Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power

I couldn’t get out of my car when I got home because I was listening to a radio interview with author Mark Shapiro about how the European Union has taken precautionary actions to protect themselves from the assault of thousands and thousands of untested chemicals that American Companies use in a huge range of items, especially cosmetics and toys. The EU has banned untested chemicals and become the world leader in safe products, with the largest economy in the world. Yet the patriarchs of US Industry and politicians like Mr. Bush keep poisoning us, telling us the economy will collapse if they are forced to seek alternatives. I’ll be buying Mark Shapiro’s book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power at my local bookstore today.

What Shapiro doesn’t seem to talk about, is how women spend 86% of point of sale dollars, and if we chose to purchase only items upholding EU standards, we could change the US marketplace in an instant! To see if your favorite products meet EU stands, check out the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database.

Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power
By Mark Shapiro

Publishers Synopsis
Plastic, Poison, and Power in the New World Order

New evidence seems to arrive daily—from stories about tainted pet food to toxic toys—of the dangerous consequences that lax environmental policies are having on the consumer products that we, and our children, use every day thanks to lobbying efforts by the U.S. chemical industry. Meanwhile, the European Union is forcing these global corporate giants to chart a new path that, by requiring safe products, is revamping how businesses can create safe products and make money.

In Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power investigative journalist Mark Schapiro takes the reader inside the corridors of global power where tectonic battles are occurring that will impact the health of ourselves and the planet. Schapiro’s exposé shows how laws adopted by the European Union—where stricter consumer-safety standards are in place—have forced multinationals into manufacturing safer products. And, short of such strong government action the United States will lose its claim of economic and enviro nmental supremacy. Increasingly, products developed and sold in the United States are equated with serious health hazards, and many of those products are soon to be banned from Europe and other parts of the world.

Schapiro’s revelations in this thought-provoking work will change the way American consumers think about everyday products—from plastic softeners that can contribute to sexual malformations to lipstick additives that are potential toxins to the brain, liver, kidneys, and immune system. And it will stir them into forcing our government to take the lead of others, including the European Union, China, and countries in Central and South America. Exposed is a revealing and fascinating look at global markets, everyday products, and the toxic chemicals that bind them. It will shock, inform, and warn American businesses and government leaders about the risks of being left behind in the international marketplace.

Schapiro’s book shines a light on Europe’s evolving search for higher standards that places Brussels, not Washington, at the center of global market innovation.

Comments

[D.S.]

Over the last 50 years, more than 80,000 synthetic chemicals have entered the environment. It's outrageous that weak standards by the federal government have allowed many of these chemicals into the marketplace without being thoroughly tested for their effects on human and environmental health. And the chemicals are not always listed on the product labels!

This places the burden on consumers to educate themselves and speak with their purchasing power. This book seems like a great way to do both of those things.