ProPublica reported on December 3, 2024: “In a world flush with hazardous air pollutants, there is one that causes far more cancer than any other, one that is so widespread that nobody in the United States is safe from it. It is a chemical so pervasive that a new analysis by ProPublica found it exposes everyone to elevated risks of developing cancer no matter where they live. And perhaps most worrisome, it often poses the greatest risk in the one place people feel safest: inside their homes.”
“As the backbone of American commerce, formaldehyde is a workhorse in major sectors of the economy, preserving bodies in funeral homes, binding particleboards in furniture and serving as a building block in plastic. The risk isn’t just to the workers using it; formaldehyde threatens everyone as it pollutes the air we all breathe and leaks from products long after they enter our homes. It is virtually everywhere. Federal regulators have known for more than four decades that formaldehyde is toxic, but their attempts to limit the chemical have been repeatedly thwarted by the many companies that rely on it.”
“Outdoor air is often suffused with formaldehyde gas from cars, smoke, factories, and oil and gas extraction, sometimes at worrying levels that are predicted to worsen with climate change. Much of the formaldehyde outdoors is also spontaneously formed from other pollutants. Invisible to the eye, the gas increases the chances of getting cancer — severely in some parts of the country.”
“[T]the EPA’s alarming estimates of cancer risk vastly underestimate — by as much as fourfold — the chances of formaldehyde causing cancer.”
“The conclusion: The public health risks from formaldehyde are greater and more prevalent than widely understood — and any hope of fully addressing them may well be doomed, at least for the foreseeable future.”
According to the EPA: “Formaldehyde is a colorless, flammable gas at room temperature and has a strong odor. Exposure to formaldehyde may cause adverse health effects. The primary way you can be exposed to formaldehyde is by breathing air containing off-gassed formaldehyde. Everyone is exposed to small amounts of formaldehyde in the air that has off-gassed from products, including composite wood products. Formaldehyde is currently undergoing risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In March 2024, EPA released a draft TSCA risk evaluation preliminarily finding that that formaldehyde poses unreasonable risk to human health. However, EPA notes that these risks may not apply to everyone, everywhere and describes some of the sources of uncertainties in EPA’s findings.”
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