Document v1oLgng74EV0zJRwjKpjynpvw

White House Offers Guide...s i m S' Special to 71 New York.Tim WASHINGTON, May 22-- The White* George A. Keyword! 2d, President House Office of Science and Tech Reagan's science adviser, said the re nology today issued its final d ra ft of a port "responds to so ciety 's need for report intended to.serve a s a guide to better balance and objectivity in bow Federal agencies in regulating cancar we regulate m an-m ade and. naturally cansing substances. occurring chemica ls th a t m ay cause The repost resulted from a tw o-year cancer." ' Adm instratkm effort to establish a uni Thereport is different from the heav form Federal policy on carcinogens. It ily criticized earlier drafts in at least was praised by environm entalists and three m ajo r respects; - public health scientists who had com plained th at e arlier d rafts w ere d e The first is th a t it states flatly th a t a signed to ease restrictions on industry qfthgtnTiflfr f h a t |y| a n L and perm it ' a substantially g reater am ount of cancer-causing substances m als "should be considered a sus pected hum an carcinogen." E arlier, in d ie nation's a ir, w ater, food supplies the A dm lnistratiao appeared tn be and workplaces. . questioning the v alidity of anim al test d a ta in deciding w hether a substance The report w as described by the White House office as a " sta te of the caused cancer. '' science" description of cancer-cansing 'Threshold' A pproach D iscarded agents and how they affect hum an health. They jaesen t a set of principles Secondly, th e e a rlie r approach to be used by F ederal agencies in as- [raised the possibility th a t th ere w ere :sessing th e risks of cancer-causing sub _ `thresholds" a t which each stances and w hat should b e done about rcancer-causing substance presented a those risk s, v risk to hum an health. T h at approach The new guidelines do not depart has been abandoned in the final d ra ft radically fro m current approaches to on tbe ground th a t science is still un cancer regulation used by F ederal able to determ ine those thresholds fo r agencies, and several scientists wbo re regulatory purposes, and- th e new viewed the docum ent said th e proposed guidelines would not lead to any signifi cant loosening of rules to protect, the public from cancer-causing agents. meSsufaBIe HUT