California regulators are taking a more precautionary approach on cancer risks from a widely used chemical, aiming to undercut the federal government’s recent deregulatory efforts.
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment on Thursday released a draft cancer risk value for ethylene oxide that “is very similar to the number the U.S. EPA adopted in 2016 in the Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, assessment,” OEHHA Director Kris Thayer said during a press call.
“This is perhaps not surprising, since the IRIS assessment underwent an exceedingly rigorous review process,” she continued. Thayer had led the IRIS program from 2017 through last May, when she left EPA to lead California’s risk assessment program.
The Trump administration in March announced plans to retreat from that finding and rolled back corresponding Biden-era emission standards for plants that use ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment.
