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Senator Reid. Dr. Silbergeld? 



Dr. Silbergeld. There is no way to answer your question be- 

 cause the public is not permitted access to much of this data. 



Senator Reid. Dr. Muir? 



Dr. Muir. I would like to say that I cannot answer the question 

 either. The EPA cannot answer that question because the agency 

 does not have such information, and I would point out that the law 

 is set up such that these estimates need not be 



Senator Reid. That's kind of scary, isn't it? 



Dr. Muir. Well, it 



Senator Reid. Well, it is to me. 



Dr. Muir. It does represent a loophole in the law that a company 

 could file a premanufacture notice and an assessment be carried 

 out on that one basis, and then that company or any other com- 

 pany subsequent to that review, could use the chemical in any 

 other use. 



Senator Reid. Dr. Silbergeld? 



Dr. Silbergeld. I think it's very scary. Other assumptions that 

 somehow we will be protected need careful examination. First off, 

 it's sometimes stated, "Well nobody has been killed by a new chem- 

 ical that was approved under the PMN program so it must be 

 working." 



Senator Reid. We really don't know though, do we? 



Dr. Silbergeld. Well, as you know. Senator, it's taken us, what, 

 60 years to understand that putting lead in gasoline was an ex- 

 tremely dangerous decision on a significant new use of an existing 

 chemical so that's not a very hopeful way. Moreover, the EPA has 

 not been able to fashion out of the existing language of section 8 

 an effective or advanced warning system which would even give us 

 information that exposures are taking place. 



Senator Reid. I have stated to Dr. Goldman that maybe there 

 isn't much that we can do about the chemicals that are already on 

 the market place, but I would like each of the three of you to re- 

 spond to a theory that I have and I expressed this to Dr. Goldman, 

 with the Food and Drug Administration, for example. If there is a 

 product that they want to sell, the burden is upon the manufac- 

 turer to show that that product is safe for human consumption. 



Why can't we have the same burden on those that manufacture 

 chemicals? Dr. Goldman said, "Well not all chemicals are swal- 

 lowed; in effect, not all drugs are swallowed or however they're 

 used." But the fact of the matter is, as I indicated, if in fact that's 

 the case, that there would be no exposure to humans, that would 

 be part of the burden of the chemical manufacturer. 

 Now what's wrong with that theory of mine? 

 Mr. Guerrero. Let me respond to that, Mr. Chairman. 

 In general, I think your observation is that shifting some of the 

 testing burden to manufacturers and users of these chemicals is in- 

 deed the way to go. Dr. Goldman said that overseas there is a dis- 

 tinction made between premanufacture testing and premarketing 

 testing. Here we have a premanufacture notice requirement, and 

 Dr. Goldman mentioned that perhaps it might be desirable to move 

 to a premanufacturing type of notification in which case you could 

 require more detailed testing of industry for those select number 

 of chemicals that ultimately do go to commerce. Manufacturers 



