President's Panel Releases Groundbreaking Report Linking Toxic Chemicals to Cancer
This report provides important validation to the scientists, families, and advocates who have been urging lawmakers to acknowledge the link between chemical exposure and cancer. Please read the coalition's press release here.
The following is an insightful blog written by Richard Denison, Senior Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
The President's Cancer Panel released its 2010 report, available here.
The report is remarkable not so much for its core finding that
chemical exposures are a major factor in human cancer, but rather
because of its source — an authoritative and bipartisan body
— and because of the strong linkages it makes to our failed
chemicals policies.
Chemicals that the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition have
prioritized for regulatory action due to their significant impact on
health and the environment were singled out by the panel for action,
including asbestos, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene (TCE).
Formaldehyde, for example, is used in furniture, paneling, insulation,
wallpaper, adhesives and lacquers. TCE is a chlorinated hydrocarbon
largely used as an industrial solvent but also has been found as a
contaminant in drinking water. Much of the certainty around known human
carcinogens stems from studies in the workplace where the link between
a chemical and cancer in particular workers is, tragically, easier to
document.
Source: SaferChemicals.org
