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Respected Toxicologist Removed From EPA: Respected Scientist And Advocate Speaks Out For Deborah Rice

The United States House Energy and Commerce Committee began aninvestigation in March of the potential conflicts of interest thatscientific panels advising the Environmental Protection Agency on thehuman health effects of toxic chemicals. Eight scientists wereidentified by this committee as serving as consultants of members ofEPA science advisory panels while receiving research support from thechemical industry to study the chemicals under review. Two of thesescientists were employed by companies that directly produced or workedintimately with manufacturers of the very chemicals that were beingreviewed.

Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) has noted that these conflicts are astrong contrast to a controversial event that occured last summer: thedismissal of the highly respected health scientist Deborah Rice. Anexperts in toxicology, she was removed from a panel which wasinvestigating the health impacts of the flame retardant polybrominateddiphenyl ether, often called deca. She was fired by the EPA after theAmerican Chemistry Council, a major trade association of chemicalcompanies, filed the complaint that she could not provide an objectivescientific review of the chemical due to her outspoken public criticismof the health hazards posed by deca.

Herbert Needleman, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist, claims, in anarticle released on May 12, 2008 in the open access journal PLoSBiology, that this sort of dismissal is neither or unique. Needlemanhas laid the foundation for the five-fold reduction in the instance oflead poisoning in American children, thanks to his unprecedentedresearch on the cognitive effects of lead on children.

In this article, Needleman calls attention to the fact that the EPAswiftly fired Rice, even though it had recently honored her just a fewyears earlier with one of its most prestigious scientific awards, onthe basis of her “exceptionaly high-quality research intolead’s toxicity.” This was done simply because the American ChemistryCouncil requested that she be restrained.

Needleman writes that the EPA summarily removed traces of her work fromthe review: EPA, without examining or contesting the charge of bias,complied,”Needleman write. “Rice was fired. The next formal act of the EPA was toremoveall of her comments from the written report completely erase her namefrom the text of the review. There is now no evidence that she everparticipated in the EPA proceedings, or was even in the room.”In spiteof this, Needleman indicates that he believes Rice, who is “widelyadmired by her colleagues for her intelligence, integrity and moralcompass,” will “withstand this insult and continue to contribute to thepublic welfare.”

The case of Deborah Rice: Who is the Environmental Protection Agencyprotecting?
Needleman HL
PLoS Biol 6(5): e129.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060129
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