Want Healthier Babies, Lower Disease Rates, and Less Health Care Spending? (just ask Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families)

The Toxic Substance Control Act is old, outdated, and dangerous.  It doesn't protect our families from thousands of chemicals in everyday products that were never tested for safety.  We have been calling for TCSA reform for years.

And here comes the cavalry:  Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, to give us the facts to support this in their new report, The Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act.  

The facts, especially laid out in such a way, are startling, scary and unsettling. They spell out more disease, difficulty with pregnancy, and chronic health problems.

Here is summary of the report, and some quick facts from a report just issued today:

"There is growing agreement across the political spectrum that the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 does not adequately protect Americans from toxic chemicals. In the 34 years since TSCA was enacted, the EPA has been able to require testing on just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals produced and used in the U.S., and just five chemicals have been regulated under this law. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson has asked Congress to provide her agency with better chemical management tools for safeguarding our nation’s health."

Quick facts from the report:

Chronic disease is on the rise

·        Leukemia, brain cancer, and other childhood cancers have increased by more than 20% since 1975.

·        Breast cancer went up by 40% between 1973 and 1998. While breast cancer rates have declined since 2003, a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer is now 1 in 8, up from 1 in 10 in 1973.

·        Asthma prevalence approximately doubled between 1980 and 1995 and has stayed at the elevated rate.

·        Difficulty in conceiving and maintaining a pregnancy affected 40% more women in 2002 than in 1982. The incidence of reported difficulty has almost doubled in younger women, ages 18-25.

·        The birth defect resulting in undescended testes has increased 200% between 1970 and 1993.

·        Since the early 1990s, reported cases of autism spectrum disorder have increased tenfold.

Chronic disease is linked to chemical exposure

• The last 30 years of environmental health science shows that small amounts of chemicals can have long-term effects when the exposure comes at vulnerable times of development. New studies have linked early life exposure to chemicals and the later diagnosis of breast and testicular cancer, learning and developmental disabilities, and Alzheimer’s disease.

• Scientists have linked chemicals in building products, plastics, personal care products, and household cleaners with impairment to the reproductive system, increased risk of certain types of cancer, asthma, and developmental disabilities.

• Over the past decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published data showing that exposures to chemicals like phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA), perfluorinated compounds, and cadmium are common. The CDC reports that almost everyone has these chemicals in their bodies.

Federal policy regulating chemicals is ineffective

• In the 34 years since TSCA was enacted, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been able to require testing on just 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals produced and used in the U.S., and just five chemicals have been regulated under this law.

• All chemicals formulated prior to 1976 were grandfathered in for use with no requirement that they be tested or shown to be safe.

• The EPA tried to use TSCA to restrict asbestos 20 years ago and failed. Since then, EPA hasn’t tried again to use TSCA to ban any dangerous chemical. 

Economic benefits of reforming TSCA

The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition believes that, by reforming TSCA, we can reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals, improve our nation’s health, and lower the cost of health care.

• 133 million people in the U.S. — almost half of all Americans — are now living with chronic diseases and conditions, which now account for 70% of deaths and 75% of U.S. health care costs.

• Even if chemical policy reform leads to reductions in toxic chemical exposures that translate into just a 0.1% reduction in of health care costs, it would save the U.S. health care system an estimated $5 billion every year.

By reforming TSCA, we can reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals, reduce our nation’s chronic disease burden, and help control health care costs. In simplest terms, real reform will lead to concrete results, like more healthy babies, fewer women with breast cancer, and lower numbers of people with Alzheimer’s disease. This is the promise of TSCA reform."

Thanks to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families for issuing this report.  This may be the tipping point. The final shove that Congress needs.  It's time to protect our families, not profits and corporations. And the returns will be exponential-- less human suffering, less health care spending, lower disease rates, and healthier babies. The answer couldn't be more obvious.  

 Click here to tell congress that reform is needed right now! 

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