1998 News Archives

Below is a listing of RiskWorld's 1998 news articles. For RiskWorld's most recent news coverage, see the homepage.  Contact: Amy Charlene Reed,  senior editor,  reed@tec-com.com.

U.S. Commission Releases Study on Phthalates in Children's Products. A U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission study of the chemical diisononyl phthalate (DINP), which is used to soften some plastic toys and children's products, concludes that few if any children are at risk from the chemical because the amount that they ingest does not reach, or even come close to, a level that would be harmful. Therefore, the commission has not recommended a ban on phthalates in children's products. However, the commission has recommended conducting additional scientific research in several areas of uncertainty that the study identified. In the interim, the commission has requested that manufacturers remove phthalates from soft rattles and teethers and find a substitute for phthalates in other products intended for children under three years old. In response to the commission's request, some 90 percent of manufacturers have agreed to remove phthalates from soft rattles and teethers by early 1999, and major retailers have removed teethers and rattles containing phthalates from store shelves. The study, said to be the most comprehensive evaluation of phthalates in children's products ever conducted, and a full press release are available on the commission's web site. The press release is also available through fax-on-demand by calling (301) 504-0051 from the handset of a fax machine and entering the release number 99-031. (Posted December 3, 1998.)

New Brochure Alerts Consumers to Risks of Food and Drug Interactions. A new brochure titled Food & Drug Interactions is alerting consumers to the potential risks of taking prescription drugs with certain foods or other drugs. National Consumers League, a U.S. non-profit consumer organization, has published the brochure as part of a campaign with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to educate consumers about the mild to severe health conditions or side effects associated with drug interactions, which include weakness, fatigue, muscle aches, and rash and may be confused with common medical problems such as arthritis pain, a cold, or influenza. To request free copies of the brochure, which currently is available only in print, call 1-800-639-8140 or send your name, organization, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address, and the quantity of brochures requested to e-mail natlconsumersleague@earthlink.net or to the National Consumers League, 1701 K Street, NW, Suite 1200 Washington, DC 20006. Read the National Consumers League's press release for more information. (Posted November 20, 1998.)

FDA Proposes Allowing Claims That Soy Protein Reduces Risk of Coronary Heart Disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is seeking comments on its proposed regulation to allow health claims on labels about the role soy protein may have in reducing the risk of coronary heart disease. The proposal is based on the agency's determination that soy protein, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, the number one cause of death in the United States. (Posted November 13, 1998.)

EPA Gives State and Local Governments Authority To Implement Risk Management Programs. Around 19 U.S. states, territories, and counties and one tribal government have asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to delegate them the authority to implement chemical accidental release prevention programs under Section 112(r)--also called the Risk Management Program rule--of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act. A recently revised timeline projects dates for risk management plan (RMP) submissions and their public accessibility. (Posted November 4, 1998.)

New CAST Report Discusses Food Safety. The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) has released a report, Foodborne Pathogens: Review of Recommendations, in which a CAST task force of 18 scientists updated the 15 recommendations contained in a 1994 CAST report titled Foodborne Pathogens: Risks and Consequences. The new report recommends that food-safety policy and regulations be based on risk assessment and include risk management and risk communication strategies and that federal food safety goals and priorities be set. It specifies research needs, recommends production control strategies, and encourages food-safety education for the general public. The CAST web site provides information about this report, including the interpretive summary. (Posted October 29, 1998; updated August 22, 2005.)

Independent Panel To Review Acrylonitrile and Acrolein Assessments. A panel of expert scientists and risk assessors organized by Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment will review assessments of the chemicals acrylonitrile and acrolein that were developed as part of the Priority Substances Program under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Acrylonitrile, a liquid man-made chemical, is used mostly to make plastics, acrylic fibers, and synthetic rubber (from U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry). Acrolein, a liquid that vaporizes faster than water and is flammable, is used in making other chemicals and pesticides and is found in some livestock feeds and pesticides (from U.S. ATSDR). In addition, the Acrylamide Monomers Producers Association will sponsor a discussion of scientific issues related to assessing the risk of acrylamide monomer, an odorless, free-flowing white crystalline used largely in the production of water-soluble polymers for treating municipal drinking water and wastewater (from the National Safety Council's Environmental Health Center). The independent peer review meeting will be held on November 16 and 17, 1998, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is open to the public (observers should pre-register). More information about the TERA peer review process is available on the web (http://www.tera.org/peer/), or contact Jacqueline Patterson, telephone (513) 521-7426 or e-mail patterson@tera.org. (Posted October 29, 1998; revised November 5.)

Overfishing Putting Marine Ecosystems At Risk. Overfishing and other destructive fishing practices are harming marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs in the Caribbean, and changing the numbers and distributions of many species of fish and other animals in the Bering Sea, in the Georges Bank area off the shores of New England and Nova Scotia, and in other sites. Fishery managers should develop policies aimed toward substantially reducing fishing, says Sustaining Marine Fisheries, a new report by a committee of the National Research Council. The committee said that creating marine protected areas where vulnerable species usually live, breed, or feed has quickly restored populations of fish, snails, and crabs, reduced pollution, and provided habitats for other marine organisms in some regions. In setting policies to discourage overfishing, fishery managers should consider equity issues (how to assign fishing rights and divide shares fairly among diverse interests), as well as environmental and biological factors that affect fish stock recovery. A prepublication on-line copy of the report and a full press release are available on the web. (Posted October 27, 1998.)

ITER Data Base of Human Health Risk Values Expands. International Toxicity Estimates for Risk (ITER), an on-line data base (http://www.tera.org/iter/) that provides side-by-side comparisons of human health risk values developed by national agencies or derived independently, has expanded to include risk values for 118 of the most common environmental pollutants, as well as access to the scientific justification for each value, the derivation of each value, and explanations for differences between the values. Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (http://www.tera.com/), the non-profit organization that developed ITER, expanded and revised the data base in collaboration with Concurrent Technologies Corporation (http://www.ctc.com/), a non-profit organization that develops and transfers leading-edge technologies and operates the National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence, which funded the data base expansion. A full announcement of the ITER expansion is available on the web. (Posted October 23, 1998.)

CAST Panel Opposes Proposed EPA Plant Pesticide Rule. The Proposed EPA Plant Pesticide Rule, an issue paper published in October 1998 by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, reviews the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate genetically engineered plants containing genes for pest resistance that have been introduced by techniques of recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA). EPA plans to designate such plants as pesticides. CAST panel members, as well as other scientists, view this position as scientifically indefensible for many reasons, including the following:

1. Pest resistant plants produced by genetic engineering may be indistinguishable from plants bred for pest resistance by conventional methods.
2. The proposed EPA regulations abrogate the principle enunciated by several scientific panels; namely, genetically modified crops should be judged on their safety, allergenicity, toxicity and other properties and not the means by which the trait has been introduced. Thus, the properties of the modified plant in terms of risk are important, not the technique used to modify the plant.
3. Numerous mechanisms exist in plants that confer resistance to pests, with some cases resulting from plants' ability to synthesize a new protein; in other cases, a pest resistance pathway in plants is activated, and to lump these various mechanisms into one category and state that plants must be regulated if they result from recombinant DNA technology is scientifically illogical.
4. No evidence exists that plants' level of resistance to pests creates hazards in the environment.

If the EPA rules go into effect, the CAST panel foresees the likelihood of serious economic consequences in the food industry, which are discussed in the issue paper. (Posted October 20, 1998; updated August 22, 2005.)

EIA Report on Kyoto Protocol Predicts High Impact. A recent report prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science says that if the U.S. reduces its greenhouse gases to target emissions (by 7% below 1990 levels for the years 2009-2012), it will have to be done by sharp reductions in carbon dioxide releases from energy production. Carbon reductions of as much as 122 million metric tons per year relative to the projected baseline emission for the period (which is about 24% above 1990 levels) will be required. Higher energy prices will reduce energy consumption by 4 to 18% in 2010, and the price of coal will rise between 153 to 800% in 2010 relative to baseline projections. In electricity generation, coal will be replaced by natural gas, renewable sources, and nuclear power (from extended plant lives). Petroleum consumption will be above current levels because of transportation demands and limited other options. In the short term, the average rate of growth of the gross domestic product will be reduced, subsequently rebounding to slightly less than the baseline. From 2008 to 2012, the annual average total loss to the U.S. economy will be $77 billion to $338 billion (in 1992 dollars), relative to a total economy of $7 trillion in 1996, $9.5 trillion in 2010, and $11 trillion in 2020. The full report, titled Impacts of the Kyoto Protocol on U.S. Energy Markets and Economic Activity, and a briefing paper are available on the internet. (Posted October 15, 1998.)

EIA Administrator Testifies on Kyoto Report. Jay Hakes, administrator of EIA, told the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science that while adherence to the Kyoto Protocol could lower the country’s gross domestic product by as much as 4.2% by 2010, it would be lowered only 0.2% to 0.8% by 2020. Compared to an earlier study conducted by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, the EIA study shows more severe economic impacts during the years when the deadlines take effect because the computer models used examine change on a year-by-year basis, while other models average the changes over decades, Hakes said. He added that the EIA study began with a different set of assumptions about the economy and did not consider the effects of implementing possible policy options to offset the effects of the treaty. However, even assuming the worst possible impacts of the treaty, the U.S. economy would be 30% and 56% larger in the years 2010 and 2020, respectively, than the 1996 economy. (Posted October 15, 1998.)

McGinty Says Emissions Trading Measures Can Be Implemented Without Unanimous Agreement. Speaking to the U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs on October 9, Kathleen A. McGinty, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said that unanimous agreement under the Kyoto Protocol is not necessary before "we move on to trading measures." She also said that the administration would ensure that flexible measures for meeting emissions reduction goals were available before the treaty is forwarded to Congress for ratification. She estimated costs for implementing the Kyoto Protocol at $14 to $23 per ton of greenhouse gas reduced. This would translate to an average increase of $70 to $110 for a household energy bill, which she predicted would be partially offset by restructuring the utilities industry. (Posted October 15, 1998.)

We’re All Pesticide Test Subjects, Says Writer. In a letter to The Wall Street Journal (October 14, 1998), John P. Myers, director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia, says reports of tests of pesticides on humans (which were described in a September 28 WSJ story and earlier in a RiskWorld story) ignores the fact that such tests have been under way for years from pesticides in food and water supplies. Quoting from two sources (not cited), he says that in 1995 traces of chlorpyrifos were found in the urine of 820 adults (out of 1000 tested) and in 1998 one million American children age five and under were found to consume organophosphates (all non-consenting subjects). Moreover, he argues, testing the pesticides on consenting adults will not provide the data needed for the much more sensitive children (and fetuses). In an accompanying letter, Mark Goldstein of Springfield, Pennsylvania, adds that testing humans for a few days will not prove pesticide safety, since cancer development from toxin exposure may require decades and possibly exposure that is constant over years, as is currently occurring among the populations. (Posted October 15, 1998.)

Risk Modeling Focus of On-line Risk Newsletter. The on-line newsletter Risk Excellence Notes released a special edition this month that offers a comprehensive look at the status and future of risk assessment modeling. The newsletter is published by U.S. Department of Energy’s Center for Risk Excellence. (Posted October 12, 1998.)

Reducing the Number of HIV-Infected Newborns. A report recommending ways to test pregnant women for the HIV virus and improve the therapy for infected women and their children has been released by a committee of the Institute of Medicine. Titled Reducing the Odds: Preventing Perinatal HIV Infection in the United States, the report evaluates the success to date in reducing the transmission of HIV from mothers to newborns and analyzes barriers to further reducing the number of pediatric HIV cases. The study leading to the report resulted from the Ryan White CARE Act of 1996 and was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration. The committee chair is Marie McCormick of the Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston. Both HTML and Image versions of the report, as well as information on ordering printed copies, are available on the report's home page. A full press release on the report is also available on line. (Posted October 12, 1998; updated October 20.)

Gore Announces Chemical Right-to-Know Initiative. Vice President Al Gore announced on October 9 a new Chemical Right-to-Know Initiative resulting from an agreement among the Environmental Protection Agency, the Chemical Manufacturers’ Association, and the Environmental Defense Fund and endorsed by the American Petroleum Institute. To be implemented by EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, the project has three main components: (1) to obtain baseline test data on High Production Volume (HPV) commercial chemicals, (2) to collect and disseminate to the public Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) information on high-priority persistent bioaccumulative toxics (PBT), and (3) to assure extensive testing on chemicals to which children and the general population have a high likelihood of exposure. Details of the initiative are available on the internet. (Posted October 12, 1998.)

Reducing the Threat of Pipe Bombs Studied. How to protect the public from the approximately 600 pipe bombs exploded in the United States each year is the subject of a new report, Black and Smokeless Powders: Technologies for Finding the Bombs and the Bombmakers, that was released at a public briefing on October 8 by a National Research Council committee chaired by Edwin P. Przybylowicz, retired from Eastman Kodak Co. A full press release, the chair's statement at the briefing, and a prepublication copy of the report are available on line. (Posted October 8, 1998.)

No Fatal In-Flight Fires Due to Faulty Wire Says Boeing. Taking issue with an earlier Wall Street Journal article (on September 10) in which Boeing statistics on in-flight electrical wiring fires were discussed in the context of airline fatalities, Charles R. Higgins, Boeing's vice president for airplane safety, performance and systems, writes in a letter to the editor (The Wall Street Journal, October 7) that "investigators have not implicated faulty electrical wiring in any fatal large commercial jet transport accident involving in-flight fire." (Posted October 8, 1998.)

AIDS No Longer Top Ten Killer. A report released on October 7, 1998, by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) says AIDS dropped to No. 14 in 1997 (from No. 8 in 1996) as the cause of deaths in the United States. Age-adjusted death rates due to AIDS fell by 47% between 1996 and 1997, to 5.9 deaths per 100,000. For those aged 25-44, HIV dropped from the leading cause of death in 1995 to third-leading in 1996 and now fifth-leading in 1997. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said, "These figures mean that new treatments have been very effective at extending the lives of people who already have HIV infection, but they do not mean that we have signficantly reduced HIV transmission." Other government statistics show that new U.S AIDS cases have remained at about 40,000 annually for several years. A press release citing the new report, "Births and Deaths: Preliminary Data for 1997," and linking to it is available on the Internet. (Posted October 8, 1998.)

Preliminary 1997 U.S. Birth and Death Statistics Released. The National Center for Health Statistics report (see preceding brief) also states the U.S. overall infant mortality rate reached a new low of 7.1 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1997. The teen birth rate also fell an estimated 3 percent, continuing a 6-year trend. From 1991-97, birth rates to non-Hispanic white teens and black teens have dropped steeply: 16 percent and 23 percent, respectively. The preliminary age-adjusted homicide rate fell 12 percent in 1997, and life expectancy reached a record high of 76.5 years for those born in 1997. These and other preliminary statistics are cited in a press release that links to the full report. (Posted October 8, 1998.)

New On-line Report: Using Stakeholder Processes in Environmental Decisionmaking. The American Industrial Health Council, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Chemical Manufacturers Association have sponsored a newly released report prepared by Terry F. Yosie and Timothy D. Herbst, Using Stakeholder Processes in Environmental Decisionmaking: An Evaluation of Lessons Learned, Key Issues, and Future Challenges, which is now on line in RiskWorld. The study examines the major reasons for the increased use of stakeholder processes, identifies some key issues and challenges associated with managing them, and analyzes factors shaping their future use. It concludes that the influence of factors that expand the use of environmental stakeholder processes outweigh those that may limit or constrain their future use. Accordingly, stakeholder-based decisionmaking represents an increasingly established and important set of processes for managing environmental issues. (Posted October 6, 1998.)

Bibliography Available on Release of Genetically Modified Organisms. Biosafety, a bibliographic database on biosafety studies, is now available on the Biosafety Web Pages of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. The database, which is to be updated monthly, gives a full reference and abstract for more than 1,700 scientific articles concerned with the environmental release of genetically modified organisms. All published in international scientific journals since 1990, the papers are categorized under one of the following major topics: (1) risks for human health, (2) risks for the environment, (3) risks for agriculture, (4) risks of interaction with non-target organisms, and (4) general concerns. (Posted October 6, 1998.)

United Nations Biosafety Protocol Called Risky. The basic premise of the biosafety protocol mandated by the new United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity -- namely, that the most precise molecular techniques of genetic manipulation deserve extra scrutiny because they confer on products incremental risk -- is contrary to world-wide scientific consensus, says Dr. Henry I. Miller, a senior research fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal (October 2, 1998) Miller writes, "Under the new U.N. regulations, ... no biologist, plant breeder or farmer will be allowed to grow and test in the field a biotechnology-derived crop or garden plant without prior, case by case approval from the U.N. biopolice. ... Such U.N. biotechnology regulations actually harm the environment and public health, stifling development of environmentally friendly innovations that can help clean up toxic wastes, purify water and replace agricultural chemicals." (Posted October 6, 1998.)

National Academy of Engineering Annual Meeting Features Public Symposium, Awards Ceremony  At an October 6 public symposium featured at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) annual meeting, government, industry, and university researchers will discuss a variety of new discoveries and developments in materials science and engineering, including advanced fiberoptic materials for communications, super-lightweight alloys for space shuttles and aircraft, and "smart" materials that can change structure to respond to the outside environment (see agenda). On October 4, the Arthur M. Bueche Award will be presented to John H. Gibbons, former assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Founders Award will be presented to Yuan-Cheng Fung, professor emeritus of bioengineering, University of California, San Diego. (Posted October 1, 1998.)

Reliability of Networked Information Systems at Risk. Making networked information systems that control the nation's vital services as secure and reliable as they need to be is beyond current capabilities, according to a new report from a National Research Council committee chaired by Fred B. Schneider, a professor in the department of computer science at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. The report proposes a federal research agenda for building networked systems that are more robust, reducing software design problems, and developing mechanisms to protect against new types of attacks from unauthorized users, criminals, or terrorists. Copies of the report, Trust in Cyberspace, are available in print and on line from the National Academy Press. Read the full press release at the council's web site. (Posted September 1998.)

Feasibility of Prescription Pesticides Discussed. The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), an international consortium of 36 scientific and professional societies, has released an issue paper titled Feasibility of Prescription Pesticide Use in the United States, in which ten eminent scientists and legal experts discuss the implementation of a program that allows for pesticide use by prescription and would require the cooperative and parallel development of efforts within the regulated (users and suppliers) and regulatory (federal and state) communities. The authors conclude the program would allow certain valuable but high-risk pesticides to be used while addressing the public's concern for safe use of those products; however, it would require a new level of infrastructure in terms of personnel qualified to issue prescriptions. The issue paper is available at the CAST web site. (Posted September 1998; updated August 2005.)

Understanding Risk Analysis. A new booklet published jointly by the American Chemical Society and Resources for the Future provides a brief, readable guide to risk analysis. The booklet, Understanding Risk Analysis: A Short Guide for Health, Safety and Environmental Policy Making, is the output of a research project that sought to educate legislators about risk issues and facilitate communication among the three branches of government about risk. As part of the project, monthly presentations on various topics related to environmental risk were given to members of the United States Congress and their staff, with the participating speakers including a noted federal appeals court judge, the chairman of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, and two Nobel Prize winners. The entire booklet is available on the web. (RiskWorld Editor's Note: This report is extremely well written and is understandable to nonexperts.) (Posted September 1998.)

New Environmental Assessment Journal Announced. A new journal published by Imperial College Press Ltd., the Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), will publish its first issue in March 1999. The interdisciplinary, peer reviewed, international journal will cover policy and decision-making relating to environmental assessment in the broadest sense. Its specific aim will be to explore the horizontal interactions between assessment and aspects of environmental management and thereby to identify comprehensive approaches to environmental improvement involving both qualitative and quantitative information. The focus of the journal will be on law, policy, and procedures, with the aim of providing a forum for imaginative and creative thinking around the theoretical and empirical foundations of environmental assessment and management. The full call for papers and instructions for paper submissions are available on the Internet. (Posted September 1998.)

EPA Seeks Public Comment on Preliminary Risk Assessments for Organophosphate Pesticides. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) is seeking public comment on the preliminary risk assessments it has conducted for 16 organophosphate pesticides as part of a review of 40 pesticides under the Food Quality Protection Act. (Posted September 1998.)

Organophosphates Tested on Students. A British Medical Journal news article states that the Inveresk research laboratory near Edinburgh, Scotland, has recruited students and unemployed men to take doses of azinphos-methyl, a potent organophosphate pesticide, in order to determine the dose at which side effects are observed. Two other pesticides, aldicarb and dichlorvos, have already been tested on students at Inveresk (http://www.inveresk-research.com/) and at Manchester University (http://www.man.ac.uk/). The article, titled "Organophosphate pesticides are being tested on students" by Richard Harling, also describes the tests (see BMJ, 15 August 1998; 317:430; http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7156/430/a). (Posted September 1998.)

Risk-Based Analysis by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers To Be Evaluated. The increasing use by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of risk-based analysis for studies of flood-damage reduction projects will undergo an 18-month review by a committee of experts assembled by the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board. The study director is Jeffrey Jacobs of the Board. (Posted September 1998.)

Discovered: How Cell Nucleus Orchestrates Genetic Processes. Researchers at the University at Buffalo in New York have demonstrated how an exquisitely organized architecture in the cell nucleus controls precisely when and where genetic processes are activated, apparently influencing gene expression and regulation. The work is reported in the current issue of Science (September 4, 1998, Vol. 281, p. 1502-4). Ronald Berezney, professor and chair of the university's department of biological sciences, is the principal investigator. Read the full press release at the university's news services web site. (Posted September 1998.)

October 14, 1998: World Disaster Reduction Day. "Prevention Begins with Information" is the slogan of the 1998 World Disaster Reduction Campaign, whose theme is Natural Disaster Prevention and the Media. The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) campaign will culminate with special activities in local communities around the world on UN World Disaster Reduction Day, October 14, 1998. For more information, contact the IDNDR Secretariat, United Nations, Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland; telephone +41 22 740-0377; fax: +41-22 733-8695; e-mail: idndr@dha.unicc.org. (Reprinted from Natural Hazards Observer, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, September 1998.) (Posted September 10, 1998.)

Shell Oil To Pay $11.5 Million in Mississippi River Initiative. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner have announced that Shell Oil Company will spend over $10 million to achieve environmental compliance at its Wood River oil refinery located on the banks of the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri, and to perform supplemental environmental projects, including expanding water quality and wildlife protection. Shell will also pay $1.5 million in civil penalties. This case and many others are part of a coordinated federal effort know as the Mississippi River Initiative. (Posted September 10, 1998.)

Institute of Medicine To Hold Public Symposium on Understanding and Communicating Risk. The 28th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Medicine will feature an all-day public symposium on understanding and communicating risk that will be held on Monday, October 12, 1998, in the auditorium of the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C. (Posted September 10, 1998.)

Improvements Sought To Protect the U.S. Food Supply. A new congressionally mandated report from a committee of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, titled Ensuring Safe Food from Production to Consumption, says federal officials should adopt a science-based approach that helps them prevent, identify, and target the largest threats. Arcane safety laws must be repealed, and one individual should be appointed to provide a single point of leadership to implement a comprehensive plan that pulls together efforts currently spread across at least 12 federal agencies. Such actions would reduce some 9,000 deaths and 81 million illnesses each year that have been attributed to consumption of contaminated food in the United States. (Posted September 2, 1998.)

Risk Science and Law Group To Hold Sessions on Risk in the Courtroom and Regulatory Reform. Topics such as judicial review of risk assessments, high-profile risk court cases, judicial discretion to exclude expert testimony, and how to present risk distributions and risk comparisons to a jury are planned for the Risk Science and Law Group's sessions at the SRA's annual meeting on December 6-9, 1998. (Posted September 1, 1998.)

NRC Says Thyroid Cancer Screening Unnecessary for Americans at High Risk. In a press release issued on September 1, 1998, a new report by committees of the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council stated that the government should not sponsor national or regional thyroid cancer screening for some Americans who are at higher risk for developing thyroid cancer after being exposed to radioactive iodine released during nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s. See entire press release and link to the report's full text. (Posted September 1, 1998.)

EPA Draft Strategy on Reducing Risks from Toxic Air Pollutants Now Available. In a press release issued on September 1, 1998, EPA announced the availability of a draft strategy required under the Clean Air Act to reduce public health risks from toxic air pollutants in the future after the substantial reductions now being achieved by the Agency. EPA will be working closely with states, local communities, industry, small businesses, and other interested parties to fully develop the strategy. See entire press release. (Posted September 1, 1998.)

Database of North American Environmental Agreements Now On-line. A comprehensive database of more than 200 environmental agreements between local, state, and national governments across North America is now on line at the web site of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. The database includes the full text of many agreements and is searchable by topic, agreement name, or parties involved. (Posted August 21, 1998.)

WHO Halves Tolerable Dioxin Level. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has lowered by half the amount of dioxin the agency believes is tolerable for humans to take in daily. A panel of 40 specialists from 15 countries agreed on a new tolerable daily intake range of 1 to 4 picogrammes per kilogram of body weight. (News article by the Environmental News Service.) (Posted August 21, 1998.)

Landfill Risk "Small but Significant," European Researchers Report.  A study of populations living near 21 dumps across Europe  found that the raised risk to babies born within three kilometers of hazardous waste landfills was "small" but "significant," with the infants one-third more likely to suffer serious heart, circulatory and neural defects. The United Kingdom's environment and health ministries are expected to jointly fund a national survey of health effects around UK landfill sites starting this autumn. (News article by the Environmental News Service.) (Posted August 21, 1998.)

The Risks in Cash. In a June 1998 article, Forbes magazine columnist and author David Dreman redefines financial risk, debunking the widely accepted theory that the risk of an investment is equal to its volatility. (Posted August 21, 1998.)

New Web Site Ranks Health Risks from Your Hometown's Polluters.  A new Internet site that pinpoints major polluters in the reader's hometown and ranks the health risks associated with each contaminant is receiving wide acclaim. Created by the Environmental Defense Fund, the site uses databases from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other government organizations. (Posted June 26, 1998.)

A Risk Quiz for the Experts. The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis has ranked 10 potential hazards that families face in their homes, and RiskWorld readers can take a quiz to compare their rankings against the center's. The Harvard risk center ranked risks such as secondhand tobacco smoke, falling, and exposure to electric and magnetic fields from power lines according to three major considerations -- the weight of scientific evidence that a hazard exists, the number of Americans estimated to die each year assuming that the hazard is real, and the annual chance of premature fatality faced by those highly exposed or susceptible. (Posted June 26, 1998.)

EPA Accepting Comments on Implementation Process for Cancer Risk Assessment Guidelines The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting written comments from the public until March 27, 1998, on its current implementation process for reassessing cancer assessments as part of its initiative for implementing the Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (the guidelines). The implementation process will help the EPA and the public select and prioritize chemicals that will need reassessment when the revised guidelines become final and also will allow the selection of new assessments to be incorporated into the reassessment schedule. (Posted March 13, 1998.)

Revised Risk Legislation Moving Forward After undergoing months of revisions, a bipartisan regulatory reform bill that requires risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis of major new regulations is again moving forward. U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., and U.S. Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., have introduced the Levin-Thompson Regulatory Improvement Act of 1998, which is a modified version of S. 981 previously introduced in June 1997. (Posted February 16, 1998; updated February 24, 1998.)

California EPA Ecological Risk Assessment Tools To Benefit Other States States outside of California are expected to benefit from several ecological risk assessment tools being developed by the California Environmental Protection Agency as part of its Guidelines for Assessing Ecological Risks Posed by Chemicals. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment of California EPA, which is overseeing creation of the guidelines and associated tools, plans to offer a wildlife exposure factor/toxicity database, a population model for ecological risk assessment, and endpoint test methods, as well as guidelines for toxicity data extrapolation and consideration of non-chemical modulators of chemical toxicity. (Posted February 16, 1998.)

World’s First China-Japan Risk Conference Accepting Abstracts The first ever China-Japan Conference on Risk Assessment and Management will be held November 23-26, 1998, at the China Hall of Science and Technology in downtown Beijing, China. The event will cover local and global perspectives of a wide range of topics, including health, environmental, and disaster risk assessment and management. Organizers say that the event will be a unique forum for risk researchers and managers in the two countries to share their experiences, techniques, and theories. (Posted February 16, 1998.)

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