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Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)

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Tom Flanagin
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program in 1985 to support EPA’s mission by identifying and characterizing the human health effects that may result from exposure to chemicals in the environment. 

However, the IRIS program has a troubling history of being out of step with the best available science and methods, lacking transparency, and being unresponsive to peer review and stakeholder recommendations.

Members of the scientific community, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, have raised concerns with the IRIS program’s application of the science to draw conclusions regarding human health risk.

Furthermore, the IRIS program has never been authorized by Congress, and since 2009 the program has remained on the GAO’s High-Risk List, which identifies government programs that are vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement.