State Toxics Watchdog Panel Purged

By: Annette Fuentes

A panel of scientists who watchdog state policy on toxic chemicals has just been slashed, with five of its nine members dismissed, according to a report from California Watch. And strawberries may be at the root of it all.

The Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants, a little-known appointed expert panel, helps shape state environmental policy. The members, who included some of the state’s leading academics on health and environmental science, have not infrequently stirred controversy and riled the chemical industry. But California Watch suggests that the issue that brought things to a head was a proposal to use the pesticide methyl iodide on strawberry plants.

Panel chair John Froines of UCLA and some of his colleagues have faced the wrath of industry over the years and was one of the fired experts--he also publicly slammed the California Department of Pesticide Regulation for its plan to approve methyl iodide use.

California Watch gives some credit for the panel purge to the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative group that has fought environmental legislation.

Five replacements have been named.