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In the beginning of May, this Environmental Protection Agency The agency announced that he would share the main goal of scientific research. According to a report The sciences of the NPR, 1400 research and development bureau, the application of 500 new research positions to be scattered in other regions of the agency, and it was reported to expect them to be further reduced to their organizations in the coming weeks.
This re-organization threatens the existence of a small but important program located within this office: Usually an integrated risk information system program called IRIS. This program is responsible for providing independent research on the risks of chemicals, helps other offices in the Agency for chemicals and combinations that can endanger human health. The leader of the program Recently left, ahead of the advertisement of the restructure.
Reconstruction of the EPA, experts will likely break this important program targeted by the chemical industry and right-wing interests.
“Unfortunately, it seems like pollutants won,” Thomas Burke, Johns Hopkins Assistant of the Institute of Risk Sciences and Social Policy and EPA Research and Development Department.
“May 2 announcement is part of the greater, comprehensive efforts to reconstruct the entire agency,” EPA spokesman Molly Vaselou gave wire information on an email. “EPA works quickly with the reconstructed process and will provide additional information when available.”
The IRIS program formed in the mid-1980s, the IRIS program is designed to collect health effects of chemicals, to provide the best research in the world to provide the analysis of potential threats of new and existing substances. The program, with other offices of EPA, to identify the best chemicals in study and study.
Unlike other offices in EPA, IRIS program has no regulatory tasks; On the contrary, only new rules are available to provide science that will potentially justify. Experts explain that the iris produced from foreign pressures that can affect research in other areas of the agency.
“There is an independence in a centralized program such as iris, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, Assistant of the Research and Development Department and former EPA Science Adviser.” They do not try to evaluate the risk for a specific purpose. They simply evaluate the risks and provide fundamental information. “
From the date of its origin, IRIS has created a database More than 570 chemicals and compounds assessing potential human health effects. This research body helps to lead not only federal policies, but also to international rules.
The IRIS database “is a gold standard for health evaluations for chemical pollutants,” says Burke. “All of our actual adjustable pollutants, almost all our cleaners, almost all our great success in the regulation of toxic chemicals or IRIS employees.”
However, iris faced an important rising in recent years. One has the number of chemicals that should be considered with a limited workforce. Have More than 80,000 chemicals It was registered for use in the United States and chemical companies record hundreds of routes each year. Some chemicals work with some research work, and some have been concerned for years, while others recently carried out more new inspections. For example, for decadelity in the environment, forever chemicals, synthetic materials, for decades, but asked for the final spread of water and land tests 2019 To start creating project assessments for five common types of these chemicals.
