Tag: Alternatives Research and Development Foundation

In September 2002, a coalition of animal rights groups led by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sued the Environmental Protection Agency over a voluntary chemical testing program.

The High Production Volume Challenge Program is a voluntary testing program created by the EPA, Environmental Defense and the American Chemical Council to obtain toxicity data on 2,800 common chemicals whose total production/importation exceeds 1 million pounds annually.

The animal rights groups objected to the program because it would mean more animal testing of these chemical compounds.

Chemical & Engineering News reports that on August 25 a federal judge dismissed part of the lawsuit while allowing another part to move forward to trial.

The animal rights groups lost on the point most germane to the animal testing issue. PCRM and the others claimed that the agreement between EPA, Environmental Defense and the American Chemical Council violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The act requires government agencies to accept public input when setting up programs. The lawsuit argued that by simply reaching a deal with Environmental Defense and the American Chemical Council, the EPA had denied animal rights groups the opportunity to make their case against animal testing.

But the judge hearing the case found that the EPA had not violated the Federal Advisory Act.

He did, however, allow the case to go to trial on whether the EPA had violated the Toxic Substances Control Act. As Chemical & Engineering News sums it up,

They [animal rights groups] say that by selecting the chemicals for the program, EPA determined that it needed toxicity data for these compounds. This determination, they contend, required EPA to issue a regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act to force chemical companies to produce the data — rather than set up a voluntary program.

Along with PCRM, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Alternatives Research and Development Foundation, and the American Anti-Vivisection Society were part of the lawsuit. Nice to see activists concerned about health trying to block a voluntary effort between industry and the government to improve toxicity data on commonly used chemicals.

Source:

Voluntary program passes legal hurdle. Cheryl Hogue, Chemical & Engineering News, September 8, 2003.

Led by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, several animal rights groups filed suit on Sept. 5, 2002 against the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to require industry to perform animal toxicity studies on almost 3,000 chemicals.

Joining the lawsuit are the Alternatives Research and Development Foundation, the American Anti-Vivisection Society, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. According to a PCRM press release on the lawsuit,

At an estimated cost of $16 million each year for the EPA to administer, the H[igh] P[roduction] V[olume] program calls for thousands of duplicative animal tests that are not predictive of human harm. Available alternatives that are more sensitive than animal tests, such as in vitro genetic toxicity tests, are not being required, and the program does nothing to limit human exposure to known toxins.

PCRM is also suing on behalf of several individuals they claim were harmed by chemicals that tested out as safe in animals. Though the details of these cases reveal more than a few problems for PCRM. For example,

Plaintiffs John Gentry and Scott Mishler were exposed to toxic substgances at work and both have suffered serious illnesses. Mishler, a former journeyman electrician, is no longer able to work due ot illnesses caused by exposure to hydraulic fluid containing an HPV chemical slated for re-testing. Tests done in 1984 and 1995 showed that the chemical, trixylenyl phosphate, does not kill rats, yet phosophate-based hydraulic fluids can cause severe damage to workers’ nervous system.

This is an almost laughable description that cynically takes advantage of people’s lack of knowledge about phosphates and hydraulic fluids.

Trixylenyl phosphate is a trialkyl/aryl phosphate (TAP). PCRM forgets several important facts about tirxylenyl phosphate. First, it is one of the less dangerous TAPs in animal studies, and mice and rats are the least sensitive to TAP exposure. The LD50 dose for TAPs in rats, for example, is 5,190 mg/kg compared to just 1,500 mg/kg for cats.

The claim that “trxylenyl phosphate, does not kill rats, yet phosphate-based hydraulic flucis can cause severe damage to workers’ nervous system” is odd. Trialkyl/aryl phosphates are known to cause neurological problems in animal studies. Much of the research into the ill effects of TAPs, however, have focused on tri- o-cresyl phosphate. More research into neurological, carcinogenic and other effects of TAPs is definitely needed.

Or take this case which PCRM is also pursing,

Plaintiff Rosa Naparstek, a resident of New York City, has multiple chemical sensitivites syndrome, an environmental illness caused by toxic chemicals in the environment. Many HPV chemicals used in soaps, shampoos, perfumes, detergents, bleach, paints, glues, carpeting and gasoline caused Neparstek to experience headaches, dizziness, nausea, and muscle and joint pain.

Thankfully, federal courts have generally barred any sort of expert testimony about multiple chemical sensitivity on the grounds that it fails to meet the Daubert test of scientific validity. The odds of Naparstek prevailing are in the range of zero to none.

Reading between the lines, this lawsuit appears geared more to impressing animal rights activists and generating headlines than a serious challenge to the EPA’s HPV testing regimen.

Source:

Doctors sue EPA to halt toxic testing on animals. U.S. Newswire, September 5, 2002.