CA Legislature Targets Toxic Risks in Products (rebukes fed. regulation)

[DeepModem Mom]

Los Angeles Times:
Legislature Targets Toxic Risks in Products
By Jordan Rau
Times Staff Writer

May 30, 2005


SACRAMENTO — Moving more assertively than lawmakers in other states, the California Legislature is stepping into a growing global debate over how to regulate potentially dangerous chemicals used in perfume, nail polish, plastic baby bottles, rubber ducks and thousands of other products.....

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As early as next year, California also could become the first state to ban some types of phthalates and bisphenol A in toys and other products used by children under age 3. The widely used chemicals are suspected by some scientists of causing developmental problems in infants....

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If successful, the efforts in California could prompt similar measures in other states and require substantial change in the operations of the country's largest manufacturers....

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Taken together, the California proposals form an explicit rebuke to the approach of Congress and federal regulators, who generally do not ban chemicals until there is firm scientific evidence of their dangers.

Many of the California bills are modeled on the precautionary approach popular in Europe, where chemicals are often presumed dangerous unless proven otherwise....


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chemicals30may30,0,6280251,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[haele]

1. There comes a point where a body cannot take certain toxins anymore...

I'm now deathly allergic to the accellerant used in epoxy paints, 24 hr type glues and fixitives, and fingernail polish, amongst other items. I used to work shipyards and had been exposed to these chemicals all the time; and these were supposed to be "safe" according to federal regulations.
Many of the other items I used regularly, like anti-sieze compound and weatherproofing compounds, are listed as "potentially" hazardous due to some possibility they can cause liver and pancreas damage, even when simply handled with bare skin. Let me tell you, very few of us used gloves when handling these compounds; it wasn't "practical" in the small, hard to access areas where we were usually applying them; and many times, you would end up with smears of these compounds on clothing and bare skin when removing your arm from around the machinery you were applying them to.

Now, after 25 years of exposure, I have trouble breathing and can pass out when exposed to epoxies and certain other aerosols. If I didn't have company health care and access to worker's compensation, I'd be in some serious health cost problems.
One of my co-workers died of liver failure at the age of 41, an otherwise fit, fairly healthy eating and moderate drinker, who used anti-sieze quite regularly.

Do we have possible work related causations here? The State of California thinks so, and I'm wondering if a lot of this newfound interest comes from the fact that Worker's Compensation claims are going up as safety standards, especially environmental health standards, are going down.

If they don't want to have to deal with the used-up, sick memebers of the workforce that have been kicked to the curb once they become too sick to work, the State, which increasingly bears the expense of keeping and rehabilitating the sick and injured worker, have to start doing something about it.

Haele

[doodadem]

2. Scientists link plastic food containers with breast cancer

A chemical widely used in food packaging may be a contributing factor to women developing breast cancer, scientists have suggested.

The study links the compound to the development of hormone sensitive tissue in mice and has prompted environmental campaigners to call for far tighter regulation of such chemicals.
(snip)
The compound involved is called bisphenol-A or BPA. It is used in plastic food containers, cans and dental sealants and other research suggests it leaches from products and is absorbed in low concentrations by the human body,
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk