UP TO OUR NECKS IN CHEMICALS

摘要

Understanding the risks posed by additives and contaminants seems like a mission impossible. For a start, most chemicals are only tested in animals, and then at high doses, so their impact on humans isn't clear. At the same time, industries make and use synthetic chemicals in so many different forms that without a step change in the way we assess them, there is little chance of quantifying the risks they pose, says Julian Cribb, an Australian journalist and author of Poisoned Planet. Even the exact number of chemicals marketed globally is unknown, he says. One guide is the number registered with the EU -which stands at around 144,000. Of these, roughly a third are thought to be harmful, says Cribb, but "the vast majority have not been assessed for human or environmental safety".