IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB745420064

To Test or Not to Test: Tools, Rules, and Corporate Data in US Chemicals Regulation (September 2021)

Science, Technology and Human Values
Volume: 46
Issue: 5
Pages: 975-997

URI: https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439211013373

DOI: 10.1177/01622439211013373

Publication Date: September 2021
Edition Details: Special Issue: Beyond the Production of Ignorance: The Pervasiveness of Industry Influence through the Tools of Chemical Regulation
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Law and legislation Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Markets Technoscience; science and technology studies Chemical industry Regulation Environment 20th century United States United States. Environmental Protection Agency

When the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was passed by the US Congress in 1976, its advocates pointed to new generation of genotoxicity tests as a way to systematically screen chemicals for carcinogenicity. However, in the end, TSCA did not require any new testing of commercial chemicals, including these rapid laboratory screens. In addition, although the Environmental Protection Agency was to make public data about the health effects of industrial chemicals, companies routinely used the agency’s obligation to protect confidential business information to prevent such disclosures. This paper traces the contested history of TSCA and its provisions for testing, from the circulation of the first draft bill in the Nixon administration through the debates over its implementation, which stretched into the Reagan administration. The paucity of publicly available health and environmental data concerning chemicals, I argue, was a by-product of the law and its execution, leading to a situation of institutionalized ignorance, the underside of regulatory knowledge.

...More

Associated with

Article Emmanuel Henry; Valentin Thomas; Sara Angeli Aguiton; Marc-Olivier Déplaude; Nathalie Jas (September 2021) Introduction: Beyond the Production of Ignorance: The Pervasiveness of Industry Influence through the Tools of Chemical Regulation. Science, Technology and Human Values (pp. 911-924). unapi

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB745420064/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Colleen Lanier-Christensen; (September 2021)
Creating Regulatory Harmony: The Participatory Politics of OECD Chemical Testing Standards in the Making (/isis/citation/CBB606231580/)

Article Jennie L Durant; (October 2020)
Ignorance loops: How non-knowledge about bee-toxic agrochemicals is iteratively produced (/isis/citation/CBB459611870/)

Article Charles Halvorson; (Spring 2019)
Deflated Dreams: The EPA's Bubble Policy and the Politics of Uncertainty in Regulatory Reform (/isis/citation/CBB066968357/)

Book Brian Craig; (2020)
Stringfellow acid pits : The toxic and legal legacy (/isis/citation/CBB946609160/)

Article Kuchinskaya, Olga; (February 2013)
Twice invisible: Formal representations of radiation danger (/isis/citation/CBB984772144/)

Book Samuel P. Hanes; (2019)
The Aquatic Frontier: Oysters and Aquaculture in the Progressive Era (/isis/citation/CBB514942004/)

Article William J. Novak; (Winter 2019)
Institutional Economics and the Progressive Movement for the Social Control of American Business (/isis/citation/CBB921649138/)

Article Becky Mansfield; (2021)
Deregulatory science: Chemical risk analysis in Trump’s EPA (/isis/citation/CBB234438851/)

Article Sarah Wadmann; Amalie Martinus Hauge; (August 2021)
Strategies of stratification: Regulating market access in the era of personalized medicine (/isis/citation/CBB940730003/)

Article Milliman, John F.; Grosskopf, John; (2003)
An Assessment of the Exchange of New Technology between Environmental Agencies and Business with the Pronoia Technology Transfer Framework (/isis/citation/CBB871743173/)

Article Langston, Nancy; (January 2018)
DOCUMERICA and the Power of Environmental History (/isis/citation/CBB114442000/)

Book Andrea Olive; (2014)
Land, Stewardship, and Legitimacy: Endangered Species Policy in Canada and the United States (/isis/citation/CBB109909669/)

Book William W. Buzbee; (2014)
Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War That Transformed New York City (/isis/citation/CBB276984715/)

Article Maayan Sudai; (February 2022)
‘A woman and now a man’: The legitimation of sex-assignment surgery in the United States (1849–1886) (/isis/citation/CBB859295291/)

Article Ignace Schoot; Charles Mather; (2022)
Opening Up Containment (/isis/citation/CBB238068628/)

Article Amy Adams Quark; (2019)
Outsourcing Regulatory Decision-making: “International” Epistemic Communities, Transnational Firms, and Pesticide Residue Standards in India (/isis/citation/CBB678564374/)

Article Emmanuel Henry; Valentin Thomas; Sara Angeli Aguiton; Marc-Olivier Déplaude; Nathalie Jas; (September 2021)
Introduction: Beyond the Production of Ignorance: The Pervasiveness of Industry Influence through the Tools of Chemical Regulation (/isis/citation/CBB736985993/)

Article Henri Boullier; Emmanuel Henry; (2022)
Toxic Ignorance: How Regulatory Procedures and Industrial Knowledge Jeopardise the Risk Assessment of Chemicals (/isis/citation/CBB183545703/)

Article Valentin Thomas; (September 2021)
Defects in Doubt Manufacturing: The Trajectory of a Pro-industrial Argument in the Struggle for the Definition of Carcinogenic Substances (/isis/citation/CBB234311668/)

Book Thomas Philippon; (2019)
The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets (/isis/citation/CBB844468036/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}