Biden’s “Moonshot” To Fight Cancer Just Took A Big Step Forward By Moving To Ban This Chemical
The EPA on Monday proposed a nationwide ban of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a cancer-causing industrial chemical broadly utilized in refrigerants, degreasers and dry cleansing.
The federal company introduced its motion at a press convention in Woburn, Massachusetts, the place industrial dumping from W.R. Grace and different corporations starting within the 1950s left the city’s soil, groundwater and ingesting wells tainted with TCE and different chemical substances. The environmental and human health catastrophe and subsequent authorized battle in Woburn is documented within the 1995 ebook ”A Civil Action” and a 1998 film with the identical title.
Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, known as the proposed ban an “important and long overdue step in our efforts to protect families, workers and communities from dangerous chemicals.”
“The science is loud and clear,” she stated on the press convention. “This chemical is so dangerous, even in small amounts, that we don’t think any uses can safely continue.”
The proposal, which can be open to a 45-day public remark interval, would pressure corporations to finish using TCE for many business and client makes use of inside one yr. It would supply longer phase-out timelines for sure army and industrial makes use of, together with battery manufacturing and refrigerants.
An estimated 250 million kilos of TCE are used within the U.S. yearly, in keeping with the EPA. A current evaluation of the chemical, launched by the Biden administration in January, concluded that TCE “presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health” in all however two of 54 recognized makes use of.
“We can’t turn back the wheels of time and reverse the chemical safety tragedies in this country,” Freedhoff stated. “But with our rule, we’re writing what I hope would be the closing chapter within the TCE story, as soon as and for all.”
TCE, a unstable natural compound, has been linked to a number of sorts of most cancers, together with liver, kidney and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and is thought to trigger immune system, nervous system and reproductive harm.
Joining EPA officers at Monday’s announcement have been Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and former Woburn resident Anne Anderson, whose son Jimmy died of acute lymphocytic leukemia in 1981 on the age of 12. For years, Anderson spearheaded the battle to carry corporations accountable for the poisonous legacy they left behind in Woburn.
Speaking from the Anderson Regional Transportation Center, a train and bus station named after Jimmy Anderson, Markey known as Anne Anderson “an inspiration” and took a second to honor her son and “all those kids who didn’t stand a chance against toxic chemical pollution.”
“We celebrate that with this rule we can see a future where we will no longer be manufacturing, processing and distributing a chemical known to be deadly,” Markey stated. “We will no longer be exposing American families, communities and workers to a toxic chemical legacy that leaves questions, cancer and catastrophe in its wake.”
“Today is a moment we have been fighting for for nearly 45 years — the banning of TCE,” he added.
EPA officers stated Monday’s motion seems to be to advance President Joe Biden’s most cancers “moonshot” initiative, which has set a objective of decreasing most cancers deaths 50% over the following 25 years. Biden’s oldest son, Beau, died of mind most cancers in 2015.
“His goal is to end cancer as we know it, to bring added urgency to the fight, to bring the power of the federal government together to find solutions and save lives,” EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe stated of the president.
