The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has begun a review of ties between a federal health center that evaluates the risks of chemicals to reproductive health and a consulting firm funded by companies that produce chemicals linked to reproductive disorders.
The investigation follows a Times report on Sunday that Sciences International, an Alexandria, Va., firm funded by more than 50 industrial companies, helps manage the federal Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction.
Among the firms with financial ties to Sciences International are two that produce bisphenol A, a chemical in polycarbonate plastic bottles that has been linked in animal testing to prostate and breast cancer and reduced fertility.
Since 1998, Sciences International has helped manage the federal reproductive health center and prepared draft reports analyzing bisphenol A and 16 other chemicals. The company has a $5-million contract with the center.
The center's scientific advisory panel was scheduled to decide today whether bisphenol A endangers reproductive health in humans.
But on Tuesday, director Michael Shelby announced that the panel, after two days of reviewing the 372-page report that Sciences International prepared on bisphenol A, known as BPA, still had too many unresolved questions and was postponing its decision for six weeks.
Shelby has not returned phone calls from The Times.
On Monday, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which oversees the center, removed Sciences International from overseeing the advisory panel's bisphenol A evaluation while it reviews whether the company's connections to chemical manufacturers pose a conflict of interest.
"Sciences International is not servicing this particular meeting. We don't believe there's a conflict of interest at all, but we want them to not work this meeting so that we can review the situation," said Christine Bruske, communications director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The role of Sciences International at the health center came to the attention of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group, when some scientists who study bisphenol A criticized the agency's report as inaccurate and biased toward industry.
The group contacted Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), who last week called for an explanation of the company's role and disclosure of its financial ties.
