MSNBC
The Dylan Ratigan Show
Posted: 12/20/2010

Cancer activist Trevor Schaefer, his mother Charlie Smith and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., discusses whether American companies are making millions of people sick.

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ScienceDaily (July 15, 2010) ˜ A new report from the American Cancer Society and other world-leading health groups identifies gaps in research for 20 suspected carcinogens whose potential to cause cancer is as yet unresolved. The report is designed to prioritize agents for additional research, and to lead to well-planned epidemiologic or mechanistic studies leading to more definitive classification of these agents.

The report, “Identification of research needs to resolve the carcinogenicity of high-priority IARC carcinogens,” is a concerted effort to identify ways to close existing gaps in knowledge for particular agents classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) by identifying information needs and the research to address them for 20 selected agents. The agents are generally in IARC Groups 2A, 2B, and 3. The project originated as part of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) to enhance occupational cancer research, and involved collaboration with IARC, the American Cancer Society, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The effort was co-sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

The agents prioritized as needing additional study are:

Lead and lead compounds
Indium phosphide
Cobalt with tungsten carbide
Titanium dioxide
Welding fumes
Refractory ceramic fibers
Diesel exhaust
Carbon black
Styrene-7,8-oxide and styrene
Propylene oxide
Formaldehyde
Acetaldehyde
Dichloromethane, methylene chloride (DCM)
Trichloroethylene (TCE)
Tetrachloroethylene (perc, tetra, PCE)
Chloroform
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP)
Atrazine
Shift work

“There is significant concern among the public about substances or exposures in the environment that may cause cancer, and there are some common occupational agents and exposure circumstances where evidence of carcinogenicity is substantial but not yet conclusive for humans,” said Elizabeth Ward, Ph. D., vice president, Surveillance and Health Policy Research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report.. “The objectives of this report are to identify research gaps and needs for 20 agents prioritized for review based on evidence of widespread human exposures and potential carcinogenicity in animals or humans.” Dr. Ward, one of the organizers of the meeting and lead author of a version of the report that appears in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, added that the report highlights the importance of research in occupational settings for the identification of human carcinogens as well as the need for funding and access to populations for this work to continue.

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Mar 14,2010 – U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson wants the federal government to have a more proactive and leading role in investigating mysterious cases of brain cancer among children, like the ones in this 45,000-resident South Florida community.

That will be the thrust of testimony he’s scheduled to give next week before a key Senate panel in Washington, D.C., which is eyeing ways to more rapidly help people who may have been sickened by environmental toxins and better protect children’s health.

During a visit to West Palm Beach Friday, Nelson plans to preview testimony he’s been invited to give at next Wednesday’s hearing, which aims to find ways to strengthen the federal government’s hand in investigating cancer clusters, like the Acreage.

Right now the federal Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) and Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ) usually don’t get involved absent a request from a state.

“This effort is aimed at finding ways to bring in more federal resources more rapidly to help protect people, especially little children,” said Nelson, who’s also expected on Friday to announce he’s partnering with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer on new legislation to do the same.

Boxer has invited Nelson to testify before her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. One issue the panel Boxer chairs is looking into is strengthening the federal government’s ability to respond rapidly in cancer cluster investigations like the Acreage.

Near the Acreage in the late 1990s, the state looked into a possible cancer cluster in St. Lucie County after officials discovered 28 cases of brain and central nervous system childhood cancer there between 1981 and 1996. But that investigation – one of the largest of its kind at the time – determined there was no pattern.

More recently, state and local health officials identified 13 new families as belonging to a cluster of pediatric brain cancer cases in the Acreage. The state announced the existence of the cancer cases in February after months of study spurred in part by Nelson and other elected officials.

Senator Boxer commissioned a study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) focusing on the need to strengthen the federal government’s efforts to protect children’s health from environmental toxins. And she’ll be releasing the GAO study at the hearing.

Senator Boxer said, “Children are especially vulnerable to pollution in the environment — they are often at far greater risk than adults. The threat posed to children by environmental toxins requires specific attention if children are to be fully protected.”

 Advocates Call for Swift Action in Response to Community
Concerns of Disease Clusters

         October 30, 2008 – San Diego, California – Former U.S. Surgeon
General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders joined activists last night in kicking off
a campaign geared toward raising awareness and more effective response
to disease clusters in the country. Matt Wilhelm of the San Diego
Chargers and his wife, Vanessa as well as Steve Altman, President of
Qualcomm and his wife Lisa joined and aided the organization to raise
more than $25,000 towards this vital and emerging cause.

         A “disease cluster” is an unexpectedly large number of cases of
the same or similar diseases in a geographic area over a defined period
of time. The environment plays an important role in human development
and health. All populations are not created equal when it comes to
their ability to withstand environmental insults without serious health
consequences. It is well documented that exposure to toxic chemicals
can have a devastating impact on the fetus or on infants during
developmental “windows of vulnerability” when cells are dividing
rapidly.

         The campaign, “No Disease Clusters Anymore,” was spearheaded by
the nonprofit organization, the National Disease Clusters Alliance.

         Other speakers included Trevor Smith, a youth advocate for NDCA
and brain cancer survivor; and Dee Lewis, Executive Director of NDCA who
led the battle to uncover the environmental causes of the disease
cluster in the Calvine-Florin community in Sacramento.

         According to Lewis, “government resources, capacity, protocols,
and methodology have all been found inadequate for assisting
communities that are confronting a known or suspected
environmentally-related disease cluster.”

         Every year, residents request investigations into more than
1,000 suspected cancer clusters.  In 2002, a suspected cluster was
identified outside of San Diego. Valley Center residents have
documented 14 cases of childhood cancer between 1997 and 2002. Parents
believed there may be a link in the cases, with most of the children
affected living in the same general area.

According to Trevor Smith, NDCA Youth Ambassador (former San Diego
resident) of the McCall, Idaho suspected cancer cluster,” Cancer is
like a pebble dropped into still water – the effect ripples through
your life, your family, and your community.”

About NDCA

NDCA promotes vibrant, healthy communities through empowerment and
supportive partnerships. NDCA was formed out of the urgent need to
identify and respond to emerging disease clusters. NDCA is comprised of
agency, staff, nonprofit organizations, community activists,
scientists, and academia.

We are closer to having a national childhood cancer registry:

June 12, 2008 (Bethesda, MD) – United States House of Representatives
passed H.R. 1553, the “Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer
Act,” which promises to significantly increase federal investment
into childhood cancer research.

The bill authorizes $30 million annually over five years, providing
funding for collaborative
pediatric cancer clinical trials research, to create a
population-based national childhood cancer
database, and to further improve public awareness and communication
regarding available
treatments and research for children with cancer and their families.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 416 to 0.

During markup of the legislation, the bill was renamed the Caroline
Pryce Walker Conquer
Childhood Cancer Act of 2008, in memory of Caroline Pryce Walker, daughter of
Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-OH), who succumbed to neuroblastoma in
1999 at age nine.

Companion legislation in the United States Senate (S.911), sponsored
by Senator Jack Reed (D-
RI), cleared the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
Committee unanimously
in November, 2007. The Senate version of the Conquer Childhood
Cancer Act currently has 63
co-sponsors; a full Senate floor vote on the bill is expected this summer.

Here is a profile of Julie Ross, the Epidemiology Chair for the
Children’s Oncology Group, who has developed a prototype for a
national childhood cancer
registry:http://www.cancer. umn.edu/research /profiles/ ross.html

For Immediate Release
August 1, 2007

Contact:
Clinton Press Office
212-688-9559

CLINTON INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO HELP COMMUNITIES WITH TCE CONTAMINATION

Introduces Toxic Chemical Exposure Reduction Act

(TCE Reduction Act)
Bill requires the EPA to protect the public from exposure to Trichloroethylene (TCE)

***Actuality Available Now***
Call 1-800-511-0763
PIN 1459

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Washington, DC – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) today announced that she has introduced the “TCE Reduction Act” to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set tougher regulations to protect the public from exposure to the carcinogenic chemical Trichloroethylene (TCE).

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EPA Scientists Complain About Political Pressure

By H. JOSEF HEBERT

Associated Press

April 24, 2008

WASHINGTON —

Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released Wednesday by an advocacy group.

The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported that they had experienced political interference in their work.

EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar attributed some of the discontent to the “passion” scientists have toward their work. He said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, as a longtime career scientist at the EPA himself, “weighs heavily the science given to him by the staff in making policy decisions.”

But Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Scientific Integrity Program, said the survey results reveal “an agency in crisis” and “under siege from political pressures” especially among scientists involved in risk assessment and crafting regulations.

“The investigation shows researchers are generally continuing to do their work, but their scientific findings are tossed aside when it comes time to write regulations,” Grifo said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in a letter sent Wednesday to Johnson, called the survey results disturbing and said they “suggest a pattern of ignoring and manipulating science.” He said he planned to pursue the issue at a hearing by his Oversight and Government Reform Committee at which Johnson is scheduled to testify.

The group sent an online questionnaire to 5,500 EPA scientists and received 1,586 responses, a majority of them senior scientists who have worked for the agency for 10 years or more. The survey included chemists, toxicologists, engineers, geologists and experts in the life and environmental sciences.

The report said 60 percent of those responding, or 889 scientists, reported personally experiencing what they viewed as political interference in their work over the past five years. Four in 10 scientists who have worked at the agency for more than a decade said they believe such interference has been more prevalent in the past five years than in the previous five years.

The EPA has been under fire from members of Congress on a number of fronts including its delay in determining whether carbon dioxide should be regulated to combat global warming. Johnson also has been criticized for rejecting recommendations from science advisory boards on a number of air pollution issues including control of mercury from power plants and how much to reduce smog pollution.

In the survey, the EPA scientists described an agency suffering from low morale as senior managers and the White House Office of Management and Budget frequently second-guess scientific findings and change work conducted by EPA’s scientists, the report said.

The survey covered employees at EPA headquarters, in each of the agency’s 10 regions around the country and at more than a dozen research laboratories. The highest number of complaints about political interference came from scientists who are directly involved in writing regulations and those who conduct risk assessments such as determining a chemical cancer risk for humans.

EPA Science Investigated

House committee probe of industry bias in agency review reaches former ACS president

Cheryl Hogue and Jeff Johnson

The chemical industry’s ability to determine how science is used to shape the national debate over product safety is being investigated by a key House committee.

“Our committee intends to determine what influence the chemical industry yields over the scientific community and whether that influence is proper,” said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, in a statement releasing an April 2 letter to the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The letter seeks a long list of documents from the U.S. chemical industry’s primary lobbying arm.

In mid-March, Dingell’s committee also asked the Environmental Protection Agency for related documents and raised similar concerns that agency science is biased in the chemical industry’s favor. Both requests demand the information within two weeks from the dates of the letters.

The genesis of the congressional investigations is ACC’s successful demand that EPA retroactively remove the views of the chairwoman who had overseen a peer review assessment on a family of flame retardants. The agency struck the chairwoman’s views after the report had been published. The investigation, however, goes beyond this apparent influencing of EPA.

Among the requested data from ACC are “all records of payments and communications” between former American Chemical Society president William F. Carroll and ACC. Carroll served as ACS president in 2005 and, as a member of the three-year presidential succession, was a member of the society’s board of directors in 2004–06.

The Energy & Commerce Committee is particularly concerned about “cross-pollination” between Carroll’s role as the head of a society of chemical professionals while at the same time serving as a chief industry proponent for the vinyl industry, a committee staff member says.

Carroll has worked for Occidental Chemical continuously for nearly 30 years and is currently the company’s vice president for chlorovinyl issues. He was identified in the House committee letter as an executive with the Vinyl Institute, an industry group allied with ACC. But Carroll strongly denies this: “I was never an executive with the institute. Our company is a member, but I have never worked for them,” he says.

Carroll has had a long relationship with ACC, however, and was acting managing director of ACC’s chlorine division for six months in 2006. And in 1994–96, he was a staff member of the Chlorine Chemistry Council, an ACC subsidiary. Carroll says he was never on the payroll of ACC or the chlorine council.

The committee is also seeking information on nine scientists with industry contacts who served on EPA review panels, as well as information on a law office and a public relations firm.

Additionally, the committee is exploring industry and science ties through information it is seeking about ACC’s relationship to the International Society for Regulatory Toxicology & Pharmacology and its journal, Regulatory Toxicology & Pharmacology, which is owned and published by Elsevier. The society, the committee staff member says, is funded by several corporations and associations, including ACC.

Environmental and public health advocates have been critical of the journal. Jennifer Sass, a toxicologist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that in studies the journal publishes, previously reported toxic or adverse health effects from chemical exposure are downplayed, dismissed, or simply not mentioned. The journal includes mainly mathematical models and meta analyses of other published studies, she adds, and its editorial board includes attorneys who represent corporations.

Dingell asked ACC for records of any payments to journal officials, but Gio B. Gori, editor of the journal, tells C&EN he has never received money from ACC and is paid for his editing work by Elsevier. “I don’t know why they’re investigating us,” he says. “We have nothing to hide.”

At the heart of the investigation is Deborah C. Rice, a former EPA scientist and currently a toxicologist with the state of Maine, who chaired an EPA external peer review panel set up to conduct a toxicological review of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). The review of this group of flame retardants began in 2002. The European Union and several U.S. states have banned penta-BDE and octa-BDE. The main BDE found in commerce in the U.S. is deca-BDE, which is incorporated into plastics in the housings of television sets and other electric and electronic equipment, as well as upholstery for furniture and other items.

The peer review panel examined EPA’s draft assessment of BDEs, which includes agency expert judgments on how much exposure to each BDE is safe. These judgments can have far-ranging regulatory effects.

EPA places its peer-reviewed judgments on safe doses of chemicals and the scientific justification behind them in a database called the Integrated Risk Information System, which is available on the Web. EPA, other federal agencies, state environmental departments, and even regulators in foreign countries rely on the database. For instance, they often depend on the database’s safe daily dose numbers to decide how much cleanup a polluter must do at a contaminated site.

Rice is a world-class toxicologist, according to several toxicologists interviewed by C&EN, some of whom are associated with EPA and did not wish to comment publicly. She was a toxicologist with Health Canada and the U.S. EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, which is conducting the PBDE review.

Rice declined to comment to C&EN, as did EPA officials.

Rice was selected for the peer review panel in 2006 and was one of five reviewers. The panel met in February 2007 and issued its assessment in mid-March, when EPA posted the report on its website.

On May 3, 2007, ACC wrote to George M. Gray, EPA assistant administrator for R&D, complaining about “the appearance that [the] peer review panel’s leadership might lack the impartiality and objectivity necessary to conduct a fair and impartial review of the data.” Rice, the letter says, had testified before the Maine State Legislature on behalf of a state agency, the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, where she works. There, she advocated a phaseout of deca-BDE.

Rice simply conveyed the policy position of her employer to state lawmakers, says Sonya Lunder, senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization.

In a Jan. 8, 2008, letter to ACC, Gray announced that the agency had removed all of Rice’s comments from the final peer review report. The agency had redacted her comments from the report and reposted it to the website.

In his Jan. 8 letter, Gray said his letter was a follow-up to a June 15, 2007, meeting with ACC to discuss Rice’s involvement. Gray wrote in his letter that EPA made the changes because “one of the panel members had a potential conflict of interest.”

At ACC’s urging, Gray said he had also reviewed initial and final comments of other panel reviewers to determine if the chairwoman had influenced their views. His review found “minor additions” from reviewers but provided no evidence that Rice had “significantly influenced the other panelists.”

Rice “has no conflict of interest that I’m aware of,” says Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at the watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest. Under federal laws and policies for advisory panels, conflicts of interest have to do with advisers’ potential financial gain or loss from their recommendations.

Goozner’s group and environmental organizations regularly write letters to EPA contending that external peer reviewers have financial conflicts of interest. “ACC has every right to write a letter to EPA, just like we do,” he tells C&EN. It is the agency’s job, Goozner says, to investigate the situation and determine if a reviewer indeed has a conflict.

EPA, however, “made the wrong decision” in Rice’s case, Goozner says.

“Apparently, EPA didn’t want to hear from this person because industry disagreed with her conclusions,” says David Michaels, a professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University.

Michaels, former Department of Energy assistant secretary for environment, safety, and health, says the removal of Rice from the panel is consistent with other actions the Bush Administration has taken to stack advisory groups with scientists favorable to its views and to silence opponents.

Lunder and other scientists interviewed by C&EN warn of the chilling effect Gray’s actions may have on other scientists asked to take part in peer reviews. They note that Rice had already been vetted and selected by EPA and the contractor that put together the panel.

“Peer reviewers should be free to say whatever they think,” Lunder says, “and to have retroactive retaliation by removing your name sends a message that if you say something unpopular or out of line with EPA, your views may get dropped. It challenges the whole principle of review by an unbiased panel without fear of retribution.”

In a statement released earlier this month, ACC said its “strong support for science” and “an independent peer review process” led it to raise concerns with EPA about Rice’s membership on the PBDE panel. “We believe EPA acted appropriately and consistently with the rules governing membership in scientific review panels,” the industry group said.

“ACC will work with the Energy & Commerce Committee to provide it with the requested materials pertaining to this matter,” the statement said.

The final toxicological human health assessment of PBDE is expected this month. It is now being examined by the White House’s Office of Management & Budget, according to EPA officials. An official familiar with the draft said Rice’s toxicological studies are cited in the assessment although her views on the draft had been struck.