Toxic Chemicals Move to Center Stage

Abstract

The conference room in the new Executive Office Building across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House was jammed. I managed to find standing room at a considerable distance from the White House staffers who were beaming with a sense of personal accomplishment at the far end of the table. They had called together representatives of about 20 government agencies to inform them of the procedures for implementing the newly enacted National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 which the presidential staff had shepherded through the Congress.

Chemistry: a science that deals with the composition, structure, and properties of substances and with the transformations that they undergo.

—Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary

Any substance can be toxic when administered in sufficient amount. Even essential nutrients like vitamins are poisons when taken in too large a quantity. But this does not mean that the amounts of substances to which an organism normally may be exposed pose a significant hazard or, indeed, any hazard at all.

—American Chemical Society

The Congress finds that (1) human beings and the environment are being exposed each year to a large number of chemical substances and mixtures; (2) among the many chemical substances and mixtures . . . are some whose manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment. . . .

—Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976