Chemical Industry

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.

Maybe you've seen the ad showing an empty shopping cart in the middle of the desert. "Soon, many common, everyday products could disappear from grocery store shelves all across California," it warns. That would be pretty ominous, if it were true. Which it is not. The ad campaign by the American Chemistry Council is targeting a bill in Sacramento that would ban use of a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA, in products such as baby bottles and sippy cups used by children under 3.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A University of California research team assembled by the Legislature has recommended that the state adopt a comprehensive policy to identify and restrict the most dangerous chemicals used by American industries and replace them with safer substitutes. In a report to be released today, the researchers advise California legislators to pioneer a "green chemistry" strategy because the "United States has fallen behind globally in the move toward cleaner technologies."

Leaders of California's chemical companies gathered Wednesday in Los Angeles to discuss how best to respond to growing pressure to develop a new state policy that would provide the public more protection from toxic compounds in consumer products and the environment.

The European Parliament on Wednesday approved the world's most stringent law aimed at protecting people and the environment from thousands of toxic chemicals -- legislation that will have a far-reaching effect on industries and products worldwide, including in the United States. The new law, which regulates about 30,000 toxic substances, is far more restrictive and comprehensive than U.S. regulations. The most hazardous -- an estimated 1,500 -- could be banned or restricted.

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.