Chemicals Policy, Politics and Public Health

Across the lifespan, the manufacture, use and disposal of chemicals in all venues including the healthcare industry results in the release of hazardous chemicals, which harms human health and the environment. Investigations aimed at assessing exposures to chemicals through body burden measurements of adults and children have identified hundreds of industrial chemicals in blood samples, with children and fetuses being most vulnerable to this onslaught. Research suggests that chemicals interfere with sexual development, disrupt hormones and cause or contribute to development of diseases - cancer, asthma, birth defects, developmental disabilities, autism, and infertility.

U.S. laws do not adequately protect public health and need reforming. Current U.S.laws (such as Toxic Substance Control Act) fail to provide for adequate testing of existing or new chemicals; fail to regulate for known chemical hazards, or to provide adequate incentives for use of safer alternatives. Laws must be changed to require better health data on chemicals; to eliminate the worst chemicals; to protect communities at highest risk, and to provide incentives for development of safer chemicals.

The European Union (EU) recently passed a law (REACH) that regulates chemicals requiring manufacturers to provide health and safety data on chemicals and moves the market towards safer alternatives. Nationally, there is a movement endorsing The Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals as a roadmap for changing chemicals management system so that it protects workers, communities, and most vulnerable populations. Shifts in international chemicals policy and the Louisville Charter offer critical guidance for the development a model chemicals policy within the U.S.

Nursing groups and individual nurses need to support safer chemicals legislation at local, state, national and international levels. Health Care Without Harm and American Nurses Association have developed a campaign for such legislation and provide important guidelines on organizing state-level nurses associations and nurses in becoming involved in legislative campaigns to reform chemical policy and move healthcare facilities towards implementing safe chemicals policies.