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The Concerns of the Chemical Industry: A Look Back at a Report from 45 Years Ago

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A report from almost 45 years ago highlights the concerns surrounding the chemical industry's approach and its impact on the environment. Despite the passage of time, little has changed in terms of the industry's expansion and use of chemicals.

Almost 45 years ago, I co-led a report titled Our ­Chemical Society for the City of Toronto’s Department of Public Health, for whom I then worked.

At that time, it was estimated, there were ­60,000-100,000 chemicals in commercial use, with 1,000 new chemicals introduced annually. Of these, 34,000 chemicals were on the U.S. EPA’s 1978 Toxic Effects List and there were 1,400 pesticides used in North America. The study assessed whether we have passed the planetary boundary for “novel entities.” These are “new substances, new forms of existing substances and ­modified life forms,” things of which nature — ­including we humans — has no experience and not much adaptive capacity.

In our 1981 report, we expressed concern in ­particular about the problem of ecotoxicity: the ­dispersal of harmful pollutants throughout the ­environment . Because of inadequate testing and population health monitoring and research, a commission on pollution and health, established by The Lancet, suggested in 2017 that there are large categories of pollutants for which we lack knowledge of their actual health impacts.

 

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