Tobacco Documents Online

2045323555 KENNETH sMTIH 10a$Ijingron OWeg T here is a harrowing scene in the movie classic "Psycho" in which a knife-wielding maniac stalks an unsuspect- ing woman in the shower. Even now the mere thought of Norman Bates is probably enough to make some folks lock the bathroom door behind them. What worries the Environ- mental Protection Agency, however, is that Mr. Bates isn't the only killer in the room. At a meeting last month, mem- bers of the agency's Risk Assess- ment Forum reviewed a draft report on the health risks of taking a shower. It seems that a chemical by- product of the chlorine used to pu- rify water is chloroform, which, in high enough doses, is alleged to cause cancer. Scientific studies have shown that people taking showers in- hale or absorb through the skin about as much chloroform as some- one who drinks two liters of water a Kenneth Smith is an editorial writer jcrr The Washington Times. 4 Killer showers . . 0 without Norman day. So, if the water isn't safe to drink, it may not be safe enough to use in the shower either. According to the EPA draft, what "these studies demonstrated [is] the significance of the showering path- way." The report acknowledged that "the studies were limited in num- ber" and that they "consisted pri- marily of theoretical calculations and monitoring of unoccupied shower chambers:' But it also con- cluded such findings were sufficient to justify regulatory guidance. "Such guidance," said the report, "would address an urgent agency- wide need - a basis for consistent risk management decisions to re- duce showering exposure:' Scientists outside the agency are less concerned about the prospect of killer showers. Christopher F Wilkinson, director of the lbxicol- ogy Di vision of 'Ikchnology Servi ces Group Inc- in Washington, called the report ridiculous. "But its not the first time the agency has done some- thing ridiculous," he said. Alan A. Moghissi, a professor of environ- mental health and safety at the Uni- versity of Maryland, simply laughed. "I needed that," he said. "It's been a hard day." An RAF official who declined to speak for the record said the draft report may have overstated the ur- gency for agency guidance. At issue was the need for consistency in guid- ance, he said, not to turn showers into a "significant public health is- FRIDAY,APRIL3,1992/PAGEF3,, sue" (his emphasis). University of Pittsburgh professor of public health Julian Andleman, whose EPA- funded work on chloroform expo- sure was part of the agency's review, said he and his family still take show- ers. The studies are "fraught with uncertainty," he said. The biggest reason for the uncer- tainty is that the studies are based on man-animal extrapolations, in which scientists examine what hap- pens to rodents force-fed enough chlorine to treat the Chesapeake Bay and then try to guess what trace ex- posures would do to humans. Be- cause the animal studies showed high doses of chloroform caused cancer in rats, the agency now has to worry about what low doses - the kind you get washing clothes or cleaning dishes or taking showers- do to humans. Environmentalists took advantage of the same sort of hiRh-dose. low-dose extrapolations to set off the Alar scare three years aRo. Although agency officials are trying to downplay the shower stud- ies, they were a little less restrained a few years back. In 1985, they an- nounced they were putting chloro- form on the list of hazardous air pol- lutants under the Clean Air Act. A person exposed to the chemical has a one in 100 chance of contracting cancer in his lifetime, the agency announced. Theoretically, as many as 13 people die from it each year. The theory put EPA in an awk- ward position, though. The outdoor exposures that proved so worrisome turned out to be substantially lower than the exposures indoors, where enclosed areas and poor ventilation (aggravated of course by conserva- tion measures to seal off houses and save energy) meant higher concen- trations of the chemical. So now the agency has to explain its actions to people who probably think there are problems more deserving of agency attention and money than showers. News of this particular study comes in the wake of an expert pan- el's critical report on the role of sci- ence at EPA. Among other things, it found that EPe1s use of science is "uneven and haphazard:' In the absence of sound science, it warnea, "it is likely that high-profile but lowi risk problems will be targeted, wht3e more significant threats are ig- nored." In fairness to the agency, part oC the blame here belongs to law,- makers who insist on regulating anyi thing and everything identified as animal carcinogens, despite enot-" mous uncertainties disputed by no one, not even agency officials them, selves. Thus while epidemiologists -people who study real human can- cer incidence as opposed to the thech retical kind - can show there is i real risk to, say, smoking cigarettes, while public health officials can show there is a real risk to removing the chlorine that disinfects drinkint water, federal regulators have fb spend time drawing up imaginary bathrooms in which imaginary peo3 ple take imaginary showers and die imaginary deaths. Alfred Hitchcock would have been hard pressed to come up with something as psycho as that.