WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency is again putting public health at risk: almost doubling the amount of formaldehyde, the cancer-causing chemical, it considers safe to inhale.
It’s the latest in a string of EPA actions that clash with the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement. Instead of pursuing MAHA’s goal of tackling health harms from toxic chemicals, the agency is opening the door to more exposure.
The EPA’s revised assessment of formaldehyde’s risks, released last week, would overturn a Biden EPA finding that effectively states there is no safe level of exposure to the chemical. At the time, some critics said even that finding did not go far enough in acknowledging formaldehyde’s risks.
The chemical is widely used in building materials and many consumer goods, such as clothing, bedding, furniture and toys, among others. Science links the chemical to cancer, leukemia, respiratory illness, reproductive damage and other serious health harms.
Several federal agencies and international governing bodies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization, classify formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen.
Scientists agree carcinogens like formaldehyde pose health risks, even at very low doses.
Risking more pollution
“This new EPA action opens the door to more pollution and may fundamentally change the agency’s framework for chemical risk assessment, said David Andrews, Ph.D., the Environmental Working Group’s acting chief science officer.
“This change will enable chemical companies to profit further at the expense of public health.”
Not surprisingly, the revised risk assessment was heavily influenced by former chemical industry officials now leading the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, according to reports by the New York Times and ProPublica.
Those officials, Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, are both former senior directors at the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s main trade group. They played a key role in pushing the agency’s new industry-backed stance, which abandons the long-standing EPA scientific principle that even low-level exposure to known carcinogens poses risks.
"This decision shows just how far the Trump EPA is willing to go to put industry interests above public health,” said EWG Vice President for Government Affairs Melanie Benesh.
“Doubling the so-called ‘safe’ level of formaldehyde isn’t science – it’s a gift to industry. The public deserves an EPA that protects them, not one that treats exposure of dangerous chemicals as an acceptable risk,” she added.
Undermining MAHA
This regulatory rollback is part of a broader effort by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Beck and Dekleva to weaken chemical safety standards.
That effort directly undermines the goals of the MAHA movement by exposing workers, families and communities to a well-documented carcinogen at levels the EPA’s own scientists have warned are unsafe.
It’s the latest in a string of EPA and other federal agency actions that conflict with MAHA’s goals of reducing exposure to harmful chemicals, including pesticides.
The EPA published the draft formaldehyde risk assessment on December 3 and is asking for feedback on it through February 2.
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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.
