While it's a positive move for EPA to announce drinking water health advisories for PFAS chemicals, this is just one of many posing potential risks to health. Thorough risk assessments prior to entering the marketplace should be required for consumer safety for all chemicals. Toxic chemical exposures have proven to be directly connected to health issues in humans.
In my book, A Toxic Brain: Revelations from a Health Journey, I include some staggering statistics regarding our unprecedented toxic exposures, the majority untested for impact upon health.
"It’s estimated that every second 683 pounds (310 kilograms) of toxic chemicals are released into our air, land, and water by industrial facilities around the world. This constitutes more than 21 billion pounds of toxic chemicals released into our global environment annually.*
According to the EPA Inventory Update Reporting program, an estimated 27 trillion pounds of chemicals were produced in or imported into the United States per year in the last decade, which is the equivalent of approximately 74 billion pounds/day (nearly 250 pounds per person). This figure does not include fuels, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, or food products. It is also estimated that the use of chemicals will double by 2024.**
The 2019 report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that an average of 108 toxic chemicals are now found in every U.S. resident.++ The National Resources Defense Council, an environmental action group, reports that of the 80,000 known environmental chemicals, only 200 have been tested by the EPA."
The connection of toxins to health issues cannot be ignored. As Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, author of The Toxin Solution, with decades of researching an ocean of epidemiology and toxicology has stated, "We are doomed to huge burdens of disease if we don't get our act together on this," emphasizing that the medical community needs to take the toxin issue seriously, recognizing it as the dire public health issue that it is."
Citations:
* “EPA Inventory Update Reporting program,” https://www.worldometers.info/view/toxchem/ ,
accessed May 5, 2020.
** Ibid.
++ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, tables updated January 2019, https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/risk/hhra/recordisplay.cfm, accessed May 20, 2021.
A Toxic Brain: Revelations from a Health Journey.
Available on Amazon.com| Target | Barnes & Noble
EPA media release: https://trib.al/6lbwcMZ