One-stop science shop has become a favorite of industry—and Texas
Michael Dourson left the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 20 years ago to start a nonprofit consulting firm that—unlike the federal government—would move swiftly to evaluate chemical hazards.
Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, or TERA, would be a sort of one-stop science shop, Dourson decided: It would estimate the risks of cancer and other diseases associated with exposures to certain chemicals. It would peer-review research and publish those findings in a database. It would organize conferences to educate government and industry officials.
Dourson’s organization filled a gap left by the EPA, which has evaluated the safety of only 558 of 84,000 chemicals on the market today. The EPA’s sluggishness has created major business opportunities for firms like TERA because few state agencies have the resources to conduct their own risk-assessment studies, which are time-consuming and complex.
Dourson, a toxicologist who spent 15 years with the EPA, describes TERA as an independent firm that aims to protect public health by bringing together scientists from government, academia and industry. Through TERA, he has created a self-sustaining network of supporters in which clients, regulators and peer-reviewers often overlap. The firm’s reach has helped make Dourson an influential figure in the field of risk assessment—a niche discipline that is used to determine how much of a particular chemical is acceptable in the environment. The results of these studies shape thousands of public health decisions around the country, including the setting of drinking water standards and air pollution guidelines.
“People come to us specifically because they want to build a collaboration,” Dourson, 62, said in a recent telephone interview from his office in Cincinnati.
But an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and InsideClimate News shows the firm has close ties to chemical manufacturers, tobacco companies and other industry interests. More than 50 percent of the peer-review panels TERA has organized since 1995 were for studies funded by industry groups. TERA also runs a risk-assessment database that receives financial and in-kind support from many companies and government agencies. Some of those groups have also paid TERA to peer-review studies they hope will be included in the database.
A 2011 study on acrylamide—a possible carcinogen found in French fries and potato chips— shows the extent of overlapping interests.
Related: Texas weakens chemical exposure guidelines, opens door for polluters
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This story is part of Big Oil, Bad Air. Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
