Forty years after the first Earth Day, the United States has come a long way in cleaning up its rivers and air. But Time magazine reports that although nature has been cleaned up, our own bodies have become increasingly contaminated by the multitude of chemicals in everyday products.
Since World War II production of industrial chemicals has skyrocketed — today the U.S. produces or imports 42 billion pounds of them a day, Time reports. Key ingredients in modern plastics, like bisphenol A ( used in food-grade plastics) and pthalates (used in cosmetics, shower curtains and other products) find their way into our bodies where they are suspected of disrupting our endocrine system. Exposure to these compounds has been linked to early breast development in girls and genital deformity in boys. Researchers have suggested that the chemicals in our systems may be linked to a host of other illness including autism, attention deficit disorder and obesity, according to Time.
While concern about toxins has been mounting in recent years — several states have banned BPA in baby bottles, for example — Washington has been slow to act.
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the 34-year-old vehicle for federal chemical regulation, has generally been a failure. The burden of proving chemicals dangerous falls almost entirely on the government, while industry confidentiality privileges built into the TSCA deny citizens and federal regulators critical information about how substances are made and what their effects are. In the years since the TSCA became law, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been able to issue restrictions on only a handful of chemicals and has lacked the power to ban even a dangerous carcinogen like asbestos.
The EPA has required testing for only about 200 of the 83,000 chemicals in the TSCA inventory, Time reports.
But the government’s history of lax chemical regulation might be changing. The Food and Drug Administration launched a $30 million investigation into BPA in January. Legislation that would strengthen the TSCA will soon be introduced in both the House and Senate. And EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has made reforming chemical-safety rules a priority of her administration.
Read the full story in Time.
