OSHA got support for the scientific validity of its approach from its first three invited witnesses, whose testimony completed the first week of the hearings. Typical was the testimony of Dr. Arthur C. Upton, director of the National Cancer Institute, who commented that the OSHA proposal "has a sound scientific basis and represents a prudent and justifiable approach to the identification and classification of chemical carcinogens which are likely to be found in the workplace." Upton says, however, that any regulation must take into account the benefits of the substance being regulated, including its utility to society and its economic benefits to industry and workers. He admits that OSHA would face a "formidable task" in weighing such benefits against "incommensurables," such as quality of life and the suffering of the worker. OSHA's second witness, Dr. David P. Rail, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, also supported the use of animal data to regulate chemicals as human carcinogens. "It would be unethical," he says, "to wait for evidence of harm in exposed workers when risks can be established relatively quickly by animal experimentation." However, he cautions, scientific decisions as to whether a chemical has been shown to be carcinogenic in animal species requires consideration of all aspects of the experiment, including not only the statistics of the numbers of tumors but the pathological diagnoses, exposure regimens, health and nutrition of the animals, routes of exposure, metabolic pathways, and structure-activity relationship. Further, Rail suggests that if there is a reluctance to accept the results of a single positive animal bioassay, positive results in short-terms tests (such as the Ames test, induction of unscheduled DNA repair, or malignant cell transformation in vitro) might add sufficient confidence to overcome this reluctance. However, OSHA's third witness, Dr. Donald Kennedy, commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, although supporting the agency's generic approach parted paths with Wrenn on the question of potency. He believes that it is "important to note that not all carcinogens are equally potent and that there are vast differences in the levels of human exposure to carcinogens." Qualification of carcinogenic risks, regardless of the method used, takes into account these differences and permits identification of the most important hazards, the least important or insignificant, and those falling between these limits. The first month of the hearings will be devoted to testimony from 41 witnesses that OSHA has invited to present their views on the cancer policy. The American Industrial Health Council, a business and trade association group formed in response to the OSHA proposal, is scheduled to begin industry testimony on June 22, and labor unions are slated to begin testimony on July 10. Janice R. Long, C&EN Washington 16
C&EN May 29, 1978
Congress' role in U.S. science policy unclear The wide diversity of opinion about Congress' role in shaping U.S. science policy was amply demonstrated at a conference at Franklin Institute in Philadelphia earlier this month. Witness the comments by two Representatives and a Senator: "There is an irresistible urge for my political colleagues to seize headlines by attacking the National Science Foundation. Never mind that a study of the endocrine hormonal imbalance in certain Pacific waterfowl having unorthodox sexual orientation may or may not lead to useful therapy for humans who wish to overcome similar tendencies; no, the public must be told how our money is being wasted on 'queer ducks,' " observes Rep. James G. Martin (R.-N.C). Martin also is a Ph.D. chemist from Princeton University. The basis for this perception, suggests Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D.-Calif.), is that many members of Congress have a utilitarian notion of basic research, particularly NSF-funded projects such as the duck studies. Yet Brown believes that Congressional attitudes may be changing. For example, he says that some members of Congress no longer see science and technology as a "magic solution" to U.S. problems. Brown is a member of the House Science & Technology Committee and chairs its Subcommittee on the Environment. Nevertheless, notes Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III (D.-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Science & Technology, "Congress is susceptible to sudden enthusiasm for technological solutions to complex problems. We are prone to rush too quickly into large demonstration projects, and we often fail to perceive the unanticipated consequences of scientific or technological initiatives." For this reason, Stevenson says, Congress set up the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) to advise members about weighty scientific issues. The conference was sponsored by OTA and by Franklin Institute, a nonprofit research foundation named for Benjamin Franklin. It was the third of a series of annual meetings at the institute that delve into the social implications of scientific issues. That there wasn't a consensus at the conference concerning Congress and science is predictable given the nature of participants. For instance, Dr. David S. Potter, a vice president of General Motors and formerly an undersecretary of the Navy for R&D, affirmed that "Congress has the responsibility to create a climate that nurtures research and development efforts within the private sector, and to monitor the nation's health in this area from time to time." Potter believes that government-funded R&D "cannot provide a continued high standard of living for our people and adequate employment
Martin: we need uniformity opportunities for all." Rather, he says, it's the private sector that delivers these benefits. Yet the biggest part of governmentfunded R&D goes for military-related research. Rep. Brown notes that military R&D is "a vast and growing enterprise not likely to shrink." And for just this reason, declares Dr. Charles C. Price, a University of Pennsylvania chemist and former president of the American Chemical Society, military R&D must be "scuttled" through disarmament. Price believes that by doing this, thousands of scientists and engineers now conducting military research would be freed to pursue more economically productive work. However, many in defense-related industries would dispute this by claiming that military R&D spins off useful civilian technology. Although the federal government helped direct R&D through funding military R&D and civilian research such as that conducted by NSF and the National Institutes of Health, it clearly influences the direction of private R&D in another important major way—federal regulations. Rep. Martin believes that in federal regulations, "We need uniformity, not eight different policies. At the same time, that united effort must be reasonable in character and should have some scientific validity. It should focus on truly hazardous risks. It should not squander resources and public support by denying our right to choose to accept a risk that is remote, at worst, or that is based on flimsy evidence or nonscientific nonsense . . . or some further abuse of science." Martin warns that if scientists don't speak up on regulatory issues such as those brought to light last year in the saccharin debate, "the disaster lobby will continue to rush preliminary results into new regulatory controls without the benefit of scientific review—and ban more chemicals at the 'drop of a rat.' " Martin has been leading a campaign against what he believes to be overzealous regulation of chemicals. •
