[HN Gopher] EPA is falsifying risk assessments for dangerous che...
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       EPA is falsifying risk assessments for dangerous chemicals, say
       whistleblowers
        
       Author : webmaven
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2021-08-27 16:48 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | Hokusai wrote:
       | > Agency scientists say management silences and harasses them to
       | appease chemical industry > 'Managers seem to think their job is
       | to get as many new chemicals on the market as fast as possible,'
       | Kyla Bennett said. > It's money, it's greed, but it doesn't make
       | sense. Don't these people have any children or grandchildren?
       | Don't they care?
       | 
       | You get what you pay for. If you pay your regulators to approve
       | as many things as possible, you end with planes crashing into the
       | ground. EPA is not different. Give them the right incentives and
       | you will solve the problem.
        
         | treeman79 wrote:
         | Or everything will be banned, and it no longer becomes possible
         | to get anything done.
         | 
         | Ideally you want chemical level toxicity to kill you in around
         | 90-100 years. Or yes toxic sludge is bad, but you will die of
         | old age first.
         | 
         | Now if it's this will kill you in 0- 10 years. That's an okay
         | we need to set the EPA attack dogs loose.
        
           | webmaven wrote:
           | _> Ideally you want chemical level toxicity to kill you in
           | around 90-100 years. Or yes toxic sludge is bad, but you will
           | die of old age first._
           | 
           |  _> Now if it's this will kill you in 0- 10 years. That's an
           | okay we need to set the EPA attack dogs loose._
           | 
           | There are plenty of non-lethal effects on humans that you
           | wouldn't be happy with, and a lot of stuff that kills
           | wildlife but humans tend not to encounter lethal
           | concentrations.
        
           | riedel wrote:
           | I personally would want factor 10 margin here. First I would
           | assume that it is a distribution and if you are unlucky it
           | still could be 10 years for a small quantile. If you think
           | like this you will easily gets hundreds of those chemicals in
           | your environment, so you will want that quantile to be really
           | tiny. Additional I would assume that in reality even not all
           | toxicity is independent. So effects might even add up. So
           | better be safe than sorry.
           | 
           | Also regulation is a driver for innovation. Without pressure,
           | you will less likely get better products. It is better if
           | companies put their dollars in research rather than lobbying.
        
       | throwawaysea wrote:
       | I'm not surprised by this because my personal bias is to expect a
       | government that serves interests that financially support them,
       | either directly (contributions) or indirectly (revolving door).
       | But are there examples of agencies (not necessarily EPA) that are
       | performing falsifications in the other direction, favoring
       | populist or activist positions instead of corporate ones? And how
       | do we design our government to protect against either direction
       | of bias?
        
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       (page generated 2021-08-27 23:03 UTC)