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A Review of the Talc Industry's Influence on Federal Regulation and Scientific Standards for Asbestos in Talc.

ABSTRACT: The talc industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have asserted that talc has been asbestos-free since 1976 when the industry created a voluntary specification for the asbestos content of cosmetic talc. However, recent evidence reveals that cosmetic talc is not and never was asbestos-free. This narrative review examines the talc industry's role in delaying and ultimately blocking federal regulation of cosmetic talc from the 1970s to today. We review primary source material, including corporate documents released in recent litigation and FDA documents released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. Our results indicate that the talc industry exerted considerable influence over three key areas: regulatory proceedings at the FDA; testing methods and the manipulation of test results (including undisclosed results); and press coverage and the medical literature. The talc companies' actions and FDA indifference have had a lasting effect on consumer health, including the regulation of talc by other government agencies.

SUBMITTER: Bird T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8261788 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A Review of the Talc Industry's Influence on Federal Regulation and Scientific Standards for Asbestos in Talc.

Bird Tess T Steffen Joan E JE Tran Triet H TH Egilman David S DS

New solutions : a journal of environmental and occupational health policy : NS 20210227 2

The talc industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have asserted that talc has been asbestos-free since 1976 when the industry created a voluntary specification for the asbestos content of cosmetic talc. However, recent evidence reveals that cosmetic talc is not and never was asbestos-free. This narrative review examines the talc industry's role in delaying and ultimately blocking federal regulation of cosmetic talc from the 1970s to today. We review primary source material, including corp ...[more]

PMID: 33641519

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Project description:President Trump and his administration have been regarded by news outlets and scholars as one of the most hostile administrations towards scientists and their work. However, no study to-date has empirically measured how federal scientists perceive the Trump administration with respect to their scientific work. In 2018, we distributed a survey to over 63,000 federal scientists from 16 federal agencies to assess their perception of scientific integrity. Here we discuss the results of this survey for a subset of these agencies: Department of Interior (DOI) agencies (the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the US Geological Survey, and the National Park Service); the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). We focus our analysis to 10 key questions fitting within three core categories that relate to perceptions of integrity in science. Additionally, we analyzed responses across agencies and compare responses in the 2018 survey to prior year surveys of federal scientists with similar survey questions. Our results indicate that federal scientists perceive losses of scientific integrity under the Trump Administration. Perceived loss of integrity in science was greater at the DOI and EPA where federal scientists ranked incompetent and untrustworthy leadership as top barriers to science-based decision-making, but this was not the case at the CDC, FDA, and NOAA where scientists positively associated leadership with scientific integrity. We also find that reports of political interference in scientific work and adverse work environments were higher at EPA and FWS in 2018 than in prior years. We did not find similar results at the CDC and FDA. These results suggest that leadership, positive work environments, and clear and comprehensive scientific integrity policies and infrastructure within agencies play important roles in how federal scientists perceive their agency's scientific integrity.

Dataset Information

A Review of the Talc Industry's Influence on Federal Regulation and Scientific Standards for Asbestos in Talc.

Publications

A Review of the Talc Industry's Influence on Federal Regulation and Scientific Standards for Asbestos in Talc.

Similar Datasets

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