IARC confirms link between formaldehyde and leukemia

I won't bury the lead: last week the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the most prestigious international body for cancer assessment in the world, determined that sufficient evidence exists to link formaldehyde with leukemia, a cancer of the blood or bone marrow. The link with leukemia means that the overall impact of formaldehyde on human cancers is much greater than previously thought. The recent history of formaldehyde provides important lessons on the current hurdles, both legal and political, that EPA faces in its efforts to protect the public, and underscores the need for legislation to reform the nation's policies on protection from toxic chemicals. Formaldehyde is a toxic gas that is used as a binding agent in many products including plywood, furniture, carpeting and particle board. It contaminated the air inside housing trailers that were provided to many families that lost their homes after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In fact, the "Katrina trailers" issue is the consequence of actions taken by the Bush administration in 2004 to weaken public protections from formaldehyde, for the specific benefit of the chemical, plywood and timber industries. A contemporary account of that effort by the Los Angeles Times can be found here. In short, the Bush-era EPA's political appointees issued a rule exempting dozens of plywood manufacturing facilities from adopting pollution controls to reduce public exposure to formaldehyde, as required under the Clean Air Act. The justification was based upon an industry-funded assessment of the risk formaldehyde posed for nasal and throat cancers. The agency ignored emerging evidence of the link between formaldehyde and leukemia, since consideration of that additional risk of exposure would have reduced the number of facilities that could be exempted from adopting pollution controls.