Warnings Withheld on Chemicals, Group Says

A major environmental group charged Monday that the Wilson administration has failed to issue public warnings on at least 70 chemicals and pesticides known to cause birth defects and cancer.

The charges came at a legislative oversight hearing into allegations that the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, the main Wilson administration agency responsible for investigating threats posed by pollutants, has delayed and watered down reports on dangers posed by various pollutants.

But even as Dr. Richard Becker, the head of the office, tried to counter those charges, Dr. Gina Solomon, a physician who is senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, raised a new concern, releasing the list of 70 pesticides and other chemicals, and accusing the office of violating state law by failing to issue warnings.

Solomon said the state is required by law to issue public warnings about the 70 chemicals because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified them in 1994 as causing cancer, birth defects and other problems.

“I wonder how many pregnant women have been exposed to these chemicals over the past couple of years without benefit of the required warning,” Solomon said in her written testimony, calling the failure to issue state warnings “bad science [and] lousy protection of the public health.”

The San Francisco-based Natural Resources Defense Council is threatening to sue the administration unless it acts to issue warnings about the chemicals, including some commonly used by gardeners and consumers who want to rid their homes of ants, roaches and other pests.

Bev Passerello, spokeswoman for the agency, said attorneys for the agency had not seen the list provided by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“We will take a quick look at this list and see what’s there,” Passerello said.

Becker, the agency’s director, pointed out that the state has issued public warnings identifying 420 chemicals as carcinogens and 163 as reproductive toxins, as required by Proposition 65, the initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters in 1986.

“Clearly, we are doing our job on Proposition 65,” Becker said.

The testimony came at a hearing convened by state Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality.

Sher convened the hearing after scientists who have left the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and others familiar with its work portrayed it as being beset with problems, many of which were detailed in press reports, including in The Times on Monday.

Wilson appointed Becker as director of the agency in September. Previously, Becker, who is a doctor of pharmacology, had been the agency’s deputy director in charge of science.

“Our objective is sound scientific analysis,” Becker said. “Is our goal to do better? Yes it is.”

The chemicals sited by Solomon include diazinon, a pesticide commonly used by home gardeners, and resmethrin, used by consumers to kill wasps, ants, roaches and other pests. The mostly widely used pesticide on the list is metam sodium, applied on carrots, tomatoes and many other crops. State reports show 15 million pounds of metam sodium were applied in 1995.

Solomon pointed out that Proposition 65 requires that the state issue special label warnings if reputable government agencies, such as the U.S. EPA, identify chemicals as causing cancer, birth defects or infertility.

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In all, farmers in California used 26 million pounds of the pesticides on the list in 1995, Solomon said in her testimony. That represents one in every eight pounds of pesticides used in California.

Sher, meanwhile, cited an agency report on hazards associated with lead, which causes brain damage in children and high blood pressure in adults.

The state Air Resources Board, which is considering imposing stricter regulations on lead emissions, in 1991 asked the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to prepare an analysis of lead.

The office gave a draft of the report to an oversight panel of scientists in 1993. The panel generally was pleased with the report, but requested one specific change and expected to have the final report back within a month. The final report was not issued until October 1996.

Suggesting that lobbying by lead industry representatives may have caused the delay, Sher demanded the names of all lead industry attorneys, scientists and others Becker conferred with as the report was being drafted.

“It just looks as if it has hit a stone wall,” Sher said. When Sher pressed Becker to explain the delay, Becker replied: “I don’t know if I can answer specifically why.”