In 2016, President Obama listened to reason and signed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and created a mandatory requirement for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals using transparent methodology and risk-based assessment.

No more simplistic epidemiology. Which meant no more junk that had anti-science activists declaring that a weedkiller turned frogs gay or PFAS in pizza boxes created greater risk for obesity than pizza.

I cheered. I even commissioned Dr. Michael Dourson, "America's Toxicologist" and former Senior Advisor in the Office of the Administrator at the US EPA, head of the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA) group, to create a series of analyses of the first 10 chemicals that would be examined. Carbon tetrachloride, for example, will cause dizziness and some liver issues, but tumors?


Scary?  Maybe, but overdosing rats using 10,000X a normal amount and claiming that any human cleaning their kitchen has the same risk was always nonsense. And EPA is right to claw back their credibility undoing it. Credit: PubChem

That needs real science, not breezy epidemiological correlation funded by trial lawyers.

The Biden administration stretched interpretation of the Obama modification so that exaggerated risk and exposure pathways, including obscenely high doses in animals, were included as human risk. That is not science, it is advocacy, and did nothing to protect people. Rather than lumping in workers in chemical factories with people using cleaning products in the home, the 2025 revision removes 'unreasonable' risk. This will cause rending of garments and doomsday prophecies to be shrieked by lawyers but it is entirely sensible.

That Secretary Kennedy and his cohort think this reversion to the Obama administration's intent is bad should be a sign even for progressive academics that it is good.

It is good. If we want scientists to get back to being trusted guides for the public - not just promoted by a political party when it matches an agenda - scientists need to stand up for common sense. And if they can also stand up to Kennedy, that should be a bonus.