• Introduction
• Healthy People
  • Pollution in People
  • Safer Chemicals
  • Current Campaigns
  • Partnerships
• Healthy Economy

Healthy People

Before taking their first breath, every baby is now born polluted with hundreds of toxic and untested chemicals added to everyday products. This toxic trespass on our bodies comes with a cost, increased risk for long-term health problems.

Chronic disease and disabilities have reached epidemic proportions in the United States, affecting more than one-third of our population. Scientific evidence increasingly links toxic chemicals in the products we use in our homes, schools, and workplaces to the increases of disease and disability we are experiencing. For example;

• More than 100 industrial chemicals are known to harm the human brain and nervous system. Exposure to these chemicals, known as neurotoxins, can cause learning and developmental disabilities and lead to cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s.
• Breast cancer is linked to chemical insult on the body in three significant ways: chemical carcinogens can damage DNA, tumor promoting chemicals can make cancer cells grow, and developmental toxicants make mammary glands more vulnerable to cancer causing chemicals. Researchers have identified 216 chemicals that caused increased breast tumors in lab studies.

The human cost to families and communities of cancer, autism, birth defects, Parkinson’s disease and the many other diseases and disabilities linked to exposure to environmental contaminants is immeasurable. The economic cost exceeds $5 billion annually in health care costs and lost productivity.

To be healthy people we need to phase out the use of toxic chemicals in favor of safer alternatives.