Ask most people what they know about formaldehyde, and they might harken back to a high school frog dissection. A ProPublica investigation provides a far more sobering take: The outlet reports that the chemical is both pervasive—it's "virtually everywhere"—and dangerous, causing more "far more cancer" than any other pollutant, according to EPA stats. But one hook of the story makes the case that the EPA is drastically underestimating the risk because the agency has disregarded a link to myeloid leukemia it deems "too uncertain" to include. ProPublica talks to a retired EPA scientist who describes that stance as "cowardice" in the face of enormous pressure from the powerful chemical industry. Some key points:
- Check your area: ProPublica offers this tool allowing readers to plug in their address to check levels in their area.
- Industry: Formaldehyde is the "backbone of American commerce," used in everything from the preservation of bodies in funeral homes to furniture particleboard to plastic. Somewhere between 1 billion and 5 billion pounds are manufactured annually in the US.
- Inside and outside: The risk to people comes from both outdoor pollution (from factories, gas from cars, oil extraction, etc.) and indoor pollution (from furniture and flooring in homes, and other products).
- Nowhere safe? "Some 320 million people live in areas of the US where the lifetime cancer risk from outdoor exposure to formaldehyde is 10 times higher than the agency's ideal," declares the outlet, based on its analysis of the EPA's 2020 AirToxScreen data.
- Even worse: If the EPA included myeloid leukemia, the numbers would be much worse. "Instead of causing 20 cancer cases for every million people in the US, formaldehyde would be shown to cause approximately 77," per the story by Sharon Lerner and Al Shaw.
Read the
full story, which suggests the prospects for tougher federal standards are scant for the foreseeable future. (More
formaldehyde stories.)
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