[Infowarrior] - Potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law

[Richard Forno]

Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law
By Lyndsey Layton
Monday, January 4, 2010; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR2010010302110_pf.html
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States -- from  
flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners -- nearly 20  
percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency,  
their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and  
virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.

The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a  
highly competitive industry. But critics -- including the Obama  
administration -- say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it  
impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for  
consumers to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to.

At a time of increasing public demand for more information about  
chemical exposure, pressure is building on lawmakers to make it more  
difficult for manufacturers to cloak their products in secrecy.  
Congress is set to rewrite chemical regulations this year for the  
first time in a generation.

Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, manufacturers must report  
to the federal government new chemicals they intend to market. But the  
law exempts from public disclosure any information that could harm  
their bottom line.

Government officials, scientists and environmental groups say that  
manufacturers have exploited weaknesses in the law to claim secrecy  
for an ever-increasing number of chemicals. In the past several years,  
95 percent of the notices for new chemicals sent to the government  
requested some secrecy, according to the Government Accountability  
Office. About 700 chemicals are introduced annually.

Some companies have successfully argued that the federal government  
should not only keep the names of their chemicals secret but also hide  
from public view the identities and addresses of the manufacturers.

"Even acknowledging what chemical is used or what is made at what  
facility could convey important information to competitors, and they  
can start to put the pieces together," said Mike Walls, vice president  
of the American Chemistry Council.

Although a number of the roughly 17,000 secret chemicals may be  
harmless, manufacturers have reported in mandatory notices to the  
government that many pose a "substantial risk" to public health or the  
environment. In March, for example, more than half of the 65  
"substantial risk" reports filed with the Environmental Protection  
Agency involved secret chemicals.

"You have thousands of chemicals that potentially present risks to  
health and the environment," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president  
of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that  
documented the extent of the secret chemicals through public-records  
requests from the EPA. "It's impossible to run an effective regulatory  
program when so many of these chemicals are secret."

Of the secret chemicals, 151 are made in quantities of more than 1  
million tons a year and 10 are used specifically in children's  
products, according to the EPA.

The identities of the chemicals are known to a handful of EPA  
employees who are legally barred from sharing that information with  
other federal officials, state health and environmental regulators,  
foreign governments, emergency responders and the public.

Last year, a Colorado nurse fell seriously ill after treating a worker  
involved at a chemical spill at a gas-drilling site. The man, who  
later recovered, appeared at a Durango hospital complaining of  
dizziness and nausea. His work boots were damp; he reeked of  
chemicals, the nurse said.

Two days later, the nurse, Cathy Behr, was fighting for her life. Her  
liver was failing and her lungs were filling with fluid. Behr said her  
doctors diagnosed chemical poisoning and called the manufacturer,  
Weatherford International, to find out what she might have been  
exposed to.

Weatherford provided safety information, including hazards, for the  
chemical, known as ZetaFlow. But because ZetaFlow has confidential  
status, the information did not include all of its ingredients.

Mark Stanley, group vice president for Weatherford's pumping and  
chemical services, said in a statement that the company made public  
all the information legally required.

"It is always in our company's best interest to provide information to  
the best of our ability," he said.

Behr said the full ingredient list should be released. "I'd really  
like to know what went wrong," said Behr, 57, who recovered but said  
she still has respiratory problems. "As citizens in a democracy, we  
ought to know what's happening around us."

The White House and environmental groups want Congress to force  
manufacturers to prove that a substance should be kept confidential.  
They also want federal officials to be able to share confidential  
information with state regulators and health officials, who carry out  
much of the EPA's work across the country.

Walls, of the American Chemistry Council, says manufacturers agree  
that federal officials should be able to share information with state  
regulators. Industry is also willing to discuss shifting the burden of  
proof for secrecy claims to the chemical makers, he said. The EPA must  
allow a claim unless it can prove within 90 days that disclosure would  
not harm business.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is trying to reduce secrecy.

A week after he arrived at the agency in July, Steve Owens, assistant  
administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic  
Substances, ended confidentiality protection for 530 chemicals. In  
those cases, manufacturers had claimed secrecy for chemicals they had  
promoted by name on their Web sites or detailed in trade journals.

"People who were submitting information to the EPA saw that you can  
claim that virtually anything is confidential and get away with it,"  
Owens said.

The handful of EPA officials privy to the identity of the chemicals do  
not have other information that could help them assess the risk, said  
Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official and a pediatrician and  
epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"Maybe they don't know there's been a water quality problem in New  
Jersey where the plant is located, or that the workers in the plant  
have had health problems," she said. "It just makes sense that the  
more people who are looking at it, they're better able to put one and  
one together and recognize problems."

Independent researchers, who often provide data to policymakers and  
regulators, also have been unable to study the secret chemicals.

Duke University chemist Heather Stapleton, who researches flame  
retardants, tried for months to identify a substance she had found in  
dust samples taken from homes in Boston. Then, while attending a  
scientific conference, she happened to see the structure of a chemical  
she recognized as her mystery compound.

The substance is a chemical in "Firemaster 550," a product made by  
Chemtura Corp. for use in furniture and other products as a substitute  
for a flame retardant the company had quit making in 2004 because of  
health concerns.

Stapleton found that Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient similar in  
structure to a chemical -- Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP -- that  
Congress banned last year from children's products because it has been  
linked to reproductive problems and other health effects.

Chemtura, which claimed confidentiality for Firemaster 550, supplied  
the EPA with standard toxicity studies. The EPA has asked for  
additional data, which it is studying.

"My concern is we're using chemicals and we have no idea what the long- 
term effects might be or whether or not they're harmful," said Susan  
Klosterhaus, an environmental scientist at the San Francisco Estuary  
Institute who has published a journal article on the substance with  
Stapleton.

Chemtura officials said in a written statement that even though  
Firemaster 550 contains an ingredient structurally similar to DEHP  
does not mean it poses similar health risks. They said the company  
strongly supports keeping sensitive business information out of public  
view. "This is essential for ensuring the long-term competitiveness of  
U.S. industry," the officials said in the statement.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.