In May 2010 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a response to key comments and recommendations made by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on the EPA’s 2003 draft dioxin reassessment. This response addresses the human health and exposure risk assessment of dioxins.

The EPA’s draft report includes significant new analyses that relate to issues raised by the NAS, including potential cancer and non-cancer human health effects that may result from exposures to dioxins. The NAS identified three areas that require substantial improvement:

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In April 2010, the EPA announced that there is sufficient data to support the removal of saccharin and its salts from the agency’s lists of hazardous wastes, hazardous constituents, and hazardous substances through the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). These substances no longer meet the criteria for hazardous waste regulation.

Saccharin is a white crystalline powder that is about 300 times sweeter than sucrose. It is typically available in the acid form (saccharin) or as salts (sodium saccharin or calcium saccharin). The most common uses are in diet soft drinks, table-top sweeteners, syrups, juices, chewing gums, and jellies. It is also used in personal-care products (e.g. toothpaste, mouthwash, dental cleaners, lipstick), pharmaceuticals (e.g. coatings on pills), and electroplating (e.g. brightener in nickel-plating baths).

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The EPA is proposing to add 16 chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list of reportable chemicals. Established as part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, TRI is a publicly available EPA database that contains information on toxic chemicals, toxic chemical releases and waste management activities reported annually by certain industries as well as federal facilities.

EPA believes the following chemicals are reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens:

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By Elisabeth Lutanie, Ph.D.

Cadmium is a transitional metal that can have harmful cumulative effects on the human body. This article explains what cadmium is, where it comes from, how people get exposed to it, and how laboratories can test for it.

What is Cadmium?

Cadmium (Cd, atomic number 48) is a silver- or bluish-white metal in the group 12 of the periodic table. It is usually found with an oxidation state of +2 and combined with other elements such as oxygen (cadmium oxide), chlorine (cadmium chloride), or sulfur (cadmium sulfate, cadmium sulfide). It is also a cumulative poison associated with an array of syndromes such as renal dysfunction, reproductive toxicity, and bone defects. It is classified as a human carcinogen (Group 1) by the International Agency for Research on Cancer [1], and as a probable human carcinogen (Group B1) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  

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