Yes, contrary to EPA's symphony in obfuscation, there is a legitimate issue here. Now for the sad part of this story. AIHC acknowledges that the Agency has received comments regarding whether statistical significance should be another criterion. Never has been. Never will be.
Statistical significance is about ruling out random chance as being the cause of the data.
AIHC agrees with EPA that large, precise estimates are more suggestive of a causal association than large, imprecise estimates. AIHC does not regard statistical significance as a prerequisite for judging whether a causal relationship exists . AIHC does regard statistical significance testing, when applied properly, as appropriate in determining the role of chance for a given finding in a study . Strong epidemiologic evidence,to date, usually has consisted of one or more statistically significant studies. For this deed, AIHC has achieved Superstardom in the world of junk science.