A coalition of environmental health scientists slammed the federal toxics law as a failure, despite the Biden administration’s promises for more stringent implementation.
The group of 25 experts, called the Consortium for Children’s Environmental Health, are re-upping warnings that the rise of chronic diseases diagnosed in children is associated with an increased use of chemicals in everyday products. And the Toxic Substances Control Act has “failed to provide” EPA with the adequate authority to reduce exposures to unreasonably risky chemicals, the authors wrote.
“The law thus effectively encourages unfettered chemical production at the expense of children’s health,” they wrote in the article, published Wednesday in the acclaimed peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine. “It is broken legislation.”
Congress majorly revamped TSCA in 2016 when it passed amendments that gave EPA new responsibilities to reign in uses of dangerous existing chemicals and assess the risks of new chemicals before they enter the market, among other powers.
