Lobby to Hide Cancer Dangers Has Government's Helping Hand
Industry special interests are burying information on cancer-causing chemicals and, according to watchdog groups, the government is helping them do it.
Industry special interests are burying information on cancer-causing chemicals and, according to watchdog groups, the government is helping them do it -- in the name of "data quality."
In a study of the National Institutes of Health's National Toxicology Program, OMB Watch, a DC-based policy-research group, reports that industry is frustrating the work of government researchers with petitions that are light on science but heavy with accusations of anti-business "bias."
Public interest advocates warn that corporations are co-opting the federal Data Quality Act to paralyze scientists with frivolous allegations of inaccuracy, driving a stealth assault on public-health research.
In 2000, Congress passed the Data Quality Act under the guidance of lobbyist Jim Tozzi, a former administrator with the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan who now heads the industry-backed Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE). The two-paragraph statute broadly mandates that agencies uphold "the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information" they disseminate.
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