EPA’s Chemical Risk Assessments Rely on Flawed Science, Study Finds

March 26, 2019 By Linnea Lueken

A new study concludes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a program assessing the toxicity of chemicals and any risk from exposure to them, often produces assessments based on flawed research.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a program assessing the toxicity of chemicals and any risk from exposure to them, often produces assessments based on sloppy or flawed research, a new study concludes...........“EPA risk assessments, by and large, focus on preventing worst-case scenarios—even absurd ones—and ignore more plausible scenarios, while ignoring more serious risks created by the EPA’s own regulations,”

 

EPA identifies four steps necessary for an accurate risk assessment.............

Proponents tout IRIS as the most comprehensive, accurate chemical risk assessment, but it is not, says Logomasini.

 

“IRIS’s supporters say it sets the ‘gold standard’ for risk assessment, when the opposite is true,” Logomasini told Environment & Climate News. “The program has failed to develop rational, useful risk assessments, opting to select absurd risk values that create unwarranted public health scares, harming the public.”.............EPA uses toxicology poorly to make people believe substances they may be exposed to are more dangerous than they really are, says Dr. John Dale Dunn, an emergency physician, researcher, and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, which publishes Environment & Climate News..................To Read More....