The Missing Component. Political will. As public health advocates and environmental organizations join together to share stories, common threads and themes of toxic exposures emerge. We've become partners in the real world. Yet our experiences fall on deaf ears. The political will is missing to change the laws that would protect our health. There should be less talk and stronger regulations put into place.
Let's do the math, more than 80,000 chemicals are in products we use. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can test one of those chemicals only after there is proof of harm. Painfully, only 200 chemicals have moved through this "protection" process. The devastating fact is our children are exposed to these chemicals every day. Strong regulations are needed. To prove a product is safe before entering the marketplace, providing adequate labeling and banning certain chemicals from use should not take decades of discussion. U.S. Senators Kristen Gillibrand (D., New York) and Frank Lautenberg (D., New Jersey) have recently updated the Toxic Substance Control Act to include these needed reforms. This is the reform that all our elected representatives should support. Let us hope this year it moves forward into passage.

~Karen Joy Miller

Lautenberg to push bill to regulate chemicals

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), plans Wednesday to introduce what he hopes will be signature legislation for his final term in office - a bill aimed at ensuring the safety of the many chemicals that Americans come in contact with every day. read more..