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EPA Blocks Warnings on Cancer-Causing Chemical: Report (politico.com)
The Trump administration is suppressing an Environmental Protection Agency report that warns that most Americans inhale enough formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life to put them at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments, a current and a former agency official told POLITICO. The news outlet adds: The warnings are contained in a draft health assessment EPA scientists completed just before Donald Trump became president, according to the officials. They said top advisers to departing Administrator Scott Pruitt are delaying its release as part of a campaign to undermine the agency's independent research into the health risks of toxic chemicals.
Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 official at EPA who will be the agency's new acting chief as of Monday, also has a history with the chemical. He was staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2004, when his boss, then-Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), sought to delay an earlier iteration of the formaldehyde assessment. Formaldehyde is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the country. Americans are exposed to it through wood composites in cabinets and furniture, as well as air pollution from major refineries.
Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 official at EPA who will be the agency's new acting chief as of Monday, also has a history with the chemical. He was staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2004, when his boss, then-Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), sought to delay an earlier iteration of the formaldehyde assessment. Formaldehyde is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the country. Americans are exposed to it through wood composites in cabinets and furniture, as well as air pollution from major refineries.
Environmental Pollution Agency
Haha! Jokes on them because I am bald... ... ... Oh. Now I'm sad.
Poorly worded, but as you probably know it gives you a "chance" there's people who smoke 3 packs a day and live to 100 years old without cancer too, others get cancer and die after only 3 years of smoking. Humans aren't binary
As far as diseases go, leukemia is a pretty rare one. Formaldehyde has been commonly used for decades.
What exactly is the risk? If the risk is 1 extra person out of 1 million get it that's not significant. If it is 1 out of 1000, we'd be seeing a lot more people with it. The fact that leukemia is so rare makes me think that this is probably a non-event.
I'm not pro any sitting President stopping scientific announcements, don't get me wrong. I don't approve of Trump's actions; but I think in this instance the warning is probably for something minor.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
What exactly is the risk?
We might be able to find out if the corrupt weasels in the EPA would publish this research. But no.
The warnings are contained in a draft health assessment EPA scientists completed just before Donald Trump became president, according to the officials. They said top advisers to departing Administrator Scott Pruitt are delaying its release as part of a campaign to undermine the agency’s independent research into the health risks of toxic chemicals......The current EPA official told POLITICO that political appointees have managed to avoid creating written evidence of their interference with the formaldehyde assessment by refusing to send emails or create other records that eventually could become public, instead using what the official described as “a children’s game of telephone."
Interestingly, this research comes from the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
Industry has long faulted the IRIS program, the agency’s only independent scientific division evaluating the health risks of toxic chemicals, whose assessments often form the basis for federal and state regulations.
Why would the chemical industries have issues with IRIS?
The small office of about 35 experts pores over the huge body of existing research on chemicals, including industry-backed studies aimed at proving the substances safe, to independently assess their risks.
Lol. So they actually dig into the industry backed studies and call BS on them. I can see why they'd be a threat.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
It's not the individual incidents like this that you should be focusing on, it's the overall trend towards an anti-science, anti-facts, anti-truth attitude, and towards 'faith-based', 'superstition', 'mysticism', and my favorite: 'Dominionism', expecting that The Earth is going to be destroyed soon anyway, Zombie Jesus will take The Faithful home to Heaven, and all the Heathen Masses will die anyway, so why should they care? Don't think for a second I'm even kidding, these people exist, they think the Earth is only 6000 years old, and that Science is from Satan and is all lies. These are also often the 'anti-vaxers', too, who think vaccinations is literally injecting The Devil into their kids veins -- because 'science is evil'.
If most Americans got sick in that way, US pathologists and epidemiologist would have book chapters on that.
This is just like coal - Coal is actually good for you. This bullshit of leftists trying to besmirch the effects of chemicals is leading to the downfall of western civilization. Even CO2 is critical for health, and god fearing common sense Americans should breath a atmosphere of 100 percent CO2 for at least 5 hors everyt day. There are no substances that are bad for you. God would not put anything on earth that would harm his greatest creation.
Yours in Christ Jesus.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's almost like you don't want to give government too much power because sooner or later someone you don't like will be running it.
Welcome to the Federalist Society.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Actually, according to cancer.org, it is the tenth most common kind of cancer:
Although this is actually something of a lie, as the source they got their numbers from intentionally excludes non-melanoma skin cancers (presumably because the case fatality rate for carcinoma is two orders of magnitude lower). Really, that means it is #11. Either way, it ranks ahead of pancreatic cancer, thyroid cancer, liver cancer, all forms of brain cancer, bone cancer, etc.
And by fatality count, it rises to #7. Also note that if we could get everyone to stop smoking, it would move up another notch, both in fatalities and incidence.
And that top ten list doesn't have that wide a probability spread, either. Breast cancer and lung cancer are each only about 4x as common as leukemia. It is not a rare cancer by any means.
That's also not true. Most forms of Leukemia have no familial link. There is an increased prevalence in first-degree relatives and twins of people with leukemia, but this is likely because those people lived in the same house, drank the same water, breathed the same air, went to schools in the same classrooms, etc. When you see only a first-degree link and no broader familial link, this strongly suggests that environmental factors are the predominant cause, not genetics.
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