Health Risk Experts To Testify At Consumer Products Safety Commission Hearing On Pressure-Treated Wood

Washington, D.C., March 13, 2003—In an effort to prevent a ban on pressure-treated wood used in playground equipment, experts with the Competitive Enterprise Institute will testify [2] at a Consumer Products Safety Commission hearing on the issue Monday, March 17.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

For more than 60 years, wood treated with a preservative that includes trace levels of arsenic has been used in commercial and residential products without ill health effects.  Now, based on “phantom risks,” CPSC is considering a petition to ban the wood preservative for residential uses.

Dr. Kenneth Brown [3], who served on the National Research Council’s panel on arsenic in drinking water (for the 1999 report), will testify on behalf of CEI [3] at the CPSC hearing, along with Angela Logomasini [2], CEI’s director of risk and environmental policy.  They will point out serious scientific uncertainties that undermine the Commission’s claims about risks associated with pressure-treated wood.

Experts Available for Interviews on Pressure-Treated Wood

Kenneth Brown, Ph.D.

Statistician & Health Risk Expert

Angela Logomasini

Director of Risk & Environmental Policy

Competitive Enterprise Institute

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org/ [4].