As has happened in Texas, ignorance of EPA science will allow pollution and cancer to feed
Trump administration plans to destroy the science of EPA will leave the air that we will breathe and the water that we drink more polluted
Cows are grazing near the Oak Grove power plant in Robertson County, Texas, subject to EPA rules (Environmental Protection Agency) to reduce carbon emissions and mercury pollution as part of Biden administration.
Brandon Bell / Getty images
I spent my scientific career asking the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States to set stronger and legitimate public health protections of toxic chemicals. I do not always agree with the final decisions of the EPA, but I respect the scientific process and I am always grateful for the scientists of the agency – our confidence of the public brain.
In one of the Most dangerous acts Against facts and science, the Trump administration has announced in March that it will make the independent EPA research office close. This will reduce more than 1,000 scientists and technical experts who help the agency to determine if, for example, a chemical poses A risk of canceror a factory is pollute a neighboring river. At the same time, Trump’s EPA installed oil And chemical Industry lobbyists to write the rules to regulate these industries.
There are a lot of empty discussion make us healthy from This administration. Future generations will be even worse.
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What is not said by Trump’s EPA is the following: eliminating scientists from EPA is environmental guarantees. Each major environmental status –The clean ACTTHE Drinking water deed and the Superfund Law governing cleaning Requirements – Related on EPA scientists to calculate how dangerous chemicals are, how people and fauna can be exposed and what health and health damages can occur. Essential questions for environmental and community protections are sought, such as: will exposure to this chemical in my workplace increase my risk of breast cancer? Is the air quality of power plant emissions sure for the neighboring community? What is an acceptable standard for PFAS Forever chemicals in our drinking water?
A view of the drone on the superfunding site of the Sulphur Bank Mercury mine in Clearlake Oaks, California, Tuesday, January 30, 2024.
Jane Tyska / Digital First Media / East Bay Times via Getty Images
Instead, the Trump team once again balances its chainsaw, this time against independent science to promote polluting industries. Unlike emptying government scientific surveys and decimating academic scientific research, a single type of scientific research will be available to establish environmental standards: polluting research. And that’s a problem. The public is right to be wary of science sponsored by polluters; See “tobacco science” and the myth of safe nuclear waste for beginners.
Just ask Texas. Texas State vigorous defense ethylene oxide, a well -known carcinogen, provides a continuous example of the public health dangers of science carried out by polluting industry with financial interest in the result And The support of a state government determined to rewrite scientific facts on a chemical cancer cancer.
In 2016, after almost 10 years of research and analysis, EPA determined ethylene oxide, a chemical widely used in the installations of Texas and Louisiana to sterilize medical equipment, was Cancer related– With a risk of 30 times higher than EPA had found previously. EPA’s new risk assessment included a study of 300 breast cancer Cases in women working with chemicals and adjusted for additional risks where children can be exposed.
EPA report was finalized after several internal journals and journals of other government agencies, with public contributions, notably from Texas and Industry on several occasions. There have also been two public examination cycles by the agency’s scientific advisory council.
Rather than accepting this observation, the chemical industry and the Texas regulatory agency alternative In 2020 on ethylene oxide. In contrast striking with the evaluation of the EPA, the evaluation of Texas is a entrepreneur sponsored by Ethylene oxide industryY with a limited public examination. He does not take into account For the risk of breast cancer and could make it possible to emit more than 3,000 times more atmospheric pollution, which would considerably increase diseases and deaths, in particular cancer – for neighboring workers and communities.
In an effort to oblige EPA to adopt the estimates of the friendly risks of Texas at the national level, Texas requested an examination of its results by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the main source of the country of consulting and high -quality confidence -confidence.
In March, national academies published its final reportRefrimanding the foundations of Texas’ analysis, finding it on several occasions of best scientific practices and has not offered a “credible base” for its results, in particular its determination that ethylene oxide was not associated with breast cancer.
Texas’ efforts to rewrite the history of ethylene oxide cancer as a Benin and Big-Deal-free chemical product, is only the beginning of toxic chaos and disinformation that we can expect from the Trump team to support the financial interests of toxic polluters.
The erasure of the evidence of cancer, the fudging data and the claim of wild allegations are the truth will become the standard, undermining each right and environmental regulations of the nation and compromising our right to health.
We all suffered.
This is an article of opinion and analysis, and the points of view expressed by the author or the authors are not necessarily those of American scientific.