Chemical Heritage Foundation

About: Chemical Heritage Foundation is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Politics & Philosophy of science. The organization has 39 authors who have published 72 publications receiving 2146 citations.

Undone Science: Charting Social Movement and Civil Society Challenges to Research Agenda Setting.

Abstract: "Undone science" refers to areas of research that are left unfunded, incomplete, or generally ignored but that social movements or civil society organizations often identify as worthy of more research. This study mobilizes four recent studies to further elaborate the concept of undone science as it relates to the political construction of research agendas. Using these cases, we develop the argument that undone science is part of a broader politics of knowledge, wherein multiple and competing groups struggle over the construction and implementation of alternative research agendas. Overall, the study demonstrates the analytic potential of the concept of undone science to deepen understanding of the systematic nonproduction of knowledge in the institutional matrix of state, industry, and social movements that is characteristic of recent calls for a "new political sociology of science."

Buckets of Resistance: Standards and the Effectiveness of Citizen Science

Abstract: In light of arguments that citizen science has the potential to make environmental knowledge and policy more robust and democratic, this article inquires into the factors that shape the ability of citizen science to actually influence scientists and decision makers. Using the case of community-based air toxics monitoring with ‘‘buckets,’’ it argues that citizen science’s effectiveness is significantly influenced by standards and standardized practices. It demonstrates that, on one hand, standards serve a boundary-bridging function that affords bucket monitoring data a crucial measure of legitimacy among experts. On the other hand, standards simultaneously serve a boundary-policing function, allowing experts to dismiss bucket data as irrelevant to the central project of air quality assessment. The article thus calls attention to standard setting as an important site of intervention for citizen science-based efforts to democratize science and policy.

The Politics of Plastics: The Making and Unmaking of Bisphenol A “Safety”

Abstract: Bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic chemical used in the production of plastics since the 1950s and a known endocrine disruptor, is a ubiquitous component of the material environment and human body. New research on very-low-dose exposure to BPA suggests an association with adverse health effects, including breast and prostate cancer, obesity, neurobehavioral problems, and reproductive abnormalities. These findings challenge the long-standing scientific and legal presumption of BPA's safety. The history of how BPA's safety was defined and defended provides critical insight into the questions now facing lawmakers and regulators: is BPA safe, and if not, what steps must be taken to protect the public's health? Answers to both questions involve reforms in chemical policy, with implications beyond BPA.

Why Public Health Agencies Cannot Depend on Good Laboratory Practices as a Criterion for Selecting Data: The Case of Bisphenol A

Abstract: BackgroundIn their safety evaluations of bisphenol A (BPA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a counterpart in Europe, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), have given special pr...

ATTUNING TO THE CHEMOSPHERE: Domestic Formaldehyde, Bodily Reasoning, and the Chemical Sublime

Abstract: Chronic domestic chemical exposures unfold over protracted timelines and with low velocity. In this article I argue that such microscopic encounters between bodies and toxicants are most readily sensed by less nameable and more diffuse sensory practices. The apprehension of conventionally insensible toxic exposures is informed by sustained attention to barely perceptible alterations of somatic function and atmosphere. Slight biochemical impressions, which at first appear simply meaningless or puzzling, accumulate in the bodies of the exposed and reorient them to the molecular constituents of the air and the domestic infrastructure from which such chemicals emanate. Through the articulation of these small corrosive happenings, residents of contaminated homes can accumulate minute changes to body and atmosphere across time and space in a process I call the “chemical sublime,” which elevates minor enfeebling encounters into events that stir ethical consideration and potential intervention. The chemical sublime is a late industrial experience that inverts an Enlightenment-era, yet still dominant, conception of the sublime. Across authoritative and questioned bodies, companion species and humans, this essay asks: in what ways do diffuse sensory practices generate knowledge of, attention to, and engagements with the chemical world?