Modern Chemicals: Precaution Is In Order

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Modern chemicals do many good things for us. But some also do harm — to us, wildlife or the environment. With U.S. industries now using some 75,000 chemicals, and as we discover more about their downsides, public demand for greater precaution is growing. The dramatic increase in organic food sales in the last two decades is one sign of this growing public concern.

In 2002, the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit watchdog, released the results of a “body burden” study that found 167 chemicals present in the blood and urine of nine volunteers. Then in 2005, the group reported the results of its tests of 10 newborn babies, in whom it found 287 chemicals present.

Should we be worried? How can everyday people, or even scientists and activists, figure out which chemicals are mostly good and which are dangerous?

Take pesticides, for example. There are more than 1,000 “active” ingredients currently being used in insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and other “cides” — all are products designed to kill some type of living thing. There are also about 4,000 additional chemicals in those products that manufacturers claim are “inert” ingredients. Federal law requires that companies reveal the active ingredients on the products’ labels. But the law allows companies to conceal any ingredients they say are “inert,” even though at least 374 inerts are known to be hazardous and another 1,863 were of unknown toxicity in 2006, when 22 advocacy groups and 15 state attorneys general petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require disclosure of hazardous inerts. In fall 2009, the EPA announced it would pursue a change in disclosure rules for hazardous inert ingredients in pesticides.

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