Below in an email from Dr. Frank Mirer correcting my mistaken impression that Drs. Crump and Berman were contractors for clients with commercial interests in asbestos when, in fact, they were hired as contractors by the EPA. My apology for the misinformation.
Hi
Regarding the asbestos piece. First, thanks for noticing it and your thoughtful comments.
Second, more important, when I wrote that Kenny Crump was a “contractor,” I had intended to convey that he was an EPA contractor, not writing a study for management. Can you correct this? This support is disclosed in one of the papers (although the authors do disclose support from a management group as well). In recent years, EPA has commissioned scientific documents of this type which were subsequently published in peer reviewed journals. Kenny Crump co-authored a commentary on formaldehyde for EPA which was helpful to the precautionary side, and which was (in my opinion) validated by recent new knowledge. In the asbestos case, increased risk estimates for amphiboles would support lower tolerances for Libby asbestos, which would be precautionary for Libby and which was EPA’s main concern.
[Can you include the above in your next post, and, if you have an email, forward it to Kenny. Thanks.]
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