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Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (12 articles)
Date: Friday, July 26, 2019 at 5:52:47 AM
Author: DCHAS Membership Chair <membership**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG> 		Next by Date:
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Is lead sheeting a source of lead dust? And-Chemical Exposure question...
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 12:06:10 -0400
Author: Margaret Rakas

From: Monona Rossol <0000030664c37427-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**LISTS.PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (12 articles)
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 10:51:19 +0000
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: 1602864177.7060724.1564138279840**At_Symbol_Here**mail.yahoo.com
In-Reply-To


The item below on the list is really interesting.  I read the references and they have the right idea here.  The .E.U. has had the right to ban all products containing any of some  30,000 high production volume chemicals that they required toxicity testing of back in 2008.  The manufacturers, of course, didn't test the chemicals for toxicity, and the deadline for testing was in 2018.  I was sad to see the E.U. do nothing after setting up and passing this legislation..

Now a some ganseh macers at the Royal Society of Chemistry are proposing to go after the same problem in another way.  They got some numbers wrong (e.g., 80,000 chemicals in common use is about half the number it should be), but outside of that they are attempting to make the public aware that there is no toxicity testing of some 2000 new chemicals/year that enter our food and consumer products.  

They also are advocating testing of substitutes for known toxic chemicals when the substitutes are  untested and likely to have the same hazards as the chemical they are replacing.

I certainly wish them luck.  I wish anyone luck who would try to educate the public about how they are being "had" this way.    Because I think the only time any action is likely to be taken is when the average person realizes that the manufacturers who claim their products are safe actually are making these claims for a product full of ingredients whose toxicity is unknown.    Monona  

UK MPS CRITICISE GOVERNMENT INACTION ON HARMFUL CHEMICALS
Tags: United_Kingdom, public, discovery, environmental, toxics

A report calls for urgent changes to the way flame retardants and packaging additives are regulated

A committee of MPs has heard that the UK's approach to chemical regulation is one of =E2=80=98firefighting', and has called on the government to set ambitious targets for reducing toxic chemicals in the environment, including elimination of endocrine disruptors in consumer products. In a wide-ranging report, the Environmental Audit Committee details government inaction and delay, and the loss of expertise and funding in toxicology and environmental chemistry.

Michael Depledge from Exeter University in the UK lays out the scale of the task, given that there are around 80,000 chemicals in common use: =E2=80=98We try to make a regulation for each chemical that comes along-and we have about 2,000 new chemicals a year-but we can't get through them all. We have toxicity tested only a few per cent of the total amount, and we don't know how they interact in mixtures.' He adds that =E2=80=98it is the integrated impact of the chemicals that we need to get to grips with'.


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