Making us Healthy and Wealthy: The Safer Chemicals Act of 2010

Introduced in April, the Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 would amend the federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA). The current TSCA law is widely understood to be ineffective. When TSCA passed, it ‘grandfathered’ in 62,000 chemicals in use without restriction or testing. In more than 30 years since then, the U.S. EPA has only required testing for 200 chemicals and only restricted some uses of 5 chemicals under TSCA. A growing body of science has documented widespread human exposure to toxic chemicals in everyday products, and has linked chemical exposure to threats of reduced fertility, learning disabilities, breast and prostate cancer, among other diseases.

It is time we fix our broken chemical safety system!

Clearly better chemical policy reform is good for our health and our purse, but here are some reasons why reforming our broken system will benefit our health, our purse and our children.

• Our Body: Scientists have linked chemicals in building products, plastics, personal care products, and household cleaners to impairment to the reproductive system, additionally new studies have linked early life exposure to chemicals and the later diagnosis of breast cancer . [1] Reforming our chemical policy would mean real preventative health care.

• Our purse: Chemical Policy reform can save us millions in health care costs! In fact, a Safer Chemicals Healthy families report estimates that we can save our health care system 5 Billion dollars a year! [2]

Our Children: Neurotoxic chemicals in our environment can have significant effects on the brain, especially the developing Brain. Chemical such as lead and mercury have been linked to developmental disabilities. [3]