Chemical Romance? It's Time to Break Up

by Cameron Scott · 2010-01-21 11:34:00 UTC
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Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, acknowledged late last year that the Toxic Substances Control Act was in need of reform.

The TSCA is a catch-all law meant to handle chemicals not otherwise regulated by the EPA or the FDA. Like what chemicals, you ask? Pick up the nearest bottle and read the ingredients. The bottle itself may also contain BPA. Or touch your computer keyboard. Or look around at the walls of the room you're in. There are at least 80,000 chemicals produced and used in the United States.

In the 34 years since the TSCA became law, the EPA has been able to require testing on just 200 of them and to regulate just five. Think about that: Even accounting for voluntary testing, at least 70,000 chemicals are in wide use with absolutely no testing on their safety. 20,000 new chemicals have entered the marketplace since the law was passed. Asbestos remain legal.

A new report by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families traces the effects of our broken chemical policy on public health.

Diseases linked to chemical exposure — including breast cancer and asthma — affect increasingly large swaths of the population. A reasonable estimate is that chemical exposure accounts for about one percent of all disease in the United States.

The poor are disproportionately affected by environmental pollutants. Who pays for their medical care? In many cases, you do. And the cost of health care is literally threatening to bankrupt the government.

In other words, empowering the government to exert some control of the 80,000 chemicals around you isn't just a nice idea: It's absolutely necessary.

Photo credit: Joe Sullivan

Cameron Scott writes The Thin Green Line blog at SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle).
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