Mmm, Chemicals

I used to have a lot of faith in the fact that I thought the FDA did a good job of protecting citizens like you and me from being exposed to things that were harmful to us. I have slowly come to a realization over the last few months that this is not the case. Companies are not required to perform testing on many chemicals that are used in their products. We are the guinea pigs for many of these chemicals. If a company claims that a new chemical is 'substantially' like an existing chemical, it is usually approved with no testing whatsoever. The thing is, changing even one small part of a chemical compound can have totally unexpected effects. You can go to the store right now and buy products that have known human carcinogens in them. Would you do that if you knew what those products were? Why is this allowed to happen? I admit it may be partially due to the fact that life expectancies have increased over the last 100 years, but it sure does seem like an inordinate number of people have cancer nowadays. Think about this for a minute - once upon a time, DDT and asbestos sounded like good ideas. In any case, I have found the following web site useful. It rates personal care products by the chemicals that they contain, and can help you choose less harmful products if you're so inclined.