AMID HILL PROBES, TOXICS AGENCY EYES SCIENCE, MANAGEMENT REFORMS

摘要

The Agency For Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR), the public health agency which conducts risk studies for EPA's Superfund cleanup program and other environmental health assessments, is planning to seek a series of broad scientific review and management reforms in the face of growing congressional concerns that the agency is withholding key environmental risk data, a top federal health official says. Dr. Henry Falk, who leads the Coordinating Center for Environmental Health & Injury Prevention at ATSDR's parent agency, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), said in an interview that officials are developing two separate panels to advise them on how to revise scientific and other peer review and management practices. House Democrats are increasingly concerned that ATSDR and CDC have withheld key toxics and contamination data due to political considerations.