Independence as a Cornerstone of Science

When the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences outlined its recommendations for managing health risks and set up the risk assessment process in 1983, scientific knowledge of the effects of hazardous chemicals on biological systems was established as the cornerstone upon which risk assessment and risk management decisions would be made. The purpose underlying this decision was to ensure that risk management decisions would be based on objective and honest assessments of the true health hazard of chemicals in our environments.

The wisdom of this decision is clear. Independent scientific research provides an unbiased assessment of a problem – in this case, a chemical's ability to cause adverse human and ecological health effects. As the National Research Council recognized, an objective determination of risk is critical to policy-based discussions regarding how much risk society is willing to accept and the subsequent need for regulations and cleanup activities.

Unfortunately, the independence that is at the core of good scientific research is being threatened by current day funding mechanisms for basic toxicology and environmental health research and the regulations that allow companies with financial interests in chemicals to be responsible for generating the scientific data needed for health risk assessments.