Book Review
Exposed EXPOSED: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, by Mark Schapiro
I
n 2007, many Californians received dramatic mailings from a group named Californians for Fire Safety warning that if legislation banning some fire-retardant chemicals is passed, we would all be at much greater risk of burning to death. But these “Californians” are actually chemical industry lobbyists; firefighters themselves support the proposed legislation, and the chemicals in question have already been banned elsewhere due to concerns about health impacts such as increased cancer, birth defects, and reproductive problems. This latter point—that we in the U.S. allow use of substances deemed too toxic in other nations, especially European countries—is the primary focus of San Francisco journalist Mark Schapiro’s Exposed (Chelsea Green, 219 pages, $22.95). And while environmental science underlies the book’s argument, it is notable that Schapiro’s perspective is more a “business” one than otherwise. His startling message is that by lagging behind on environmental innovation, American industries are jeopardizing their financial futures. And since money talks, he may have produced a book with more eventual impact than a crate of dire environmental warnings. Public health researchers at U.C. Berkeley “estimate that forty-two billion pounds of chemicals enter American commerce daily—enough chemicals to fill up 623,000 tanker trucks, a string of trucks that could straddle the globe three times, every day” notes Schapiro. Further, “fewer than five hundred of those substances … have undergone any substantive risk assessments.” At the same time as this massive post-World War II production has taken place, research has demonstrated health hazards even—especially, in some cases—at very low doses. And children, fetuses, and pregnant women are especially vulnerable. Schapiro writes that, ironically, although we like to think of our nation as more advanced in such arenas, “It is now fair to ask: Is America itself becoming a new dumping ground for products forbidden in other countries because of their toxic effects?” Consider cosmetics. A survey of common products “found hundreds of varieties of skin and tanning lotions, nail polish and mascara and other personal-care products that contain known or possible carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins.” Contrary to common assumption, most cosmetics are not effectively tested or regulated for their health effects. European authorities, however, started to demand toxicity information before multinational companies could continue to market their products there,
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Steve Heilig, MPH
and this development did garner corporate attention and action. Chemicals put on the European Union “negative list” were removed from products—without seeming to hurt the bottom line. Back at home, however, such as when a Safe Cosmetic Act was proposed for California, chemical lobbyists convened en masse in Sacramento to argue that there were no risks from the chemicals used. The example of cosmetics can be seen as one of voluntary exposure, although consumers would seem to have a right to know exactly what they put onto or into their bodies. But Schapiro provides similar case studies of other chemicals or categories of substances, such as phthalates used in plastics, persistent organic pollutants including pesticides, and genetically modified foods, where much of our exposures occur even if we do not actively use the product. Meanwhile, federal agencies we might expect to protect us, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, have been “eviscerated from within” by the current Federal administration. The advent of the European Union has tilted balances of power in many ways, including how “chemical politics” now take place. When the E.U. developed far-reaching new regulations to reduce exposure to harmful substances, American chemical lobbyists swarmed across the Atlantic to fight them. But E.U. markets are now bigger than those in America, and as one diplomat there states, “We are not going to ask the United States for permission.” “U.S. environmental policies are not sparking innovation; they are fighting it,” Schapiro holds. European experts calculate that their new safer chemical policy will “be repaid many times over by its benefits.” “Europe is looking at the future,” Schapiro concludes. “This is not utopian; it’s more like a realpolitik for the twenty-first century.” How ironic then, that short-sighted, self-serving perspectives in what was once the “New World” have become outmoded, and that they are putting Americans at risk not only in terms of our health but of our economic future. A previous version of this review appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Brominated flame retardants—safety at what cost? Albert L. Juhasz, et al. The Lancet. December 1, 2007. “The bioaccumulative nature of PBDEs and the increasing concentrations of these compounds in human samples mirror previous reports for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and DDT before their bans ... exposure of fetuses in utero or infants via breast milk and dust to PBDEs might lead to neurological deficits, which have been observed after exposure to the structurally similar PCBs.”
January/February 2008 San Francisco Medicine 39