[CPEO-BIF] "Peer reviewers of EPA’s TCE report must affirm that the key risk is fetal heart damage"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Peer reviewers of EPA’s TCE report must affirm that the key risk is fetal heart damage

By Richard Denison 
Environmental Defense Fund
April 1, 2020


Last week, the EPA Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) conducted a virtual peer review meeting for the Agency’s draft risk evaluation of trichloroethylene (TCE). As expected, there was substantial discussion on the appropriateness of EPA’s decision to make risk determinations based on immune endpoints rather than fetal cardiac malformations (FCMs). Unfortunately, the review panel lacked anyone with specific expertise in cardiac development.

During the meeting, many of the peer review panelists signaled an initial inclination toward supporting EPA’s decision to use immune endpoints for risk determinations. However, panel members also noted with serious concern the recent investigations that have uncovered political influence exerted on EPA that led it to base the risk determinations in the draft risk evaluation on immune endpoints instead of FCMs.

Stepping back from the specifics of the discussions last week, it is important to understand the longstanding basis and support for EPA’s reliance on FCMs, the unprecedented nature of EPA’s decision to now move away from it, and the adverse implications of the decision for EPA’s ability to adequately manage the risks of TCE to all relevant subpopulations.

…

For the entire blog, see
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2020/04/01/peer-reviewers-of-epas-tce-report-must-affirm-that-the-key-risk-is-fetal-heart-damage/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org





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