ABSTRACT
Industrial chemicals are a building block of modernity and specific chemicals and combinations of chemicals are also a threat to the health and welfare of humans and ecosystems. Balancing the value of chemicals for modern livelihoods and ways of life with the threat to human and environmental wellbeing is a complex undertaking negotiated at the intersection of science, politics and policy. In the United States, nearly 40 years after a chemical regulatory regime, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), was passed into law the outcome of this negotiation is extremely clear. Publicly accessible databases and decision tools developed outside the standard institutions of scientific authority become legitimated sources of knowledge in support of the negotiated actions. Several decades of social science research on science and risk have demonstrated that science as practiced often plays out as negotiations among experts with differing disciplinary, institutional, and political perspectives to arrive at 'science-based' policy decisions.
