The following blog is from Charlotte Brody, the BlueGreen Alliance’s Vice President of Health Initiatives.
When does a cancer-causing chemical not cause cancer? When the chemical company says it doesn’t.
That’s the basic problem with (deep breath) the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) proposed Guidance on Data Evaluation for Weight of Evidence Determination: Application to the 2012 Hazard Communication Standard.
This OSHA guidance is meant to inform how chemical suppliers prepare the information that goes onto chemical product labels and safety date sheets (SDS). Safety Data Sheets are the new name and new format for the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) that result from the 2012 revisions to the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard.
Safety Data Sheets and labels are the two basic ways that workers know how and when to protect themselves from the short and long term dangers of chemical exposures in the workplace. A lot of the information that goes onto labels and SDSs is pretty straight forward, especially the warnings about short term or acute problems: Is the chemical explosive? Does it burn the skin? Do you need to wear googles to protect your eyes?
The problem is with the information about potential long-term problems: Here OSHA is allowing employers to decide how to interpret the evidence of the chronic harm a chemical can cause. The BlueGreen Alliance is signing on to comments written by our partner—the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)—that urge OSHA to strengthen the rule. Chemical manufacturers and importers should not be allowed to ignore scientific studies and government rulings on chemical hazards and be allowed to determine the hazard of the chemicals they produce and sell.
Spin is not the same as science and the proposed Weight of the Evidence Guidance allows chemical companies to make them the same.