If you have reason to research how chemicals can harm your family-say, for example, your water supply has been found to be contaminated-please be careful. There is a lot of “information” available on the internet, but not all of it is reliable. In the unreliable category are studies performed or funded by the companies who manufacture those chemicals, or use them in their industrial processes. They have hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of dollars to gain by convincing us that their chemicals are safe. And while this extraordinary financial stake does not necessarily make their research false, common sense tells us that it may well cause them to resolve the scientific grey areas in favor of the conclusion that chemicals are safe, or not as dangerous as perhaps they truly are. That alone should cause you to look elsewhere for information to which you can trust your family’s health.
Who should you trust?
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), for one. NRDC is a non-profit organization of scientists, lawyers, and other professionals who approach health and environmental issues from the people’s point of view. They take no money from polluters and others who might want to minimize environmental dangers to human beings. They advocate for those things that protect people, and insist that all doubts about, say, whether a chemical is dangerous, be resolved in favor of protecting human life and health, unless and until the doubts can be conclusively resolved to prove such protection unnecessary.
Earlier this year, NRDC wrote this report to the EPA about two dangerous chemicals-TCE and PCE (called “PERC” in the report)-which years of industrial recklessness have caused to be spread throughout our environment, often at great danger to humans. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/nrdc-comments-tce-perc-scoping-20170315.pdf
If you are concerned about how your family might come into contact with TCE or PCE/PERC, how they move throughout the body, and their possible adverse health effects, please read this report. In overview, here are the sections of the report in which you might be most interested:
(1) Health Hazards of TCE and PERC (beginning at page 2):
·TCE is a human carcinogen
·PERC is a probable human carcinogen
(2) How Humans Come into Contact with TCE and PERC (“Use and Exposure Scenarios”, beginning at page 7):
·Indoor residential uses (page 8)
·Dry cleaners (page 11)
·Schools and workplaces (page 12)
·Substance abuse (page 14)
(3) Routes of Exposure (beginning at page 14):
·Contact with skin (page 14)
·Breathing contaminated air (page 15)
·Drinking contaminated water (page 15)
·Eating contaminated food (page 16)
(4) Susceptible Human Populations (beginning at page 18):
·Reproductive-aged men and women (page 18)
·Children (page 19)
·Working women and minorities (page 19)
As you can see, the report’s conclusions and statements are supported by footnoted links to other information, if you wish to deepen your research.
Where threats to your family from TCE and PCE/PERC exposure are concerned, this report is well-researched, current (as of March 2017), and prepared by a group of scientists and other professionals who have only the protection of your family’s health in mind.
You can trust it.
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