(1990). Formaldehyde Toxicity—New Understanding. Critical Reviews in Toxicology: Vol. 20, No. 6, pp. 397-426.

Formaldehyde Toxicity—New Understanding

An alternative to the theory that the ear of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) evolved from a slender female ear of a Mexican annual teosinte holds that it was derived from the central spike of a male teosinte inflorescence (tassel) which terminates the primary lateral branches. This alternative hypothesis is more consistent with morphology and explains the anomalous lack of significant genetic and biochemical differences between these taxa. Maize, the only cereal with unisexual inflorescences, evolved through a sudden epigenetic sexual transmutation involving condensation of primary branches, which brought their tassels into the zone of female expression, leading to strong apical dominance and a catastrophic shift in nutrient allocation. Initially, this quantum change may have involved no new mutations, but rather genetic assimilation under human selection of an abnormality, perhaps environmentally triggered.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/222/4626/886.full.pdf

From Teosinte to Maize: The Catastrophic Sexual Transmutation

Foreword, Ohio State Senator D. Kucinich Introduction and Overview, V. Molak Theoretical Background of Risk Analysis Toxic Chemicals Noncancer Risk Analysis and U.S. Institutional Approaches to Risk Analysis, V. Molak Epidemiology and Cancer Risk Assessment, H. Gibb Uncertainty and Variability in Risk Analysis, R. Wilson and A. Shlyakhter Monte Carlo Risk Analysis Modeling, D. Vose An Overview of Probabilistic Risk Analysis for Complex Engineered Systems, V. Bier Ecological Risk Analysis, R. Lackey The Basic Economics of Risk Analysis, J. Swaney Applications of Risk Analysis Assessment of Residential Exposure to Chemicals, G. Whitmyre, J. Driver, and P.J. Hakkinen Pesticide Regulation and Human Health: The Role of Risk Assessment, J. Driver and G. Whitmyre Ionizing Radiation Risk Assessment, J. Alvarez Use of Risk Analysis in Pollution Prevention, V. Molak Integrated Risk Analysis of Global Climate Change, A. Shlyakhter and R. Wilson Computer Software Programs, Databases, and the Use of the Internet, World Wide Web, and Other On-Line Systems, B. Hakkinen Risk Perception, Law, Politics, and Risk Communication Risk Perception and Trust, P. Slovic The Insurability of Risks, H. Kunreuther and P. Freeman Setting Environmental Priorities Based on Risk, P. Deisler Comparative Risk Analysis: A Panacea or Risky Business? V. Molak Environmental Justice, R. Zimmerman Law and Risk Analysis in the United States, P.B. Hutt Science, Regulation, and Toxic Risk Assessment, H. Latin Risk Management Risk Management of the Nuclear Power Industry, B.J. Garrick Seismic Risk and Management in California, W. Dean Sustainable Management of Natural Disasters in Developing Countries, T. Lustig Risk Analysis, International Trade, and Animal Health, S.C. MacDiarmid Incorporating Tribal Cultural Interests and Treaty-Reserved Rights in Risk Management, B.L. Harper Global Use of Risk Analysis for Sustainable Development, V. Molak Conclusion, V. Molak Answers to Questions Glossary Index

Fundamentals of Risk Analysis and Risk Management

China contributes to more than 60 % of the global aquaculture production, and its aquaculture industry has become one of the main players in food security. A large amount of antibiotics is believed to be used in fish cultivation for ensuring adequate production. The use of antibiotics as disease control agents and growth promoter in aquaculture in China has raised significant concerns recently because of the potential threats to human health. The extensive use of antibiotics in aquaculture may result in water and sediment contamination and the development of antibiotic resistance genes. In this review, the role of aquaculture in antibiotic contamination of the environment as well as the emerging concern of antibiotic resistance genes in China is discussed. Based on this review, it has been concluded that more information regarding the types and quantities of antibiotics used by Chinese fish farmers is required. Studies about the contribution of antibiotic usage in aquaculture to environmental levels in surface water, their potential risks on environment and human health, and the existence and spread of antibiotic resistance genes in aquaculture are needed.

Application of veterinary antibiotics in China's aquaculture industry and their potential human health risks.

1. Introduction 2. Measuring national environmental performance 3. Economic development, geographic advantage, and environmental performance 4. Public opinion, environmental mobilization, and environmental performance 5. Pluralism, corporatism, and environmental performance 6. Political institutions 7. Checking the robustness of the results 8. Conclusion.

Sustaining Abundance: Environmental Performance in Industrial Democracies

The manufacturing, processing, and use of chemicals and materials in industrial workplaces are often accompanied by environmental, health, and safety hazards and risks. Occupational and environmental factors cause or exacerbate major diseases of the respiratory, cardiovascular, reproductive, and nervous systems and cause systemic poisoning and some cancers and birth defects. Occupational and environmental disease and injury place heavy economic and social burdens on workers, employers, citizens, and taxpayers. Government intervention to address those issues largely takes the form of regulatory standards promulgated under the authority of federal legislation. This article addresses the major regulatory systems (or regimes) designed to protect public and worker health from chemicals discharged from sources that pollute the air, water, ground, and/or workplace in the United States. The European Union and other developed countries use similar approaches.

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Environmental Protection Laws

Negotiated environmental and occupational health and safety agreements in the United States: lessons for policy

An examination of the way in which the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and Consumer Product Safety Commission each responded to evidence of formaldehyde's carcinogenicity in animal systems reveals the interplay between politics and science policy in regulatory determinations. In some cases there were significant and unjustified departures from reasoned decision-making. Agency decisions not to take action deserve special attention by citizens, the Congress, and the judiciary to ensure that federal regulatory agencies take the necessary steps to protect the public from significant health, safety, and environmental risks.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/222/4626/894.full.pdf

Law and Science Policy in Federal Regulation of Formaldehyde

From an engineering perspective, the issue of hazardous chemical wastes is no different than the air, water, and workplace pollution issues with which the nation has long grappled. Quite simply, hazardous residues are a production process problem; the nature and amount of the residues produced are determined by the nature of the production processes employed. The long-term goal of a reasoned hazardous waste management policy must be to effect changes in industrial processes so as to reduce significantly the amount of hazardous residues generated by those processes. This goal will not be reached unless industry itself is motivated to explore the necessary technological innovation and adaptation. The challenge, then, is to create a regulatory climate which provides such motivation. We believe that the development of effective regulatory policies at the state level to encourage production process change will require a commitment to overall hazardous substance management, rather than to the managemen...

Waste Generation Reduction: A First Step Toward Developing a Regulatory Policy to Encourage Hazardous Substance Management through Production Process Change

This article addresses the three procedures by which negotiation is most commonly used to develop or implement environmental policy in the United States: negotiated rulemaking, negotiated implementation, and negotiated compliance. It also addresses a fourth type of policy-relevant negotiation -- known as regulatory reinvention -- wherein the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has assembled groups of interested parties to focus on regulatory issues concerning a particular industry sector, with an eye toward developing "cleaner, cheaper, smarter" ways of reducing or preventing pollution. Negotiated rulemaking is often proposed by its advocates as delivering two primary benefits: reduced rulemaking time and decreased litigation over a final agency rule. The experience to date, however, indicates that negotiated rulemaking cannot be relied upon to deliver either of these benefits. Nonetheless, experience indicates that negotiation can, in appropriate circumstances, facilitate a better understanding of issues, concerns, facts, and positions among adversaries, promote the sharing of relevant information, and provide an opportunity for creative problem-solving. This paper examines three negotiated rulemakings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act. The three negotiations are evaluated according to whether negotiation was instrumental either in securing a more protective standard, or in securing an innovative technological response. The three examples studied here indicate that, in situations in which a strong or dramatic regulatory signal is necessary to produce the desired technological response, negotiated rulemaking is not likely to be advisable. Since negotiated rulemaking relies on consensus, and since the regulated industry is unlikely to agree to a regulatory standard that it perceives as having a dramatic effect, negotiated rulemaking is unlikely to creative the incentive necessary to spur innovation. However, where the desired technological change is likely to come more easily, appropriate use of negotiated rulemaking may help facilitate an innovative technological response. Negotiation would appear to work best as a means of securing improved health, safety, or environmental outcomes in situations in which the necessary regulatory signals for improvement and innovation are already in place. This is a primary reason that EPA's Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP) policy has been relatively successful at securing pollution prevention and other environmental benefits as a part of the negotiation of settlement agreements with non-compliant companies. It also suggests that the agency could also encourage meaningful technological change through a more creative and aggressive use of its authority to grant innovation waivers to selected companies at the implementation stage. Moreover, the absence of definitive regulatory signals is a primary reason why EPA's regulatory reinvention strategy has, thus far, failed to live up to expectations.

/pdf/negotiation-as-a-means-of-developing-and-implementing-54yy0y41fe.pdf

Charles C. Caldart

Papers

Environmental Protection Laws

Negotiated environmental and occupational health and safety agreements in the United States: lessons for policy

Law and Science Policy in Federal Regulation of Formaldehyde

Waste Generation Reduction: A First Step Toward Developing a Regulatory Policy to Encourage Hazardous Substance Management through Production Process Change

Negotiation as a Means of Developing and Implementing Environmental Policy