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 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, who served on the National Research Council’s panel on arsenic in drinking water (for the 1999 report), will testify on behalf of CEI at the CPSC hearing, along with Angela Logomasini, 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/.