POLICY
▸ U.S. EPA gets new science advisers EPA’s science advisory panels now have more experts from industry, including the chemical, oil, and gas sectors. Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt added more than 20 new advisers in early November after cutting the panels’ rosters by barring researchers who get EPA grants from serving on them. New members of the Science Advisory Board—EPA’s flagship panel that provides advice on chemical safety, water pollution, and other issues—include Kimberly Wise White, an environmental toxicologist who is a senior director at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a chemical industry association. Others are chemist Merlin R. Lindstrom, vice president of technology at Phillips 66, and John D. Graham, a risk assessment expert and dean of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University who served as the federal government’s top regulatory gatekeeper under President George W. Bush. Meanwhile, ACC Senior Toxicologist Richard Becker is a new member of the Board of Scientific Counselors’ subcommittee on chemical safety. That board reviews EPA’s plans for in-house research.—CHERYL
HOGUE
CHEMICAL REGULATION
C R E D I T: S H UT T E RSTO CK
▸ EPA chemicals program under scrutiny Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives Energy & Commerce Committee are urging Chair Greg Walden (R-Ore.) to hold a hearing related to EPA’s oversight of toxic chemicals. The request follows an investigation by the New York Times that found the top official of EPA’s chemicals program, Deputy Assistant Administrator Nancy Beck, revised the agency’s rules for prioritizing and evaluating the risks of chemicals during her first few weeks on the job. Beck joined EPA in May after a five-year stint at the American Chemistry Council, a chemical manufacturers trade group. Many of the changes that Beck made to the rules were requested by ACC, according to the Times investigation. Environmental groups are raising concerns about Beck’s handling of three other rules proposed by the Obama Administration. Those proposals would ban certain uses of trichloroethylene, methylene chloride,
Antibiotics are commonly used in the U.S. to prevent disease in pigs.
PHARMACEUTICALS
WHO shuns use of antibiotics in healthy animals Farmers and the food industry should stop using antibiotics for growth promotion and disease prevention in food-producing animals, the World Health Organization says in new recommendations. The guidelines, released Nov. 7, call for slashing the use of all classes of medically important antibiotics in animals that have not been diagnosed with a disease. The recommendations aim to combat antibiotic resistance and “preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics that are important for human medicine.” Antibiotics should be given to healthy animals to prevent disease only when other animals on the same farm have been diagnosed with a disease, WHO says. The U.S. Department of Agriculture disagrees with the WHO recommendations, claiming they are “not supported by sound science.” The U.S. Food & Drug Administration allows the use of antibiotics for “treating, controlling, and preventing disease in food-producing animals under the professional oversight of licensed veterinarians,” says USDA’s acting chief scientist, Chavonda Jacobs-Young. WHO claims that “improving hygiene, better use of vaccination, and changes in animal housing and husbandry practices” would help eliminate the need for antibiotics for disease prevention.—BRITT ERICKSON
and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone. In a Nov. 7 letter to EPA Acting General Counsel and Ethics Officer Kevin Minoli, the groups claim that Beck’s involvement could violate “federal conflict of interest and impartiality requirements, as illustrated by Dr. Beck’s troubling history as an advocate for chemical companies opposed to the proposed bans.”—BRITT ERICKSON
BIOTECHNOLOGY
▸ USDA pulls proposal to revise regulations USDA is withdrawing a proposed rule to revise its biotechnology regulations, saying it will reevaluate how to modernize the way the federal government regulates genetically engineered crops and other biotech products. The Obama Administration
introduced the proposal in January as part of an effort to streamline the USDA, FDA, and EPA approval process for agricultural biotechnology. Last month, a bipartisan group of 79 members of the House of Representatives urged the three agencies to rework the proposal and better account for new and emerging technologies. USDA oversees the imports, interstate movement, and environmental release of genetically engineered organisms to ensure they do not pose a risk of becoming plant pests. The Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry trade group, supports the department’s planned course correction. “USDA’s ongoing coordination with other agencies, such as FDA and EPA, will hopefully result in a consistent approach for advances such as gene editing, both domestically and internationally, so the U.S. can continue to be a leader in the regulation of products of agricultural biotechnology,” BIO says.—GLENN HESS, special to C&EN NOVEMBER 13, 2017 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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