ABSTRACT
When William Ruckelshaus came back to run the embattled Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1983, one of his primary goals was to separate the "science" of assessing health hazard risks from the "policy" of managing those risks. During the previous administration of Anne Burford Gorsuch, risk assessment had become so entangled with politics that many public observers felt that the EPA was acting as an advocate for the very industries it was supposed to regulate. For example, the EPA had concluded that there was no significant health risk to workers from exposure to formaldehyde, a chemical used to make particle board, plywood, and some permanent-press fabrics. The actual evidence on the health risks from formaldehyde was less reassuring than the EPA's position indicated.
