Things I have learned

This is a true story.

Once, in band camp I was out at a restaurant with a friend and his (now ex-) wife and she talked us into going to Hooters. Seriously. She offered to pay for the beer, how could we resist?

So we walk into Hooters and the place is packed. Everyone is in there watching TV, so I note that it is a NASCAR race. The only seats available were out on the porch. On the way there, we pass three tables together: at the middle table were seated two middle-aged couples, the table to the left featured their kids (we knew that because they were asking if they wanted more), and the table to the right was two older couples who were apparently their parents ("Dad, you want some more hot wings?"). I had a revelation: If you take your kids, and your parents, to Hooters, to watch the Pepsi Cola 500, you just might be a redneck.

(Grrr, something wrong with ftp)
(From this photo set)
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

What is the point of government science?

Until this morning, I had been operating under the assumption that the ban on phthalates contained in the CPSIA was (1) scientifically justified, and (2) not supported by the earlier legislation that guided the CPSC's actions. Guess I was wrong.

It's not that I have done the research on either point. On the science, I did just enough to see that this was likely to devolve into one of those smear campaigns that one sees in Global Warming or Second Hand Smoke debates. You know: every argument degenerates into an ad hominem because the scientist in question works for a university that once accepted money from a (pick one: oil company, tobacco company, chemical company, government agency) and therefore cannot be right about anything. On the legislation, I just accepted the special interest groups' claim that this legislation was necessary. I felt I should do that because this wasn't fertile ground for argument. My approach has always been that the CPSIA does not take into account the particulars of the industries regulated, so there are predictably unintended consequences (an oxymoron or not?).

If this NPR report (Public Concern, Not Science, Prompts Plastics Ban) is any guide, it turns out that career science staff at the CPSC found problems with two types of phthalates (DEHP and DINP) and got them restricted 25 and 10 years ago. Otherwise, there simply is little ground (according to their research) for concern. If the CPSC science is good, babies simply do not keep these things in their mouthes long enough to get a large enough dose. Congress' take on it?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said the ban was needed because phthalates had been "linked to serious reproductive defects."

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) talked about "potential harm to testosterone development and the male reproductive tract."

Yes, this is the same Jan Schakowsky who threatened my wife.

I'm still not interested in the science: I'll stipulate to the dangers. But one has to wonder about the utility of government scientists when the people who insist that we must have them to provide data free of conflicts of interest also refuse to accept their conclusions. I must once again conclude that the special interest groups -- US PIRG, Public Citizen, Consumer's Union -- control Congress, this time with one-sided and dubious "science" and "facts". Perhaps it's the allure of truthiness, a quality apparently not limited to the Bush Administration or Republicans despite their well-documented war on science.

And having stipulated to the science, it appears that the CPSC already had some leverage (link, caveat emptor, but also listen to the NPR story linked above):

In the United States, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Toy Manufacturers of America (TMA) agreed upon a voluntary limit of DEHP at 3% in pacifiers and teethers in 1986. Later in 1998, the CPSC asked toy manufacturers to voluntarily withdraw vinyl teething rings and rattles containing the phthalate DINP from the market.

Nancy Nord summarizes the problem nicely in a letter to the POTUS today:

Upon joining the CPSC, the new chairman will be presented with a law that curtails the agency's ability to prioritize its regulatory activity based on an assessment of risks, the magnitude of those risks, and the actual consequences of those risks.

Not to mention a hostile Congress that refuses to listen to its constituents or to the career scientists whom we pay to advise the representatives we elect to ignore us.