The United States House Energy and Commerce Committee began an investigation in March of the potential conflicts of interest that scientific panels advising the Environmental Protection Agency on the human health effects of toxic chemicals. Eight scientists were identified by this committee as serving as consultants of members of EPA science advisory panels while receiving research support from the chemical industry to study the chemicals under review. Two of these scientists were employed by companies that directly produced or worked intimately with manufacturers of the very chemicals that were being reviewed.

Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) has noted that these conflicts are a strong contrast to a controversial event that occured last summer: the dismissal of the highly respected health scientist Deborah Rice. An experts in toxicology, she was removed from a panel which was investigating the health impacts of the flame retardant polybrominated diphenyl ether, often called deca. She was fired by the EPA after the American Chemistry Council, a major trade association of chemical companies, filed the complaint that she could not provide an objective scientific review of the chemical due to her outspoken public criticism of the health hazards posed by deca.

Herbert Needleman, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist, claims, in an article released on May 12, 2008 in the open access journal PLoS Biology, that this sort of dismissal is neither or unique. Needleman has laid the foundation for the five-fold reduction in the instance of lead poisoning in American children, thanks to his unprecedented research on the cognitive effects of lead on children.

In this article, Needleman calls attention to the fact that the EPA swiftly fired Rice, even though it had recently honored her just a few years earlier with one of its most prestigious scientific awards, on the basis of her "exceptionaly high-quality research into lead's toxicity." This was done simply because the American Chemistry Council requested that she be restrained.

Needleman writes that the EPA summarily removed traces of her work from the review: EPA, without examining or contesting the charge of bias, complied," Needleman write. "Rice was fired. The next formal act of the EPA was to remove all of her comments from the written report completely erase her name from the text of the review. There is now no evidence that she ever participated in the EPA proceedings, or was even in the room."In spite of this, Needleman indicates that he believes Rice, who is "widely admired by her colleagues for her intelligence, integrity and moral compass," will "withstand this insult and continue to contribute to the public welfare."

The case of Deborah Rice: Who is the Environmental Protection Agency protecting?
Needleman HL
PLoS Biol 6(5): e129.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060129
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Anna Sophia McKenney