In early May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would split up the agency’s main arm devoted to scientific research. According to a report from NPR, scientists at the 1,500-person Office of Research and Development were told to apply to roughly 500 new scientific research positions that would be sprinkled into other areas of the agency—and to expect further cuts to their organization in the weeks to come.

This reorganization threatens the existence of a tiny but crucial program housed within this office: the Integrated Risk Information System Program, commonly referred to as IRIS. This program is responsible for providing independent research on the risks of chemicals, helping other offices within the agency set regulations for chemicals and compounds that could pose a danger to human health. The program’s leader departed recently, ahead of the restructuring announcement.

The EPA’s reorganization, experts say, will likely break up this crucial program—which has been targeted for decades by the chemical industry and right-wing interests.

“Unfortunately, right now, it looks like the polluters won,” says Thomas Burke, the founder and emeritus director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute and a former deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

“The May 2 announcement is all part of a larger, comprehensive effort to restructure the entire agency,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou tells WIRED in an email. “EPA is working expeditiously through the reorganization process and will provide additional information when it’s available.”

Formed in the mid-1980s, the IRIS program was designed to investigate the health impacts of chemicals, collating the best available research from across the world to provide analyses of poten...