The White House Scrapped the Science on Trichloroethylene--So We're Urging the EPA to Investigate

[applegrove]

The White House Scrapped the Science on Trichloroethylene—So We’re Urging the EPA to Investigate

TARYN MACKINNEY, | MAY 1, 2020, 10:57 AM EDT

https://blog.ucsusa.org/taryn-mackinney/the-white-house-scrapped-the-science-on-tricholorethylene-so-were-urging-the-epa-to-investigate?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fb

"SNIP.....

When Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists concluded that the chemical trichloroethylene (TCE) causes fetal heart defects, even at low doses, officials at the White House overrode their conclusions—an egregious example of political interference in science, and a violation of the EPA’s scientific integrity policy. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) submitted a formal complaint to the EPA, urging the agency’s scientific integrity office to investigate.

......

Under President Trump’s EPA, these proposed bans were buried, but scientists persevered. In December 2019, EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) conducted a draft risk evaluation of TCE, which used fetal heart defects as a baseline for determining unsafe exposure levels. Given that heart malformation “is the effect that is most sensitive,” it reads, “it is expected that addressing risks for this effect would address other identified risks.”

But this draft evaluation never went public.

An investigation by Reveal outlines what happened to it, and how things went wrong—namely, when the document reached the White House’s Executive Office of the President (EOP). The EPA routinely sends its evaluations to other agencies for review, but the EOP’s “review” was far from routine: in unsigned emails and anonymous redline edits, EOP officials directed EPA scientists to discard the science on TCE’s role in fetal heart defects.

The EOP-edited version pays lip service to TCE’s connection to heart defects but notes “uncertainties which decrease EPA’s confidence in this endpoint.” The better bet, the new version continues, is to rely on immunosuppression, or the weakening of the immune system, as the baseline for “unreasonable risk.”

However, the exposure levels at which TCE triggers immunosuppression is almost 500 times higher than the levels found to trigger congenital heart defects. In other words, the EOP changes echo a common industry argument: TCE might be linked to poor health outcomes, but only at very high or chronic exposures. To cement this reversal, the White House deleted every one of the scientists’ 322 uses of the phrase “cardiac toxicity,” and bumped up mentions of “immunosuppression” more than 30-fold.

......SNIP"

So once babies are born they are fair game for any risk.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. We used to use that as a solvent

For removing stencils and labels off electronic equipment. Stopped about 35 years ago with the advent of P touch labels.

The smell was enough to make many people sick.

[applegrove]

2. Why is the WH doing high level science?

[Igel]

4. My mother would bring home jugs of the stuff.

Used it as a stain remover when I was in elementary school. Ink.

She acted as though it was home dry cleaning. (I never minded the smell.)

[CincyDem]

3. Cui Bono? Who benefits from this...follow the money. n/f.

[ProfessorGAC]

5. What We Used To Call "Tricle"

Geez, 40+ years ago we knew to never use that outside a hood.
And that, or chloroform, or carbon tetrachloride, after use, was isolated so that it could be fed to a super long term, special biotreatment process. The specialized bacteria were able to thrive in high pH, so as the biodegradation released chlorine, it became potassium chloride.
We were doing this in the late 70s.
I don't understand why anybody, after this much time would dispute a single thing about the dangers of these solvents!