Texas Follows Strict EPA Policy In Rare Arsenic Inhalation Risk Analysis

摘要

Texas officials have issued a rare inhalation risk assessment of arsenic for use in air monitoring and permit decisions, using EPA's conservative "linear" approach for assessing risks that has drawn attacks from industry because the approach - which EPA is using in its stalled study of arsenic's oral risks - assumes no safe exposure level. An assessment of arsenic's inhalation risk is unusual, in part because much focus in the past decade has been centered on the metal's risk when ingested in drinking water, and because there is relatively more data available on ingestion risks. EPA has struggled for more than a decade to update its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) arsenic study, but its most recent public draft, released in 2010, does not calculate cancer inhalation risk estimates.