Support for Chemical Reform

Calls for Reform of Outdated Chemical Safety Standards

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"If we ever had proof that our nation's pollution laws aren't working, it's reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb."

-- Representative Louise Slaughter (NY), 2005

"[H]armful chemical exposures pos[e] the greatest threat to children and women before and through reproductive age, impacting children's health, development, behavior and learning, with exposures to neurotoxic chemicals in critical child development periods linked to lifelong deficits in brain function… [M]arket conditions have failed to safeguard health, creating problems that include the appearance of hundreds of industrial chemicals in human tissues and fluids including the cord blood of infants… American Medical Association support[s] restructuring [current law] to… serve as a vehicle to help federal and state agencies to efficiently assess the human and environmental hazards of chemicals in commercial use and reduce the use of those of greatest concern…"

-- American Medical Association, 2008 (AMA 2008)

"When babies come into this world pre-polluted with hundreds of dangerous industrial chemicals already in their blood, it's clear that the regulatory system is broken… The Kid Safe Chemicals Act will change a lax, outdated system that presumes chemicals are safe into one that requires makers of toxic chemicals to prove their safety before they're allowed on the market."

-- Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group (EWG 2008)

"The accumulated research evidence suggests that prevention efforts against toxic exposures to environmental chemicals should focus on protecting the fetus and small child as highly vulnerable populations. Given the ubiquitous exposure to many environmental toxicants, there needs to be renewed efforts to prevent harm. Such prevention should not await detailed evidence on individual hazards to be produced, because the delays in decision-making would then lead to propagation of toxic exposures and their long-term consequences."

-- Consensus statement from 2007 conference of nearly 200 scientists - The Faroes Statement: Human Health Effects of Developmental Exposure to Chemicals in Our Environment (Grandjean et al. 2008)

"The combined evidence suggests that neuro developmental disorders caused by industrial chemicals has created a silent pandemic in modern society… New, precautionary approaches that recognise the unique vulnerability of the developing brain are needed for testing and control of chemicals."

-- Dr. Philippe Grandjean (Harvard School of Public Health) and Dr. J. Philip Landrigan (Mount Sinai School of Medicine), 2006

"As Catholic and Jewish religious leaders, we wish to express our concern over environmental health hazards adversely affecting the health of children. Children are especially vulnerable to their environment and deserve special concern from their society. …[W]e strongly support efforts to protect the most vulnerable among us, who certainly include the children of our nation."

-- National Council of Synagogues and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2000 (NCS and CCB 2000)

"Under existing federal law, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has little authority to gather necessary data or to take action to protect workers, consumers or children from dangerous chemicals. Growing scientific evidence of human exposure to hazardous chemicals underscores the importance of prompt Congressional action… ANA is pleased to support the Kid Safe Chemicals Act… The time has come to address the fundamental connection between our health and hazardous chemical exposure."

-- Rose Gonzales, Director, Government Affairs, American Nurses Association (ANA 2008)

"EPA lacks sufficient data to ensure that potential health and environmental risks of new chemicals are identified. EPA does not routinely assess existing chemicals, has limited information on their health and environmental risks, and has issued few regulations controlling such substances. EPA's ability to share data collected under [current law] is limited."

-- U.S. General Accounting Office, 2005 (GAO 2005)

"We are at a tipping point where the pollution in people is increasingly associated with a range of serious diseases and conditions from childhood cancer, to autism, ADHD, learning deficits, infertility, reproductive disorders and birth defects. Yet, even as our knowledge about the link between chemical exposures and human disease grows, the government has almost no authority to protect people from even the most hazardous chemicals on the market. The Kid Safe Chemicals Act would remedy this situation by giving EPA the mandate to protect public health from chemical exposures, and the authority to get the job done."

-- 24 National and Local Environmental, Medical, and Health-Affected Organizations (EWG et al. 2008)

"The Kid Safe Chemicals Act places the burden of proof on chemical makers, rather than EPA, to demonstrate the safety of the products that they manufacture in and import to the United States… We look forward to…build[ing] political support for fundamental reforms that will protect Americans from dangerous chemicals and reclaim[ing] U.S. leadership in this important challenge."

-- 38 National and Local Environmental and Health-Affected Organizations (AEHR et al. 2008)

"Our available tools for gathering testing data about these chemicals are cumbersome… It's almost as if ... we have to, first, prove that chemicals are risky before we can have the testing done to show whether or not the chemicals are risky."

-- EPA Assistant Administrator (former) Lynn Goldman, 1994 (EPA 1994)

"As we work to protect the sanctity of all life, we must reduce the chemicals in our environment that disrupt learning, development, and reproduction. The womb is our first environment. Our bodies are full of chemicals and metals because of the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the places we live and work."

-- The Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA)

"Our existing chemicals program has increasingly used voluntary measures to promote pollution and reduce risk... Probably the lion's share of the chemical risk management decisions in this country are done at the state and local level under a variety of statutes. With 65 percent of [chemical industry] data filings… claimed as confidential, effective governmental risk management clearly is frustrated."

-- EPA Assistant Administrator (former) Lynn Goldman, 1998

"The unfortunate truth is that concerns with chemicals in toys and baby bottles represent just the tip of the iceberg…The whole system around chemicals is woefully outdated at a time when the science is only heightening our cause for concern… We need a new policy that applies widely held values- like protecting vulnerable children - to what the science is telling us about the chemicals that are pervasive in our society,"

-- Andy Igrejas, The Pew Charitable Trusts (PCT 2008)

"More than 30 years after the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act, at last we have a serious effort to bring U.S. chemicals policy into the 21st century… One has only to look at how little we know about the growing list of chemicals being detected in our bodies and our environment to recognize that this continued "toxic ignorance" must end."

-- Dr. Richard Denison, Senior Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF 2008)

"Each newborn baby now carries a body burden of chemicals that increases over a lifetime. Children, women, the elderly, low-income communities, communities of color, and people with weakened immune systems are also disproportionately vulnerable to these chemicals. Jesus has a special love for children (Matthew 19:14), and we need to ensure that our children can grow in healthy, toxic-free environments. Parents should be able buy products with the ease of mind that they are not exposing their children to unwanted chemicals."

-- National Council of Churches, 2008

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