State Legislators Announce Chemical Safety Laws

Back in December, Science News & Views discussed how the delay in chemical regulation reform, primarily TSCA, due to the shift in power in House of Representative could result in numerous different state regulations. Less than two months after that discussion, a press release by the non-profit organization, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, announced the introduction of new chemical regulations by 30 states and the District of Columbia in response to the sudden governmental roadblock.

As discussed in the press release, nine states will introduce general chemical regulation state policies, approximately 17 states will announce restrictions or bans on bisphenol a in certain products, 8 states will introduce policies to ban cadmium in children’s products, 3 states will announce policies to reduce exposure to decabromodiphenyl ethers, and 11 states will be calling on Congress to overhaul the federal chemicals policy and TSCA.

State chemical regulation is nothing new. Over 70 chemical regulations have been passed in 18 states, ranging from laws concerning the ban of bisphenol A in consumer products to the concentration of contaminates in drinking water. When there is a deficit in federal chemical regulation in response to new science and emerging contaminants, States will fill in the gaps themselves. However, many of the State laws or guidelines are directly in response to public perception of the risks, despite if the science establishes that a risk actually exists.

The existence of laws concerning the same chemical or contaminant in different states makes it very difficult for industries with nationwide production to properly comply. Federal laws are needed to create uniform chemical regulation, which would decrease compliance confusion and create more realistic guidelines based on science and not perceived risk. The first step in more unified chemical regulation would be the overhaul and revision of TSCA. Hopefully, Congress will take note of the sudden influx of state chemical regulations and take chemical regulation reform off the back-burner and allow it to move forward.

Study That Linked Autism and Vaccines Now Determined to be Fraud

Back in September, Science News & Views discussed the retraction of the original 1998 article by Wakefield et al. that linked autism to the MMR vaccine and how despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, this article managed over the next decade to instill a fear in parents causing them to turn away from standard vaccinations. After the article was retracted and the medical license of Andrew Wakefield, the main researcher behind the study, was revoked, a United Kingdom journalist, Brian Deer, continued the investigation. His analysis was published in the British Medical Journal and provided details on the deliberate falsification of data used in the study for the purpose of suing the vaccine manufacturer.

Deer’s investigation showed that the errors in the Wakefield study were not the result of incorrect statistics, faulty analysis, or poor design. No, this study was a clear case of fraud. It is unsettling that one fraudulent study could have such an impact on the scientific world. When the study was published, the results were circulated by the media and parents understandably became alarmed. The number of children being vaccinated declined, resulting in resurgence in cases of measles and mumps. Despite Wakefield and his study being discredited, the belief that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism is so strong that the controversy has continued. The strength of this erroneous conviction is in part due to the media coverage of the issue.

It is the media’s job to report on new science, and they cannot be faulted for reporting Wakefield’s results when they were released in 1998. However, when the weight-of-evidence backed by numerous studies strongly began to favor the lack of an association between vaccines and autism, many of the media still reported on the supposed link citing Wakefield’s results and quoting activists with no scientific background who still claimed to be authorities on the subject and declared that there was ‘proof’ of the link. This is undoubtedly due to the reporters trying to provide a balanced story with viewpoints from both sides. While the media cannot have known that Wakefield falsified his data, the fact that this vaccine scare has lasted over a decade and negatively impacted the health of children proves that scientific news reporting should consider employing a weight-of-evidence approach and not allow another publicity-seeking fraud to cause an unnecessary and harmful health scare.