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Scientist Removed From EPA Panel Due To Industry Opposition
Beeftopia writes "The relationship between regulator and regulated is once again called into question as industry pressure leads to a scientist's removal from an EPA regulatory panel. From the article: 'In 2007, when Deborah Rice was appointed chair of an Environmental Protection Agency panel assessing the safety levels of flame retardants, she arrived as a respected Maine toxicologist with no ties to industry. Yet the EPA removed Rice from the panel after an intense push by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry lobbying group that accused her of bias. Her supposed conflict of interest? She had publicly raised questions about the safety of a flame retardant under EPA review.'"
You can't have a SCIENTIST on a panel about pollution! It interfere's with Gawd's Will!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
* That's Neil Gawd, CEO of Toxic Shit Enterprises, of course.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Rice's travails through the EPA's Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, program reveal the flip side of industry's sway. Not only does the ACC back many scientists named to IRIS panels, it also has the power to help remove ones it doesn't favor.
So... what's the pre-flip good side of the industry's sway?
Can't they just say -- industry has full control and can both nominate people they like and cut out people they do not like.
Brought to you by the country with legalized bribery.
The summary makes it seem like this just happened, but she was actually removed back in 2007. Why is this coming up now, 6 years later?
Seems to me that the government oversight of anyl product should be a confidential process.
Do peer reviewers of scientific papers come out and call something great or bad during the review process?
Do auditors come out and give off the cuff remarks about what they are seeing during the audit?
So if there are rules that say she she should keep her trap shut during the review process then she should be removed since it shows a proclivity to substitute her opinion for that of the review panel.
If not, then there should be. The review process is a process and if it is to be legitimate, then you have to follow the process. Otherwise, why have it all?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Last year, the Chicago Tribune ran an incredible series of investigative articles on the dangers of flame retardant chemicals and the extent to which industries profit from their manufacturing (http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/flames/index.html). In light of their unfortunate conclusions, this report is hardly surprising.
The EPA's function is more to give the common fool the idea that the government cares about the environment, than it is to defend the environment. It is quite similar to the FDA in this regard. Both agencies have been headed by flacks from the industries they are supposed to be regulating, which is a clear conflict of interest.
Just another classic case of corruption in the government.
What next? They're going to appoint someone telling us that cigarette smoke causes cancer? What a loon!
Every single one of those scientists is not only biased, but has a substantial conflict of interest. All of them are carbon-based lifeforms that will react negatively to a wide range of chemicals such as mercury, arsenic and practically every petrochemical in existence. The EPA should clear the entire regulatory panel and re-staff it with robots who will only take their charge from a power source that will not be disclosed to them. Ideally their finishes should also be solvent-resistant and UV-stable and their cooling system capacity should be generous.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I would just like to take this opportunity to remind die-hard libertarians that the solution is not to do away with these agencies that are supposed to provide oversight. It is to change the appointment rules and process so that the people who are appointed cannot have worked in the industry within a certain amount of time, and cannot have any conflict of interest with the industry (e.g. close relative is an industry exec).
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The only problem is that if industry has to choose between flame retardant A, which is safe, and flame retardant B, which costs half as much, they will choose option B, even if retardant B is known to leach into ground water and cause birth defects. If retardant B is made readily available, then a manager can safely presume that most of the other facilities in his area will likely also choose option B, and if retardant B is found in ground water and tied years later to birth defects, he can rely on a strategy of plausible deniability, in that any retardant used at his facility would not be enough to cause all of the environmental damage in the area, and that the culprit must be some other facility or maybe the combined effect of all the industries in the area using the same retardant.
The tragedy of the commons is why we have agencies like the EPA, because industry in the past has been left alone to be trusted to do the right thing but in too many cases they chose to do the wrong thing because doing the right thing cut into their profit margins. Agencies like the EPA set a higher standard than what the free market could afford on its own, but, by leveling the playing field, complying with the regulations becomes affordable since competitors can't (legally) undercut on price by skimping on environmental safety. It's a system that can work well if the agencies aren't packed with pro-industry insiders who know that they can land a good future executive position or consulting gig at a major company as long as they play along and let the companies do what they want.