride has been shown to prevent dental cavities and aid skeletal growth. At higher levels, though, it causes tooth and bone lesions. The epidemiologic studies cited by Grandjean and Landrigan, which came from China, imply that high fluoride exposure has negative effects on brain growth.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s more concerned about flame-retardants\u2014a group of compounds known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). These chemicals came into vogue after their predecessors, called PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl ethers), were banned in 1979. By the time it became clear that PCBs caused cancer\u2014and a variety of other adverse health effects on the immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems\u2014they\u2019d been put into hundreds of industrial and commercial uses like plastics and rubber products. So manufacturers switched to PBDEs and advertised PCB-free products, assuming\u2014or, at least, implying\u2014that PBDEs wouldn\u2019t cause problems of their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia, at the urging of the chemical industry several years ago, put the highest standard in the world on the levels of PBDEs that needed to be included in them,\u201d Landrigan explained. \u201cThe result is that people in California have the highest levels of brominated flame retardants in their bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state finally banned PDBEs in 2006, after studies from Columbia showed high quantities of the compound in women\u2019s breast milk and linked it to IQ losses and shortening of attention span. Between 2008 and 2012, PDBE levels in the blood of California residents decreased by two-thirds.<\/p>\n
Landrigan and Grandjean argue that stronger chemical safety legislation could have made all of this back-peddling damage control unnecessary. They don\u2019t expect every chemical to go through long-term, randomized control studies prior to its release. Rather, they want to see industrial chemicals screened through a simple cell-based test. If that test were to come out positive\u2014if the cells in the petri dish showed any kind of toxic reaction\u2014then the chemical would be tested further.<\/p>\n
A next step from there might be an animal testing model. The drawbacks there, Grandjean told me, are that \u201cthose programs are expensive, they take time, you have to kill hundreds and thousands of mice and rats.\u201d However, he adds, \u201cif a company has developed a very useful substance, and it turns out to be toxic to nerve cells in petri dishes, then maybe animal testing is the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that that should necessarily be a requirement,\u201d Grandjean said. \u201cBut I can see if a company has developed a very useful substance, and it turns out to be toxic to nerve cells in petri dishes, then maybe that is the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Landrigan and Grandjean both mentioned something they called Tox21, the Toxicology in the Twenty-First Century program program, which is laying groundwork for a new kind of accelerated, large-scale testing. \u201cTSCA reform really falls under EPA\u2019s jurisdiction,\u201d Landrigan said. \u201cAt the NIH and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, though, that\u2019s where the latest research on this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre the exposure levels in China comparable to what we have in our drinking water and toothpaste?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, they\u2019re probably higher,\u201d Landrigan said. \u201cIn some places in China, there are naturally high levels of fluoride in the groundwater, which picks it up because it\u2019s water-soluble.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo your advice isn\u2019t to take it out of our toothpaste?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot at all,\u201d Landrigan said. \u201cI think it\u2019s very good to have in toothpaste.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I heard that this Tox21 program is teaching a very large yellow robot to do large-scale rapid chemical testing, I had to learn more. Dr. Linda Birnbaum is the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program in North Carolina\u2019s Research Triangle. Birnbaum oversees federal funding for research to discover how the environment influences health and disease, including Tox21.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to do the full battery of current tests that we have on a chemical, you\u2019re looking at least five years and about $5 million,\u201d Birnbaum told me. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be able to do that on large numbers of chemicals.\u201d The robot is being trained to scan thousands of chemicals at a time and recognize threats inexpensively and quickly\u2014before people get sick. It\u2019s also using alternative testing models\u2014looking at not just isolated cells, but also simple organisms like the roundworm C. elegans or zebrafish\u2014to answer certain basic questions.<\/p>\n
Tox21 is an effort to hone technology that can effectively do rapid screening\u2014not of one or 10 or 20 chemicals, but of thousands at a time, recognizing threats without spending $5 million per chemical, and doing so quickly, before they make people sick or impaired. It\u2019s also using alternative testing models\u2014not just in isolated cells, but in simple organisms like the roundworm C. elegans or zebrafish\u2014to answer certain basic questions.<\/p>\n
The program is also looking at how a single chemical might affect a wide range of people. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at 1,000 different human genomes from nine different ethnic groups on five continents,\u201d Birnbaum told me.<\/p>\n
Like Landrigan, Birnbaum raised the specter of the tens of thousands of chemicals grandfathered in 1976 that underwent no testing, as well as the commonly cited data that less than 20 percent of the 80,000 chemicals in commerce have had any testing at all. She spoke wistfully of the European Union\u2019s chemical testing protocol, a model Grandjean had told me was \u201cvery reasonable.\u201d It\u2019s called REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals), and it involves a tiered approach to regulation: If a compound is produced in small amounts, only some cursory information is required. If greater amounts are produced or imported, the EU requires more in-depth testing, such as animal experiments and two-generation studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve learned a heck of a lot in the last 30 to 40 years about the safety of chemicals and what can cause problems,\u201d Birnbaum said, \u201cand it would be really nice if our regulations required us to use some of the newer science to answer the questions of safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t Panic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWhen you use the word pandemic, that\u2019s a scare word,\u201d said Laura Plunkett. \u201cAnd that\u2019s my problem. There\u2019s a more responsible way to express it. I understand that they want to bring it to attention, but when you bring it to attention, you can still do it in what I would say is a scientifically defensible manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plunkett has a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology. Reviewing articles written in the wake of the publicity around The Lancet Neurology paper, I was struck by the definitive title of her blog post on a site called Science 20: \u201cThere Is No Pandemic of Chemicals Causing Brain Disorders in Children.\u201d Plunkett has been a diplomat for the American Board of Toxicology since 1984. She taught for a while and did research at NIH, but she is now an independent consultant running her own company, Integrative Biostrategies.<\/p>\n
One of her clients is the American Chemistry Council. She also has clients in the food, pesticide, and chemical business\u2014\u201cindustry ties,\u201d as they say. With that in mind, I sought her out as an established scientist who has worked on the side of the chemical-producing companies. Her blog post about the Lancet article was the only response I found telling people not to panic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat [Landrigan and Grandjean] are doing with the data is missing the key component, which is the dose,\u201d Plunkett explained. \u201cMany of the chemicals they talk about are well established to be neurodevelopmental toxicants in children\u2014but it\u2019s all about how much they\u2019re exposed to. Just like anything else. If you don\u2019t give people enough, or if you don\u2019t take enough in your water or food or the air you breathe, you\u2019re not going to have an effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plunkett insists that, unlike lead, some of the chemicals on the Lancet Neurology list are only developmental toxicants at very high levels\u2014the sort, she says, \u201cthat nobody would be exposed to on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plunkett says she has no problem with a call to ensure that chemical testing is as thorough as possible. \u201cBut then to say, and by the way, if you look at the data, \u2018We\u2019ve been poisoning people for the last 10 years\u2019? That\u2019s a whole other step that isn\u2019t supported by the data they point to.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked her how concerned American parents should be about certain individual chemicals on Grandjean and Landrigan\u2019s list. \u201cI mean, we knew lead was a problem 30 years ago,\u201d she said, \u201cand that\u2019s why we removed it from gasoline, and that\u2019s why we don\u2019t let it in solder and cans, and we\u2019ve taken lead-based paint off the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you really look at the data on fluoride,\u201d she continued, \u201ctrying to link an IQ deficit in a population with that chemical is almost impossible to do. Even though statistically, randomly they may have found a relationship, that doesn\u2019t prove anything\u2014it identifies a hazard but doesn\u2019t prove there\u2019s a cause and effect between the two things.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about the chemical that most concerned Landrigan, the pesticide chlorpyrifos?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, because the organophosphate pesticides are one of the most highly regulated groups of chemicals that are out there. The EPA regulates those such that if they\u2019re used in agriculture, people are exposed to very, very low levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pesticides are indeed more regulated than other industrial chemicals. Before manufacturers can sell pesticides in the U.S., the EPA must ensure that they meet federal standards to protect human health and the environment. Only then will the EPA grant a “registration” or license that permits a pesticide’s distribution, sale, and use. The EPA also sets maximum levels for the residue that remains in or on foods once they\u2019re sold.<\/p>\n
An EPA spokesperson told me that a company introducing a new pesticide must \u201cdemonstrate more than 100 different scientific studies and tests from applicants.\u201d The EPA also said that since 1996\u2019s Food Quality Protection Act, it has added \u201can additional safety factor to account for developmental risks and incomplete data when considering a pesticide\u2019s effect on infants and children, and any special sensitivity and exposure to pesticide chemicals that infants and children may have.\u201d Landrigan and Grandjean don\u2019t believe that\u2019s always sufficient; the dose may make the poison, but not everyone believes the EPA\u2019s limits are right for everyone.<\/p>\n
When I asked Plunkett whether new industrial chemicals were being screened rigorously enough, even she cited the need to strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. \u201cI\u2019m a very strong proponent of fixing the holes we have,\u201d she said, \u201cand we do have some holes under the old system, under TSCA, and those are what the new improvements are going to take care of. They\u2019re going to allow us to look at the chemicals out there we don\u2019t have a lot of data on\u2014and really those are the ones I\u2019m more concerned about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The High Price of Lost IQ<\/strong><\/p>\nEveryone I spoke to for this story agreed that TSCA needs to be fixed. But every attempt has met with bitter opposition. All parties want it to happen; they just want it to happen on their own terms. Unless it does, they don\u2019t want it to happen at all.<\/p>\n
Last May, a bipartisan group of 22 senators, led by Frank Lautenberg and David Vitter, introducing the Chemical Safety Improvement Act of 2013. Lautenberg, then 89 years old, was the last surviving World War II veteran in the Senate and a longtime champion of environmental safety. (Among other things, he wrote the bill that banned smoking on commercial airlines.) A month after he introduced his TSCA reform bill, Lautenberg died of pneumonia.<\/p>\n
After Lautenberg\u2019s death, Senator Barbara Boxer told reporters the bill \u201cwould not have a chance\u201d of passing without major changes. \u201cI will be honest with you,\u201d said Boxer, who chairs the Committee on Environment and Public Works, \u201cthis is the most opposition I\u2019ve ever seen to any bill introduced in this committee.\u201d Some of the resistance came from environmental and health advocates who felt the bill would actually make it harder for states to regulate the chemicals that were grandfathered in by TSCA. Their fears intensified in January, after 10,000 gallons of a coal-processing substance poured into West Virginia\u2019s Elk River, contaminating a nearby water treatment plant. (The Wall Street Journal reported, \u201cLittle is known about the chemical’s long-term health effects on people, although it isn’t believed to be highly toxic.\u201d)<\/p>\n
In February, with Lautenberg\u2019s bill stalled in the Senate committee, Republican Representative John Shimkus seized the opportunity to introduce another reform option called the Chemicals in Commerce Act. The chemical industry applauded Shimkus\u2019 bill\u2014it won support from the American Chemistry Council, American Cleaning Institute, and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates. Earlier this month at the GlobalChem conference in Baltimore, Dow Chemical\u2019s Director of Products Sustainability and Compliance Connie Deford said that TCSA reform was in the interests of the chemical sector, acknowledging that consumer confidence in the industry is at an all-time low.<\/p>\n
Yet the Chemicals in Commerce Act has provoked strong criticism from groups like the Center for Environmental Health and the Natural Resources Defense Council. A senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund called the bill \u201ceven more onerous and paralyzing\u201d than the present law, and Representative Henry Waxman, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the bill \u201cwould weaken current law and endanger public health.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked the EPA to comment on Landrigan and Grandjean\u2019s claim that we are in the midst of a \u201csilent pandemic\u201d and inquired what, if anything, is being done about it. The agency responded by sending me a statement: \u201cEPA has taken action on a number of the chemicals highlighted in this report which have and are resulting in reduced exposures, better understanding, and more informed decisions.\u201d The agency included a list of the actions it has already taken to reduce exposure to the chemicals identified in the report. (See sidebar.) And it emphasized a 2012 \u201cWork Plan,\u201d which includes plans to assess more than 80 industrial chemicals in the coming years.<\/p>\n
When I emailed the statement to Landrigan, he replied, \u201cMany of the items that they list here are things that I helped to put in place.\u201d (In 1997, he spent a sabbatical year setting up EPA\u2019s Office of Children\u2019s Health Protection.) He agreed that the EPA is doing a lot to protect children from environmental threats. \u201cBut the problem is that the good people within EPA are absolutely hamstrung by the lack of strong legislation,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThey can set up research centers to study chemicals and outreach and education programs, but without strong and enforceable chemical safety legislation, they cannot require industry to test new chemicals before they come to market, and they cannot do recalls of bad chemicals that are already on the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, researchers like David Bellinger, who calculated IQ losses, are highlighting the financial cost to society of widespread cognitive decline. Economist Elise Gould has calculated that a loss of one IQ point corresponds to a loss of $17,815 in lifetime earnings. Based on that figure, she estimates that for the population that was six years old or younger in 2006, lead exposure will result in a total income loss of between $165 and $233 billion. The combined current levels of pesticides, mercury, and lead cause IQ losses amounting to around $120 billion annually\u2014or about three percent of the annual budget of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
Low-income families are hit the hardest. No parent can avoid these toxins\u2014they\u2019re in our couches and in our air. They can\u2019t be sweated out through hot yoga classes or cleansed with a juice fast. But to whatever extent these things can be avoided without better regulations, it costs money. Low-income parents might not have access to organic produce or be able to guarantee their children a low-lead household. When it comes to brain development, this puts low-income kids at even greater disadvantages\u2014in their education, in their earnings, in their lifelong health and well-being.<\/p>\n
Grandjean compares the problem to climate change. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the luxury to sit back and wait until science figures out what\u2019s really going on, what the mechanisms are, what the dose are, and that sort of thing. We\u2019ve seen with lead and mercury and other poisons that it takes decades. And during that time we are essentially exposing the next generation to exactly the kind of chemicals that we want to protect them from.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: The Toxins That Threaten Our Brains by James Hamblin in The Atlantic. The Text: Forty-one million IQ points. That\u2019s what Dr. David Bellinger determined Americans have collectively forfeited as a result of exposure to lead, mercury, and organophosphate pesticides. In a 2012 paper published by the National Institutes of Health, Bellinger, a professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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