On June 2, 2020, WLF joined other civil-justice reform groups in calling on the EPA to ensure an objective and balanced peer-review process. The EPA recently issued a draft risk evaluation for chrysotile asbestos, concluding that the fiber poses an unreasonable risk to humans in virtually every setting. In a broader sense, the report is an attack on all legacy chrysotile products and ignores decades of medical and epidemiological studies. If adopted, the report will provide added justification for plaintiffs’ attorneys and paid experts to advance the “any exposure theory” of causation in asbestos suits. While the peer reviewers who prepared the report include three highly paid asbestos plaintiffs’ experts, not a single expert who testifies for asbestos defendants, or even for both plaintiffs and defendants, is on the panel. To ensure neutral evaluation of the science in the agency’s reports, WLF urges the EPA either to add an equal number of defense-side experts to the panel of peer reviewers or remove the biased plaintiff-side experts altogether. WLF’s comment was prepared with the pro bono assistance of Mark Behrens of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP.
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