Bush's Nomination For Regulatory Chief Is A Deadly Dud

FULL story: http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/2006/08/bushs-nomination-for-regulatory-chief.html

Disaster in Iraq, war in the Middle East, Iranian nukes, anniversaries of 9/11 and Katrina, and on and on.

Meanwhile, back at home, virtually unnoticed, the Bush administration continues its deadly attacks on worker health.

Celeste Monforton, a senior research associate with the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at George Washington University School of Public Health (and occasional Confined Space guest blogger), explains in the Louisville Courier Journal why President Bush's recent nomination of Susan Dudley to head the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA may end up killing workers.

As we've written before (here and here), Dudley currently directs the Mercatus Center's Regulatory Studies Program. According to Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch, Dudley is "a true anti-regulatory zealot"-- exactly the type of person who would be a disaster as head of the agency that oversees the administration's regulatory policies.

Monforton focuses on Dudley's opinions on the deadly lung disease, silicosis and shows thatthat Dudley is simply

following the script first popularized many decades ago by the tobacco industry: When faced with regulation to protect the public health, always raise doubt and manufacture uncertainty about the scientific evidence.

She falsely claims that scientists don't really know how silica dust causes the disease:

This is not true. The cause of lung damage is exposure to respirable crystalline silica. Despite the authors' assertions, physicians, toxicologists and other experts have known for nearly a century that microscopic particles of SiO{-2} (silicon dioxide, or quartz), when inhaled, can penetrate deep into the lung's alveoli. The body's natural defense mechanisms attack the tiny silica particle, thereby creating scar tissue -- and with too much exposure and too much scar tissue, silicosis develops.

When materials containing SiO{-2}, such as cement, bricks or rock are drilled, sawed or otherwise disrupted and create dust, or when crystalline silica sand is used for abrasive blasting or in foundry processes, workers are at risk of breathing respirable particles containing quartz. This is all well-known, indisputable science.

She also claims that we don't know which types of silica are dangerous that the the evidence comes from limited sources.

This is on par with putting Wolfowitz at the World Bank, Alito in the Supremes and Bolton at the UN. Another fox guarding the hen house. I am afraid our weak-kneeded Democrats are going to confirm her nomination without fuss.