It began to dawn on the early EWG team that though the public knew about pollution in air, water and soil, we didn’t know about pollution in people. And that was going to be the key to unlocking market change. EWG scientists got to work testing the umbilical cord blood of newborn infants, to see what pollutants they’re born with. The first studies began in 2004; anonymous American babies were tested for hundreds of industrial and agricultural chemicals. And what the researchers found was hundreds of different pollutants already in the babies’ bodies at birth.
This was the first time science had proven that babies are born “pre-polluted” with PFAS, pesticides and plasticides. Scientists had erroneously believed the placenta filtered out harmful chemicals. A repeat of the study in 2008 with cord blood from people of color found the same troubling chemical footprints.
EWG started talking to Congress about their findings in 2005, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey was interested. EWG shared its cord blood research with Lautenberg, showing how chemicals had been allowed for use in baby toys and carpeting, and the effect they had on newborn bodies.
The Toxic Substances Control Act, passed in 1976, authorized the EPA to screen and regulate chemicals. But the law allowed chemical companies to put products on the market without proving they were safe. EWG argued we need to flip the law: Companies should be required to prove that chemicals won’t pose a risk before products go to market.
Lautenberg drafted the Kids Safe Chemicals Act, the first reform to TSCA. He continued to reintroduce it, every Congress, until finally a version was signed into law by President Barack Obama in his second term.