Rule delay on asbestos criticized by institute

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it is revising the studies on which its original proposal to ban the mining and use of asbestos was based. But the cost of the studies and the time required to perform them are uncertain.

Gary Nash, president of the Asbestos Institute, said the new studies will be costly while extending the period of market uncertainty for Canada’s asbestos industry. “The longer the studies drag out, the worse it is for the industy,” he said. “And I’m not sure the institute will have ample opportunity to undertake another review of the EPA’s analysis of asbestos.”

Earlier this year the EPA proposed a total ban on five asbestos- containing products and a 10-year phase-out of all other such products. Canada’s asbestos industry, backed by the federal and Quebec governments, has been fighting the proposal ever since. Last month the agency’s health and environmental experts were cross-examined in Washington, D.C., by Asbestos Institute counsel.

“The EPA has admitted under cross-examination that its original data was flawed and that it knew this prior to the issue of the proposed ban,” Mr Nash said (an allegation the EPA denies). “It’s shocking that a government agency would base a rule (to ban a commodity) on data which it knew to be faulty. If the EPA was really concerned about scientific credibility, it would have dealt with the issue quite differently.” One study only

The institute says the EPA relied on only one study when it assessed the health risks posed by asbestos. That study was prepared for the U.S. Co nsumer Product Safety Commission by the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel on Asbestos (CHAP). The institute says the agency ignored all other studies, including a widely-cited Ontario royal commission report released in 1984 and a British study released in 1985.

John Dull, deputy director of the EPA’s Chemical Control division, said that’s a distortion.

`Basically our case relied heavily on the CHAP report as well as a report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences,” he said. “The principal reason is that those studies took a more protective approach to public health compared to the Ontario and British studies (which support the controlled safe use of asbestos). That more prudent, conservative approach is appropriate for the EPA, which is, after all, a public health agency.

The EPA is now updating its data- base to justify the proposed ban, Mr Dull said. That involves analysing written comments and testimony as well as gathering new information on asbestos use in various products and availability of substitutes. He said the cost of the new research is uncertain but that it will certainly be “in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.” “Unreasonable risk”

The statute under which the EPA operates states that, before action can be taken against a substance, it must be proven than it presents an “unreasonable risk” to the public’s health.

New reports on the health risks posed by asbestos will be drafted in December and in the early part of 1987, he said. “If the new data is very different from the original data used to support the proposed ban (which he admits is outdated), it would be important to provide for more comment from the public.”

When asked about the likelihood of the EPA reversing its stand and advocating the controlled safe use of asbestos, Mr Dull said: “If there is a change in the calculations regarding how many cancer cases can be expected from the continued use of asbestos and how much it would cost the American economy to eliminate asbestos, then it would be appropriate to look at various options (to a ban).” Reversal unlikely

So far, Mr Nash considers a reversal unlikely. “There is no assurance that the revised studies will be more scientifically credible than the first,” he said. “The EPA will probably try to justify its original position. The track record already shows that the agency is far from unbiased on the issue.”

An attorney-advisor for the Chemical Control division (who asked not to be named) says that’s not so. “We still have an open mind and it isn’t a given that we are going to give a final rule that asbestos should be phased out,” he said. But he admitted the EPA has not withdrawn its position that the fibre should be banned.

The agency says a final rule regarding the proposed phase-out can be expected in December, 1987. It would have to be approved by the Office of Management and Budget, a U.S. federal agency within the Executive Office of the president.