The comparison was to adults, not children younger than six months.
Alright, I couldn’t find that, so I’ve just speed-read the bloody paper. I need a stiff drink now.
The paper argues that the EPA’s standard assumption that children are ten times more sensitive than adults to known toxins is sufficient, and the EPA’s stance that animal models are sufficiently representative of human toxicology to drive policy is correct. It says data provided by the National Academy of Sciences shows actual toxicity response is not linear with age, and that children under six months of age seem to be more resistant to some carcinogens than older children, and more sensitive to many other categories of poison, but says that data is insufficient to warrant any change of EPA behavior.
If any one else wants to check sources, just read the opening remarks and then skip down to the part entitled “DIFFERENTIAL RISK BETWEEN CHILDREN AND ADULTS” to save yourself some tedium.
Lerner (and Cory, by proxy) are somewhat sensationalizing what the paper says. Prima facie, it argues that data do not support increase in the number of EPA categories (no establishment of an under-six-months separate exposure limit, for example) and that limiting children’s exposure to newly identified toxins to one-tenth the limit for adults is valid enough to ensure public safety. Not a stance I agree with, but also not controversial in 21st century USA.
Here’s the conclusion:
“Taken together, information on the relative sensitivities of children and adults, on the sensitivity and specificity of toxicity testing protocols, and on the extent to which current uncertainty factors compensate for increased sensitivities and limited data suggests that the use of additional uncertainty factors to limit environmental chemical exposures is unlikely to provide significantly greater protection to children over 6 months of age. The same conclusion might not always hold true for children younger than 6 months of age in the absence of adequate developmental or systemic toxicity testing. However, while younger children are often more sensitive to toxicity than older children or adults, so are younger laboratory animals. Thus, appropriate in utero and early neonatal toxicity testing will compensate for any additional early sensitivity. Developmental and reproductive toxicity testing protocols such as those recommended by the EPA, FDA, and OECD are useful for characterizing toxicity in developing animals and for assessing risks to children that might arise from in utero and postnatal exposures.”
Dourson’s record indicates he’s a “Merchant of Doubt” and his writing has all the hallmarks - he is superficially agreeing with the EPA and with NAS, and makes no outright false statements of data, but he extensively references himself and publications of his house, and his phrasing makes his writing a goldmine for anyone willing to take portions out of context. So to some extent it is fitting that Lerner does this, although I would not, personally.
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OK, you’ve shown Scott Pruitt is even worse than I thought. I honestly didn’t believe that was possible.
I’m off to the bar.
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Thanks for doing the deep dive. I took Lerner’s word for it, but what you’ve quoted is considerably more nuanced.
He still seems a weasel of the most dangerous type, if he were to be put in charge of safety and pollution prevention for toxic chemicals.
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IN GENERAL thats true about children being more susecptible to chemicals. Mostly.
For him to say, thats DUMB even if accurate. It’s dumb.
The science of it is: paraoxinase is the detoxifying compound in the human liver. Infants produce low levels of paraoxonase 1 until six months to several years after birth, likely increasing the risk from chlorpyrifos exposure early in life. Therefore after the age of six months it IS less toxic to humans, mostly. Not a good policy argument, quite a picked cherry, really.
And he will never be able to make that point with those hamfists in his mouth.
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Check out the announcement on his nomination on the EPA website: “Widespread praise…”:
The Rev. John Arthur Nunes, Ph.D., President, Concordia College, New York: “My primary context for knowing Michael is at a Christian retreat center where I lecture each summer. He and Martha Dourson (his wife, a lawyer), are annual attendees. For years, Michael’s judicious integration of faith and the sciences has struck me as impressive as it is rare. Far too often the proposal of a relationship between science and religion is viewed with incompatibility at best or with inimicality at worst. Not with Dr. Dourson.
Chip May, Executive Director, Camp Arcadia: “I am the executive director of Camp Arcadia, a Christian family camp/resort in Northwest Michigan and I have had the privilege of knowing Mike for at least the past 15 years. My family and I consider Mike and his family the closest of friends. They have been passionate supporters of our ministry over the years and have helped to lead it as well. Mike chaired a beach erosion peer review study about 12 years ago.
Just on the theme of corruption and regulatory capture…
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Nope. Just playing around.
Timely story for those of us in Washtenaw County/Ann Arbor MI. We are sitting on a toxic plume of 1,4 dioxane that was discharged over 30 years ago and our local government has done little (in the scheme of things) to help. It is the largest such spill in the nation. For much more information check the links below. Some surrounding townships applied for Superfund status, the city council did not join the application for a few reasons, one of which was “Superfund status might have a negative effect on property values”
The point being, at last night’s CARD (Coalition for Action on Remediation of Dioxane) meeting we discussed Dourson’s appointment, Pruitt and the possible outcomes for communities that are in or in the process of determining Superfund status. Dourson has made some pretty junk science statements on the toxicity and exposure levels of 1,4 dioxane so we are concerned. However comments from Federal representatives were generally positive, apparently Pruitt has a lot of Superfund sites in his home state and so that part of the EPA’s regulatory action is safe, for selfish reasons. Also, the fund itself cannot be “un-funded”.
Ann Arbor finds out in November if we meet the scoring criteria to move to the next level of site investigation. We ran our own scorecard and we do think we will qualify. Also, note that active cleanups under Superfund status actually stabilize or increase property values in the mid to long term, because who wants to have poisoned water, poisoned wells? A Superfund cleanup will bring immediate relief to those households on wells in the affected area by making municiple water connections. Again, the City of Ann Arbor is the logjam, they do not want to foot the bill for this.
Now for those of you that are into charts and graphs and data, peruse the site put together by a man who is a hero to many, Roger Rayle, who has been tracking this since it’s discovery in the 80’s.
https://sites.google.com/site/srsworg/
#GelmanPlume #OnePercentForWater #WaterPlanet
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If anyone is reading this right now, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon is ripping Dourson a new on at the committee hearing.
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/
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If you google “Michael Dourson”, you find numerous critical entries sandwiching a single laudatory link, EPA’s own:
Oh, yeah, thoroughly agree. Putting this guy in the EPA would be like the IRS hiring Equifax to provide data security, just completely unconscionable… wait a minute… Damnit!
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On the general subject of nasty chemicals, this article kind of made me ashamed to have taken organic chemistry in college.
Industry spokesman: ‘And look, here’s a photo of a lovely bird, lying back and chilling…’
Agreed, but “people who say GMOs shouldn’t be labeled” is a problematic example because it is about labeling rather than data collection. The information should be available, but whether it should be automatically displayed on packaging is a separate question. Just putting a label is not a neutral act, it implies that the information is known to be worth knowing, that knowing it might warrant changing behavior, that it’s worth taking up valuable package surface area to display. Personally I’d use the US ban on using federal funds for gun violence research as an example.
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That is a very good example, but it only limits public spending - preventing labeling laws actually stops private research as well. There’s no way to collect data from a population that’s been purposely kept uninformed. But let’s not get into that particular can of worms in this thread, and I promise to bring it up again in the next GMO thread. 
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