Thread by @MesMitch

Revealed: Denka lobbied to undermine science behind ‘likely’ cancer-causing toxin
Chemical manufacturer launched aggressive campaign instead of reining in pollution, according to documents

Facing public pressure to rein in its pollution, a Japanese chemical manufacturer has instead launched an aggressive, years-long campaign to undermine the science showing that its compounds could cause cancer, according to newly released documents reviewed by the Guardian.

Chloroprene, the primary constituent of the synthetic rubber neoprene, is the major air pollutant in the town of Reserve, Louisiana, an area which according to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has the highest risk of cancer due to airborne toxins anywhere in the US.

Robert Taylor, director of the Concerned Citizens of St John – the community group leading the fight for clean air in the town – said a reversal of the EPA classification would be “devastating” for his fellow residents.

“I think it’s very audacious of them to challenge all of this work that the government has done. To me it’s indicative of how callous these people are and how they really just don’t care about the people here,”

Taylor, who has numerous relatives that have died of cancer he blames on the plant, said. “If they are successful it would leave us at the mercy of this plant.”In 2010, the EPA concluded an extensive, independent, peer-reviewed assessment of chloroprene which found that the

compound was “likely to be carcinogenic to humans”. The federal government has recommended a maximum level of chloroprene humans should inhale over a lifetime as 0.2 micrograms a cubic metre. The agency, however, doesn’t enforce its guidelines.

For years Denka has been quietly fighting to discount the underlying science that proves chloroprene is a dangerous carcinogen even in low amounts. Denka argues that lifetime chloroprene exposure levels could be 156 times higher than what

the EPA has determined and that the chemical shouldn’t be considered a likely carcinogen.A series of documents, shared with the Guardian and released to lawyers for Reserve residents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),

shows the company and its contractors have pursued EPA scientists and pushed them to accept their own new modeling, which Denka has offered multiple new peer-reviewed studies to try to bolster.

Emails show EPA officials resisting Denka’s efforts.

A spokesman for Denka said the company is “dedicated to sound science” and stated it has “worked collaboratively with EPA to seek EPA’s reconsideration of the faulty science” underlying the 2010 classification.