Our chemical safety system is an outdated mess — and for years, the failure of the government to act on formaldehyde was proof positive of that fact.
Formaldehyde is an important industrial chemical widely used to manufacture building products and in embalming fluid. It's also an extremely nasty substance that can cause irritation in the eyes and breathing problems in human beings at elevated levels (elevated being more than 0.1 parts per million). It has been shown to increase cancer risk in animals, and has long been suspected to cause cancer in human beings.
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Industry, of course, will argue the opposite — that in this case politics has trumped science. They're not entirely wrong — because science, especially at the frontier, is inherently uncertain, every risk assessment is driven by politics as well as data. But when you hear industry complain that a regulatory decision was "unscientific," be on your guard. What they usually mean is that it went against their interests. We only have to look to the history of the tobacco industry to see the way that business can use science as a shield, a way to raise doubt and delay regulatory action — sometimes, at the cost of human life./.../