Trying to figure out a way to stop EPA from prohibiting the use of 40 million tons of a pesticide (Atrazine) shown to "demasculinize" frogs at extremely low levels? Just sneak through some legislation in the dead of night called the "Data Quality Act" which allows the Atrazine manufacturer to stop regulation in its tracks by introducing a bunch of poorly conducted studies that will "manufacture uncertainty," by contradicting the well-done studies showing the damage.

All in a day's (or night's) work by Jim Tozzi, the man who argued against warning parents that taking aspirin might put their children at risk of Reyes Syndrome. As a bonus, maybe the Data Quality Act can be used to change EPA publications that warn of asbestos exposure to auto mechanics, and undermine the chief U.S. government agency mandated to study the cancer causing potential of chemicals.

Read all about it in the Washington Post.

Other Confined Space pieces on the Data Quality Act here, here, and here

Labels: Asbestos