The second Trump administration is poised to hand the chemical industry what the first did not: a retraction of EPA’s seismic 2016 finding that a widely used compound represents a major cancer threat.
As part of a regulatory proposal released last week, EPA tentatively concluded that significant uncertainties surround the decade-old assessment of the “carcinogenic potency” of ethylene oxide. Accordingly, the agency shouldn’t rely on it in setting emission standards for plants that use ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment, the proposal indicates.
If made final, “this will benefit manufacturers and companies that profit off of using EtO at the expense of public health,” said Tracey Woodruff, professor in epidemiology and population health at Stanford University, in a Wednesday email that referenced a common abbreviation for ethylene oxide.
The newly issued proposal would roll back 2024 emission standards on about 90 plants that rely on EtO to sterilize medical equipment. But because EtO is also used to manufacture chemicals, any changes to the government’s assessment of its cancer risks could have similar ripple effects on Trump administration plans for repealing stronger Biden-era regulations for other industrial sectors.
