Conflicts of Interest Could Undermine the Cleanup Efforts in East Palestine

Many residents of East Palestine, Ohio, are suspicious of the environmental contractor Norfolk Southern has brought in to measure chemical exposures following last month’s massive train derailment, toxic spill, and chemical burn off. Over the last decade, the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (CTEH) has become the go-to contractor for corporations looking to follow up on environmental disasters to which they’ve been connected. CTEH has done environmental testing after other derailments where toxic chemicals were released, like the 2012 derailment in Kentucky of a CSX train carrying butadiene (a human carcinogen), and other Norfolk Southern derailments in South Carolina and Georgia. CTEH also performed environmental monitoring for BP’s cleanup efforts after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon offshore well blowout. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The residents of East Palestine have reason to be suspicious. My experience working at government regulatory agencies in both the Clinton and Obama Administrations has led me to conclude that CTEH’s business model often entails providing clients with the ammunition to slow regulation or defeat court claims. I believe consulting firms like CTEH are tangled in irreparable conflicts of interest; if they produce results showing the clients’ products are harmful, it seems likely that their client base would quickly disappear. When corporations are faced with indications that their products or ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized health Source Type: news