1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910973081703321

Autore

Cranor Carl F

Titolo

Legally poisoned : how the law puts us at risk from toxicants / / Carl F. Cranor

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass., : Harvard University Press, 2011

ISBN

9780674262843

0674262840

9780674058927

0674058925

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (328 p.)

Classificazione

AR 22360

Disciplina

363.73/63

Soggetti

Environmental health - Government policy - United States

Environmental toxicology

Pollution - Law and legislation - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Nowhere to hide -- Discovering disease, dysfunction, and death by molecules -- Caveat parens : a nation at risk from contaminants -- Reckless nation : how existing laws fail to protect children -- A more prudent approach to reduce toxic invasions -- What kind of world do we want to create?.

Sommario/riassunto

Take a random walk through your life and you'll find it is awash in industrial, often toxic, chemicals. Sip water from a plastic bottle and ingest bisphenol A. Prepare dinner in a non-stick frying pan or wear a layer of Gore-Tex only to be exposed to perfluorinated compounds. Hang curtains, clip your baby into a car seat, watch television-all are manufactured with brominated flame-retardants. Cosmetic ingredients, industrial chemicals, pesticides, and other compounds enter our bodies and remain briefly or permanently. Far too many suspected toxic hazards are unleashed every day that affect the development and function of our brain, immune system, reproductive organs, or hormones. But no public health law requires product testing of most chemical compounds before they enter the market. If products are deemed dangerous, toxicants must be forcibly reduced or removed-but



only after harm has been done. In this scientifically rigorous legal analysis, Carl Cranor argues that just as pharmaceuticals and pesticides cannot be sold without pre-market testing, other chemical products should be subject to the same safety measures. Cranor shows, in terrifying detail, what risks we run, and that it is entirely possible to design a less dangerous commercial world.