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proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
4. Onus is on manufacturers to undertake studies demonstrating safety as a condition of approval if PP.
Mon Jan 27, 2014, 07:50 PM
Jan 2014
http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/knowledge-is-power/

January 13, 2014
by Alice Shabecoff


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Despite naysayers (who pays them to say nay?–that’s a whole story in itself), it’s clear there is both an association and a causative connection between the vast explosion of poisons in our everyday lives and our childrens’ “issues.”

Over 80,000 industrial chemicals (tested only by the manufacturer) are in commerce in this country, produced or imported at 15 trillion pounds a year. Pesticide use has leaped from the troubling 400 million pounds Rachel Carson wrote about in the 1960s to the mind-boggling 4.4 billion pounds in use today.

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In a riff on Pogo, let’s say, “We have met the heroes and it is us.” We cannot bury our heads and hope it will all go away. We cannot leave the job to someone else. Some may feel the problem is so massive, it’s best to pretend it doesn’t exist. But it isn’t more massive than we allow it to be. It’s totally within our reach.

We can make each other smarter and stronger. It is in our power to learn about what harms our children and to share our knowledge. It is in our power as a community of citizens and parents to demand action against the current harmful policies and practices and against the indiscriminate use of processes and practices that destroy and degrade all life on our planet.

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http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/index_051002.html

May 10, 2002

This week on NOW: Are we making our children sick? In the last 70 years, more than 75,000 synthetic chemicals and metals have been put to use in America — chemicals that in many cases make our lives easier and better. They kill insects and weeds, clean our clothes and carpets, unclog our drains, create produce and lawns as pretty as a picture. But most of these chemicals have never been tested for their toxic effects on children. And scientists are concerned that recent increases in childhood illnesses like asthma and cancer, as well as learning disabilities, may be related to the environment — to what kids eat, drink and breathe.

Kids and Chemicals, a special edition of NOW, features medical investigators and health officials engaged in the latest research on links between childhood illness and environmental contamination.

http://www.pbs.org/now/science/doctors.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript117_full.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/classroom/classroom_kids1.html

http://www.prx.org/pieces/96874-moyers-company-show-219-the-toxic-politics-of-s#description

Added 8 months ago

As long as the chemical industry and its powerful lobbies prevail in blocking efforts to reform outdated laws, the authors say, we will continue to float in a soup of toxins -- inhaling, drinking, and absorbing chemicals that we may learn, years later, have put us all in harm’s way.
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