Better Safe Than Sorry

• Published in: Natural life (Unionville. 1991) p. 8
• Main Author: Priesnitz, Wendy
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Toronto Life Media 01.07.2012
• Subjects: Boats; Chemicals; Cosmetics; Environmental health; Environmental law; Environmental protection; Flame retardants; Natural products; Pesticides; Precautionary principle; Preservatives; Public health; Reproductive system; Risk taking; Toxic substances; Toxins
• ISSN: 0701-8002

Some libertarians, pro-business commentators, and conservative think tanks believe that approach would smother economic activity, shut down innovation and risk-taking, and, for instance, prevent potentially life-saving drugs from reaching the market in a timely fashion. Nevertheless, we take precautions all the time in life. Dr. Devra Davis - epidemiologist, author, and founder of the Environmental Health Trust - makes this comment on the wisdom of precaution: "We do not wait for buildings to fall down or bridges to collapse before reinforcing and inspecting them for safety; we do not wait for boats to sink before requiring that they carry life jackets. We have enough knowledge about pollution to make 'informed choices.'" There are an estimated eighty-five thousand chemicals approved for market use today, from preservatives in our lipstick to flame retardants in our sofas, from plasticizers in our water bottles to pesticides on our fruit and vegetables. Astonishingly, less than ten percent of these chemicals have been researched for their effects on human health because their use was "grandfathered" into law when the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act was created in 1 976. Nor have their multiple or cumularive effects been well studied. Many of us carry as many as one hundred chemicals in our bodies, yet we know next to nothing about the lifetime effects of exposure to this toxic mix of chemicals. Since test subjects are often animals or men, we sometimes don't know the effects of toxins on women (and their reproductive systems) and on children, whose smaller size might make them more vulnerable to negative effects. In addition, without the Precautionary Principle in place, a great deal of scientific research is funded by the corporations that manufacture or use these chemicals, rather than by a government-accredited, independent laboratory. And that casts doubt on the quality of the data.