EPA Says Children May Be More Vulnerable than Adults to Carcinogens
|
by John Heilprin Associated Press April 1, 2005
|
WASHINGTON — Children may be more vulnerable than adults to cancer risks from certain
gene-damaging chemicals, the Environmental Protection Agency said
Tuesday.
The agency has updated the way it decides which
pollutants pose cancer risks, which is intended to lead to better
and more accurate reviews of carcinogens that might be regulated.
Under the previous EPA guidelines, last revised in 1986,
cancer risks to children were assumed to be no greater than to
similarly exposed adults.
In the first such update in nearly
20 years, the EPA said children 2 years old and younger might be 10
times more vulnerable than adults to certain chemicals. Children
between the ages of 2 and 16 might be three times more vulnerable to
certain chemicals.
The EPA also said it is seeking new ways
to gather scientific data on possible carcinogens. It said "the
consideration of new, peer-reviewed scientific understanding and
data in an assessment can always be consistent with the purposes of
these cancer guidelines."
The guidelines were made final
after several reviews by the EPA's science advisory board during the
past nine years, as the science of assessing cancer risks has
evolved.
"The agency's new cancer guidelines represent an
opportunity to bring our best understanding of how chemicals might
lead to cancer, and provide our best information for regulatory
decision-making," said William Farland, the EPA's chief scientist on
the issue.
Environmentalists praised some aspects of the
guidelines, but criticized others.
Jennifer Sass, a senior
scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group, praised the EPA for seeking new ways of getting
scientific data and methods and acknowledging that exposures to
pollutants early in life can be especially damaging.
But she
said that the Bush administration added language that "basically
provides a lot of opportunity for the chemical industry to hold up
or stymie chemical reviews." She said the EPA would be asking more
"expert elicitation" and "data quality" to justify letting outside
parties "push EPA" by insisting on outside opinions.
Farland
said, however, that EPA would maintain the integrity of its process
and the agency "has a long history of using peer review as an important part of our process."
|
|
|
Source: Associated Press
|
|
