Breast Cancer Action is part of the national Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition, working to create federal policy that will stop cancer before it starts. The coalition took a huge step forward yesterday when several Senators introduced the Safe Chemicals Act, which would fix the broken regulatory system that currently lets many cancer-causing toxins into our everday lives–and bodies.
The Safe Chemicals Act responds to forceful warnings from scientific and medical experts — including the President’s Cancer Panel — that current policies fail to keep cancer-linked chemicals out of our lives.
The Senate’s Safe Chemicals Act builds on momentum from 18 states that have passed laws to address health hazards from chemicals; and numerous corporate policies of major American companies restricting toxic chemicals, including Staples, SC Johnson, Wal-Mart and Kaiser Permanente.
The Safe Chemicals Act would overhaul the 35-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which has failed to protect public health and the environment.
Specifically the Act would:
- Require EPA to identify and restrict the “worst of the worst” chemicals, those that persist and build up in the food chain;
- Require basic health and safety information for all chemicals as a condition for entering or remaining on the market;
- Reduce the burden of toxic chemical exposures on people of color and low-income and indigenous communities;
- Upgrade scientific methods for testing and evaluating chemicals to reflect best practices called for by the National Academy of Sciences; and
- Generally provide EPA with the tools and resources it needs to identify and address chemicals posing health and environmental concerns.
a project of Breast Cancer Action