EPA dismisses scientist

[amborin]

latimes.com

Outspoken scientist dismissed from panel on chemical safety

Deborah Rice, an award-winning toxicologist, was removed from a group of experts researching a widely-used flame retardant after industry lobbyists complained that she was biased.

By Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 29, 2008

Under pressure from the chemical industry, the Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed an outspoken scientist who chaired a federal panel responsible for helping the agency determine the dangers of a flame retardant widely used in electronic equipment.

Toxicologist Deborah Rice was appointed chair of an EPA scientific panel reviewing the chemical a year ago. Federal records show she was removed from the panel in August after the American Chemistry Council, the lobbying group for chemical manufacturers, complained to a top-ranking EPA official that she was biased.

The chemical, a brominated compound known as deca, is used in high volumes worldwide, largely in the plastic housings of television sets.

Rice, an award-winning former EPA scientist who now works at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, has studied low doses of deca and reported neurological effects in lab animals. Last February, around the time the EPA panel was convened, Rice testified before the Maine Legislature in support of a state ban on the compound because scientific evidence shows it is toxic and accumulating in the environment and people.....

[TahitiNut]

1. So, valuing human health above corporate profits is now called a "bias"??

Can it get much more blatant?

[Elspeth]

2. Practicing real science instead of cooking experimental books to support corporations is now bias

It's happening in a lot of places, even in academics.

[Buzz Clik]

3. From the scientist's perspective: Yes, it's bias.

One should not be conducting research with any preconceived notions at all. If you have an emotional investment of any kind, there's a problem. If continued research funding is comes with an implied precondition that the results must tell a certain study, that's a problem.

There is no question -- at all! -- that the chemical industries will not be pleased with results that have bad implications about their product, and they will make overt attempts to discredit the interpretation in some way. Therefore, it is crucial that the scientists conducting this research must be advocates only of the discovery process. Once they become attached to a certain outcome, discrediting the results becomes too easy.

The dismissal of this scientist from the panel is the correct move. It does not stop the scientist process with brominated fire retardants -- that work marches on, and the chemical producers are still in deep, deep trouble.