Toxicity reexamined

Federal Agencies facing cleanup liability will have more opportunities to influence, unduly critics say, Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) assessment of health risks from exposure to pollutants under a policy unveiled. The policy affects entries in EPA's Integrated Risk Information System, which contains EPA's scientific judgment on the safe daily dose of more than 500 substances. Regulators from around the world rely on the database for a variety of dollar-intensive decisions, such as the degree of cleanup a polluter must undertake at a contaminated site and how much human exposure to a chemical is allowable. According to EPA, the changes will allow the public and other agencies to have an earlier involvement in chemical assessments and calls for an even more rigorous scientific peer review of these documents. The new policy gives special treatment to chemicals deemed "mission critical" by other federal agencies.