Lawmakers Seek Lab Review Results

Republican leaders in Congress are calling on EPA and the National Toxicology Program (NTP) to release the results of a review of chemical studies performed at the Ramazinni Institute in Italy. The results of this review will affect the outcome of EPA’s hazard assessment of methanol and other chemicals. In a Jan. 31 letter to NTP Director Linda S. Birnbaum and EPA Assistant Administrator for Research & Development Paul Anastas, lawmakers requested information related to the Ramazinni Institute. They asked how much weight EPA placed on the institute’s work in its methanol assessment and requested a list of all chemical assessments that include studies performed at the Italian lab. Lawmakers also raised questions about the Ramazinni Institute in 2010 after an NTP review of the lab’s work on a methanol cancer assessment. The review prompted EPA to suspend its work on several risk assessments that incorporated data from the Ramazinni Institute, including the one on methanol as well as others on the fuel additives methyl tert-butyl ether and ethyl tert-butyl ether and the plastic ingredient acrylonitrile.