EPA’s top toxicologists affirmed that breathing in formaldehyde can cause three types of cancer, as well as other serious health risks, resisting mounting pressure from industry groups to reconsider the science.
The final toxicity assessment, issued through the EPA research office’s Integrated Risk Information System, will likely be used as the basis for decisions from EPA’s chemicals office on whether certain uses of the widely used chemical should be restricted or banned.
The finalized assessment maintains the same thresholds established in the 2022 IRIS draft. Researchers have “medium” confidence that air concentrations of formaldehyde at one one-hundredth per milligram per cubic meter, if inhaled over long periods of time, can lead to nasopharyngeal cancer.
That concentration is equivalent to the higher end of outdoor ambient air concentrations, according to EPA air monitoring data cited in the IRIS assessment.
