Environmental Health Advisory Committees

HHS appointed individuals with close ties to regulated industries to a National Center for Environmental Health advisory committee, apparently without consulting the center's director.

In 2002, HHS impeded the government’s ability to obtain objective scientific advice on environmental health matters by stacking an advisory committee.

The National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) at CDC has an advisory committee charged with providing advice on “program goals and objectives, strategies, and priorities” in the area of “environmental health and related disciplines.”[1] In August 2002, HHS appointed 15 new members of this committee, apparently without consulting NCEH director Dr. Richard Jackson.[2] The new advisers, who now constitute a majority of the 18-member committee, include individuals with close ties to regulated industries, such as:

• Roger McClellan, former director of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology;
• Becky Norton Dunlop, Vice President of the anti-regulatory Heritage Foundation and opponent of federal environmental regulations while serving as an official in Virginia;
• Lois Swirsky Gold, a risk assessment specialist who has minimized reports linking environmental pollutants with cancer;* and
• Dennis Paustenbach, a toxicologist whose firm does paid risk assessments for industry.[3]

Departing adviser Ellen Silbergeld stated that such changes are likely to be “demoralizing to the people being advised.”[4] Ten leading scientists wrote in Science that “stacking these public committees out of fear that they may offer advice that conflicts with administration policies devalues the entire federal advisory committee structure and the work of dedicated scientists who are willing to participate in these efforts.”[5]

[1] NCEH, Charter, Advisory Committee to the Director, National Center for Environmental Health (in effect through Aug. 2, 2004).

[2] David Michaels et al., Advice Without Dissent, Science, 703 (Oct. 25, 2002).

[3] Critics See a Tilt in CDC Science Panel, Science, 1456–57 (Aug. 30, 2002).

[4] Id.

[5] David Michaels, et al., supra note 2.