The New York Times reports:
'FOR nearly 40 years, the Food and Drug Administration has wrestled with regulating the chemicals triclosan and triclocarban as they have become among the world’s most ubiquitous environmental contaminants. Designed to kill bacteria, they have been added to antibacterial soaps, cosmetics and other consumer products despite longstanding concerns about their impacts on humans and the environment.
The fact that they are still being used underscores the need to reform the nation’s regulatory system and manufacturing approach for chemicals.
We just completed an analysis of 143,000 peer-reviewed research papers to track the progress of what we call chemicals of emerging concern. We found that it takes around 14 years from the point at which safety issues are raised about a chemical before scientists’ concern peaks and regulators act.
In the case of triclosan and triclocarban, regulatory action has taken a lot longer, even though we know that these chemicals can interfere with the human endocrine system, affecting development and metabolism, and may also be contributing to antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause human infections.
The F.D.A. considered removing the chemicals from some consumer products in 1974 but concluded that there was inadequate data on their safety and said that it would reconsider the issue in a year. A seemingly unending series of reviews followed.
These chemicals belong to a class of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) compounds known as organohalogens. Perhaps the best known of these is DDT, a widely used pesticide banned in 1972 after devastating fish and bird populations (we still find remnants of it today in the blood of adults, children and newborns). While triclosan and triclocarban are not DDT, they share similarities that make them slow or impossible to degrade — their carbon-halogen bonds.
Regulators should also sharply curtail the use of two other classes of organohalogens: brominated organics, used primarily as flame retardants, and fluorinated compounds, used in food packaging, textiles and many consumer products.
We’ve known for decades that organohalogens pose potential hazards. The problem is, we don’t regulate chemicals by class, but individually, one compound at a time. And with about 84,000 chemical compounds in commercial use, and another 500 to 1,000 new ones introduced each year, we’ve created a situation that is impossible to regulate effectively.
We must make safety, health and sustainability priorities throughout the life cycle of chemicals: their design, production, use, disposal and degradation. “Waste” is foreign in nature; all material flow is circular. We need to convert our linear approach to chemical manufacturing into a circular one, in which all products have a planned end-of-life.
We should regulate chemicals as we understand them: in groups. Instead of regulating one compound at a time and only after decades of debate, we should manage classes of PBT chemicals. Organochlorines, organobromines and organofluorines in consumer products pose intrinsic risks that rise with each carbon-halogen bond.
Regulations should also encourage industry to make products from benign or “green” chemicals. These are composed of basic, ubiquitous building blocks, not ones that are rare in nature and incompatible with biodegradation. Safer options are feasible and available.
Synthetic chemicals are vital to our society. But we should be doing everything possible to make sure they are safe.'
Read the article in full here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/making-chemistry-green.html?emc=edit_ty_20141110&nl=opinion&nlid=69125949&_r=0
What do you think?
Are synthetic chemicals adequately regulated in our country? Is current regulation supporting a sustainable future in terms of health and/or the environment?
Image source
It is proposed that synthetic chemicals should be regulated by class rather than one compound at a time