Community Conversations

Why do we need a conversation about public health and chemical exposures?

Each day, people in the United States come across thousands of different chemicals in their homes, workplaces, and schools. Because we use chemicals in so many aspects of our lives, we must carefully balance their benefits and risks. Many chemicals enhance our quality of life and offer real benefits. Some chemicals, for example, are often used to disinfect our drinking water supply. But exposure to other chemicals can cause shortterm health effects, longterm health effects, or both. For many chemicals, we may not know or fully understand the risks exposure poses. Also, some groups—children, the elderly, people of color, and lowincome communities—face higher health risks because of certain chemical exposures. As a nation, we can and should do a better job of protecting everyone from harmful chemical exposures.

We’ve come a long way, but we need to go further

Over the past few decades, several laws have helped to reduce exposures to some wellknown, harmful chemicals. Removing lead from gasoline, for example, greatly reduced blood lead levels in the United States. Still, we lack a system that adequately protects the public from all kinds of chemical hazards. To achieve such protection, we must improve scientific knowledge, modernize policies, use best practices, educate health professionals and the public, and much more.

Better science to protect the public

We have learned a lot about how chemical exposures can affect our health, but a lot remains that we don’t fully understand.We know that we are exposed to multiple chemicals at the same time but past studies largely have focused on the health effects of exposure to one chemical. National biomonitoring studies, which measure chemicals in blood, urine or other body tissues, have measured in United States residents more than 200 chemicals. But we still do not have enough information about the how these multiple exposures may affect our health. And given our current level of exposure, we also do not understand the health risks many of these chemicals pose.

Documents (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader):

• Community Conversations - Summary for Eugene, OR
• Community Conversations - Summary for Grants Pass, OR
• 6-7-2010 Community Conversation Notes - Eugene, OR

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