Are 40,000 Scientists Wrong?
Happy Friday! Big news: Scientific groups representing more than 40,000 researchers and clinicians have come together in the pages of the super-influential journal Science to insist that federal regulators do more—and do more, more quickly—to assess the human safety of the 12,000 new substances registered every day at the American Chemical Society.
“The need for swifter and sounder testing and review procedures cannot be overstated,” the letter says.
The letter’s corresponding author Patricia Hunt, a professor in the Washington State University School of Molecular Biosciences, said:
“As things stand now,” she added, “things get rapidly into the marketplace and the testing of them is tending to lag behind.”
Hunt told ScienceDaily that the letter was inspired by growing concerns about BPA, which more than 300 studies have found to cause adverse health effects in animals. Hormone disruptors more broadly, were also of concern. She says:
“Hormones control everything—our basic metabolism, our reproduction. We call them endocrine disruptors. They’re like endocrine bombs to a certain extent because they can disrupt all these normal functions.”
Boom. She also said one of the problems is that the methods used to assess safety—primarily toxicology—are insufficient. “The FDA and EPA need to look beyond the toxicology of substances to the other ways chemicals can affect us. … One of the problems they have is they look at some of the science and don’t know how to interpret it because it’s not done using the traditional toxicology testing paradigm,” she said. “We need geneticists, we need developmental and reproductive biologists and we need the clinical people on board to actually help interpret and evaluate some of the science.”
I think this qualifies as a sign that things are changing, no?
Woah, how much was this finding about skin-care ingredients? Do you have the link, please?
It’s great to see a large group of scientists speaking up – and in an important scientific journal. Now it’s not just the nutty hippies anymore (said the nutty hippy scientist). Definitely a big step in the right direction.
Science is (understandably) behind a pay wall. Trying to get a copy with permission to print. It seems to cover chemicals broadly, which would certainly extend to those used in cosmetics, cleaners, plastics, and anything else under the sun. Crazy! Important to spread the word on this.
I am doubtful that this petition will change anything, but glad to see such a large number of scientists behind it. In case you didn’t know, the EPA doesn’t actually test chemicals, they rely on studies done by other parties to show safety data. That’s right, the new substances registered have NO SAFETY TESTING done besides what is done by the companies that register them. And because there is no rule saying companies have to do testing at all, almost all don’t even bother. And if they do, it’s generally just a short-term rat test, not a long term epidemiological study. If this is surprising or concerning to you, I suggest a read of “The Hundred Year Lie” or “Slow Death by Rubber Duck”. Both are available on Amazon. I started out just learning about chemicals in household cleaners but these books brought me to the bigger, overarching problem with chemical regulation (or lack thereof) today.
Interesting. I hope it is the impetus for change.
It is nice to see so many scientists on board. I hope this wills tart a trend towards change. Change does not come easy, but I think we are ready for it!
Yes, I hope this is the impetus for change!
The book that is, quite rightly to my mind, credited with starting the environmental movement is Silent Spring. It was written by a scientist and has been read by many scientists and has been a huge influence on science. It was published in 1962. Scientists have been on board as Amy puts it right from the beginning. In fact I would go further. There is a huge problem with people who have no idea about the science of issues posing as whistle blowers. To Marie I say that there simply is not a battery of ’safety tests’ that can be carried out on every chemical to make sure it is ’safe’. If only life were that simple! To give you a very simple example, is table salt safe? How would you go about proving it was? Is it in fact, given that too much can kill you?