Exposures to Hazardous Solvent May Be Higher Than EPA Found (1)

The EPA should estimate people’s total exposure to a widely used solvent as it decides whether the chemical’s health risks warrant regulation, agency advisers said this week.

The recommendation from the EPA’s Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals would, if followed, result in the Environmental Protection Agency calculating higher exposures to perchloroethyelene.

The EPA should also reexamine some of its information on health effects for perchloroethylene because the chemical may be more harmful than the agency’s draft analysis suggests, committee members said.

Higher exposures and greater potential to harm would result in the EPA concluding perchloroethylene’s ...