EPA Silent on Air Pollution Experts' Conflicts of Interest

The EPA recently released a list of candidates for an upcoming panel that will re-evaluate the health risks of air pollution, but failed to mention that some of the experts had received funding from industries threatened by increased regulation and findings of harm.

... University of California at Irvine Professor of Community and Environmental Medicine Robert Phalen, who has written a book questioning the link between particulate air pollution and adverse health effects and arguing that tighter air pollution standards are premature, has received research funding from the Southern California Edison Company and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the research arm of the utility industry. The announcement was also silent on Gradient Corporation employee Peter Valberg's consulting services to Carbon Black Manufacturers and an undisclosed mining company, and his critiques of EPA findings on health risks of air pollution for the Engine Manufacturers Association, and on the fact that Gradient Corporation is a product defense consulting firm that has received substantial sums from companies to write reports defending products such as cigarettes and the endocrine disruptor bisphenol....

The EPA did reveal that eleven nominees have been funded by the Health
Effects Institute, but didn't note that the EPA-industry partnership is funded largely by automobile makers.

Having potential conflicts of interest isn't in itself a bad thing, and industry scientists shouldn't automatically be disqualified -- but the public has a right to see all relevant information and make those decisions for itself. By keeping quiet, the EPA invites suspicion at a sensitive time: last year, an agency pollution committee said there is
"clear and convincing scientific evidence that significant adverse human-health effects occur in response to short-term and chronic particulate matter exposures at and below” current EPA clean air standards.

EPA Short List Long on Candidates, Short on Disclosure [Integrity in Science Watch]

Image: Manne Granberg