Chemical Industry

The chemical industry, often at odds with environmentalists and health advocates, committed $1.2 billion for a six-year program of independent research into how chemicals affect health and safety. The initiative brought praise from Vice President Al Gore and other administration officials in Washington, as well as from environmentalists who urged that the studies be objective.

WASHINGTON - Moms, a few dads and some children gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to urge Congress to strengthen the federal government's powers to regulate harmful chemicals. The group of almost a hundred activists, which included registered nurses and cancer survivors, came from across the country to support the Safe Chemicals Act, which if passed by Congress would create a new process to monitor toxic chemicals used in consumer products. The chemicals, which are common in furniture and baby products, have been linked to neurological defects, cancer, developmental problems and impaired fertility.

Were they remaking the 1967 film "The Graduate" today, the one word of career advice to young Benjamin Braddock from an older family friend would no longer be "plastics." It would be "biotechnology." At a factory in Nebraska, Cargill Dow, a joint venture of the agricultural giant Cargill Inc. and Dow Chemical Co., is making a plastic and fiber material called Ingeo from corn. In turn, Ingeo is being used to manufacture food packaging and blankets. In North Carolina and Illinois, DuPont Inc.

The world's largest natural products convention, a celebration of all things healthy and eco-friendly, was being held at the Anaheim Convention Center Saturday when F. Sherwood Rowland, 84, died at his home in Corona del Mar. It's not much of a stretch to say that Rowland, 84, helped spawn the industry that drew more than 60,000 people and 2,000 exhibitors. In 1973, the UC Irvine chemistry professor and a young researcher on his team, Mario Molina, discovered that manmade chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons destroyed the Earth's fragile and vital ozone layer.

Bill Moyers' Monday documentary, "Trade Secrets," about four decades of public relations, legislative and lobbying tactics employed by the chemical industry, doesn't mince words: "The laboratory mice in this vast chemical experiment are the children. They have no idea what's happening to them and neither do we," he says, in the concluding words of an advance version of the 90-minute program.

In the two years leading to his last election, Rep. Jack Fields (R-Tex.) received more campaign money from the chemical industry than any other member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. And when the committee recently took up Superfund, the nation's toxic dump cleanup law, Fields consistently voted against the environmental line on key issues. Fields says it was not the campaign money that prompted his votes but a home district dominated by the petrochemical industry.

For nearly a decade, a federal agency has been responsible for assessing the dangers that chemicals pose to reproductive health. But much of the agency's work has been conducted by a private consulting company that has close ties to the chemical industry, including manufacturers of a compound in plastics that has been linked to reproductive damage.

There are plenty of David versus Goliath stories in Washington, but this one is Goliath versus Goliath: Dow Chemical Co. and Du Pont Co., giants of the chemical industry, on opposite sides of a bill in Congress. Dow is trying to get rid of three words in the massive energy bill the Senate is expected to take up this week. The same three words are just fine with Du Pont. The bill would require most urban fleets of 20 or more cars and light trucks to run on fuels other than gasoline.

In 2005, veteran Los Angeles County firefighter Crystal Golden-Jefferson died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. At first her death was a mystery: The 41-year-old Inglewood mother had always prided herself on her fitness. But now Jefferson's parents believe long-term exposure to brominated chemicals used as flame retardants in household furniture foam caused their daughter's death. Studies show that when burned, such compounds convert to brominated dioxin. Firefighters inhale the fumes and are exposed through soot contact with the skin.

Germany's chemical industry denied allegations that it helped Iraq develop chemical weapons, saying none of its 1,700 members were under investigation for possible illegal exports. Reports that German firms, which produced the chemicals used to gas Jews under the Nazis, helped Iraq develop its arsenal of chemical weapons have sparked angry protests around the world, especially in Israel.

Environmentalists were counting on big gains in Sacramento this summer, with a governor eager to burnish his green credentials in his final months in office. But by the time the legislative session ended at midnight Tuesday, those hopes had fizzled. Activists had worked for passage of such pioneering measures as a ban on plastic grocery bags and expanded use of the sun, wind and other renewable resources to power California homes and businesses. But the bold proposals they saw as a springboard to nationwide environmental efforts collapsed in the face of aggressive industry opposition that included intensive lobbying, television advertising and even mail to voters.

One night in April 2007, as Mike Partain hugged his wife before going to bed, she felt a small lump above his right nipple. A mammogram -- a "man-o-gram," he called it -- led to a diagnosis of male breast cancer. Six days later, the 41-year-old insurance adjuster had a mastectomy. Partain had no idea men could get breast cancer. But he thinks he knows what caused his: contaminated drinking water at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he was born. Over the last two years, Partain has compiled a list of 19 others diagnosed with male breast cancer who once lived on the base.

Scientists and activists faced off with growers and the chemical industry at a California Assembly Labor Committee hearing about the fumigant methyl iodide, a known carcinogen under consideration for use on California fields. Growers of strawberries, ornamental plants and other crops want the chemical approved as a replacement for methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting chemical banned under an international treaty. But worker advocates are concerned that the fumigant may increase the risk of miscarriage, cancer and thyroid toxicity.

California on Monday launched the most comprehensive program of any state to regulate chemicals that have been linked to cancer, hormone disruption and other deadly effects on human health. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two broad laws that shift the state away from a scattershot approach in which bills targeting individual chemicals and products have passed or failed depending on the intensity of the lobbying and media attention.

To a chemist, chlorine is the perfect compound. Easily combining with other elements and molecules, chlorine is transformed into new classes of chemicals with an endless array of uses. It disinfects water, cleans clothes, kills bugs, degreases metals, bleaches paper. It has long been vital to the synthesis of plastics, drugs, microchips and many other products around the globe. But to environmental scientists, chlorine is a perfect nightmare. Fumes seeping from a tanker could kill thousands.

In 2005, veteran Los Angeles County firefighter Crystal Golden-Jefferson died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. At first her death was a mystery: The 41-year-old Inglewood mother had always prided herself on her fitness. But now Jefferson's parents believe long-term exposure to brominated chemicals used as flame retardants in household furniture foam caused their daughter's death. Studies show that when burned, such compounds convert to brominated dioxin. Firefighters inhale the fumes and are exposed through soot contact with the skin.

The world's largest natural products convention, a celebration of all things healthy and eco-friendly, was being held at the Anaheim Convention Center Saturday when F. Sherwood Rowland, 84, died at his home in Corona del Mar. It's not much of a stretch to say that Rowland, 84, helped spawn the industry that drew more than 60,000 people and 2,000 exhibitors. In 1973, the UC Irvine chemistry professor and a young researcher on his team, Mario Molina, discovered that manmade chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons destroyed the Earth's fragile and vital ozone layer.

At his factory in the City of Commerce, Herbert Kraft keeps two trucks full of kitty litter for emergencies. Kraft is not preparing for accidents of the feline variety at American Vanguard Corp. but for the occasional chemical spill at the company, which makes agricultural pesticides. "We suck it up with kitty litter," said Kraft, chairman and chief executive of the fast-growing company. "We can surround anything with that."

Under pressure from the chemical industry, the Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed an outspoken scientist who chaired a federal panel responsible for helping the agency determine the dangers of a flame retardant widely used in electronic equipment. Toxicologist Deborah Rice was appointed chairwoman of an EPA scientific panel reviewing the chemical a year ago.

A federal panel of scientists concluded Wednesday that an estrogen-like compound in plastic could be posing some risk to the brain development of babies and children. Bisphenol A, or BPA, is found in low levels in virtually every human body. A component of polycarbonate plastic, it can leach from baby bottles and other hard plastic beverage containers, food can linings and other consumer products.