Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
A battle over the health risks of formaldehyde—a chemical that is nearly everywhere—is raging again. The latest showdown is over the US Environmental Protection Agency's draft evaluation , released March 15, of dozens of occupational and consumer uses of the chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The 151-page draft evaluation on the human health risks of formaldehyde builds on a controversial draft assessment released by the EPA in 2022 under its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. The IRIS assessment pointed to evidence that inhalation of formaldehyde causes nasopharyngeal and other cancers in humans. The EPA now concludes that it is less certain about the risks of nasopharyngeal cancer. But the new assessment finds noncancer effects like eye irritation, allergies, asthma, and reproductive toxicity associated with inhalation of formaldehyde. The chemical industry fought for years to delay the IRIS assessment. Now the industry is challenging the agency's conclusions
Britt E. Erickson (Mon,) studied this question.