Some say passing the Chemical Safety Improvement Act will be too costly. What are the costs of doing nothing?

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A New Study Shows Real Costs of Toxins

• February 15, 2014

In environmental health circles, 2014 is being heralded as the year America’s 40-year-old chemical regulations will at long last be reformed. One typical complaint heard in the struggle to pass the Chemical Safety Improvement Act is that new regulations will cost companies too much money and the country too many lost jobs. This familiar tune ignores the other side of the economic coin. As in: What are the costs of doing nothing?
According to new study on BPA exposures in the U.S., they’re quite high. The study, authored by Healthy Child Healthy World board member Leonardo Trasande, an associate professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine, and health policy at the New York University School of Medicine, finds that the social costs of BPA-related obesity and heart disease were nearly $3 billion in 2008. It contends that removing the chemical from the linings of food and beverage cans would yield $1.74 billion in annual economic benefits. The study’s calculations were conservative and didn’t account for the many other health issues to which BPA is suspected of contributing, like cancer, reproductive damage, and behavioral disorders, which means these figures could be many billions of dollars higher in reality.

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• Study: Replacing BPA in food products could save billions in health costs [The Pump Handle]
• BPA Among Toxic Chemicals Driving Up Health Care Costs, Experts Say
• Scientists Explore Link Between BPA and Cancer Development
• Exposure to BPA linked to liver tumors in mice
• Exposure to low doses of BPA alters gene expression in the fetal mouse ovary

9 ways to detox your home

HEALTHY LIVING

 

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Greening your space can be confusing: Should you use natural cleaning products? Which plastics are OK? We've boiled it down to the moves that matter most.

We carefully watch what goes into our mouths and on our bodies—organic this, petroleum-free that. But when it comes to keeping a healthy home, knowing what to do isn't so easy. In fact, the average house may contain as many as 400 chemicals, some of them toxic, many untested, according to a study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Short-term contact with one toxin in small amounts isn't going to kill you. But with so many questionable chemicals swirling around us, "you definitely want to take simple measures whenever possible to lower your exposure," says Phil Brown, PhD, director of the Social Science Environ-mental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University in Boston.

by Aviva Patz

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And reducing your contact with chemicals— even a little—can yield clear benefits. Depending on your sensitivities, you might experience fewer allergy and asthma symptoms, headaches and skin irritations. Long-term, Brown says, you may even lower your risk of infertility and cancer.

We know what you're thinking: Where the heck do I start? And how much work is this going to take? While some people would have you ripping up carpeting and chucking furniture, we talked to environmental health experts to find low-effort, high-impact ways to minimize your toxic load and boost your health, then ranked them from the super easy to the more ambitious. Try a couple of these, or more, to really clear the air.

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