A new bill could alter the landscape of chemical regulation in the United States by empowering researchers to take swift action against the most potentially harmful chemicals in use today.
The bill, to be introduced later this month, would give the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and a panel of experts selected by the director, the power to ban up to 10 chemicals from commerce each year by categorizing them as being of high concern.
Those chemicals would become unlawful to use 24 months after receiving that designation.
Among the chemicals that could be subject to a ban is bisphenol A, or BPA, a hormone-disrupting substance widely used in plastics that has been the target of controversy in recent months.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/08/chemical.bans/Teresa Heinz Kerry's chapter 2 in "This Moment on Earth" contained a lot of information on this issue.