TOXIC
DANGERS
HUFFINGTON
11.11.12
d Brown recalls
the “funny taste”
of Darth Vader’s legs. He also remembers how it never stopped him
from chewing more teeth marks
into his Star Wars action figure.
“I still wish I was 5 years old,”
said Brown. “Playing with my
little Transformers or GI Joe guys,
not once did I ever think about
what those things were made out
of — the paint on them, or the
plastic they were made out of, or
the stickers on the sides of them...
My parents, I’m sure they didn’t
think about it either.”
Three decades later, and now
a parent himself, Brown thinks
about those things.
Like a growing number of moms
and dads, he thinks about not only
what toxic chemicals might lace his
kids’ toys, but also what could con-
The plight of
a protective
parent in a
CHEMICAL
WORLD
Lynne Peeples
Frank Stockton
taminate school supplies, Halloween costumes, mattresses, paints,
cleaners and shampoos.
Such thoughts can be overwhelming.
An estimated 26.9 trillion pounds
of some 84,000 different chemicals are produced in or imported
into the U.S. every year. That’s
about 250 pounds of synthetic
substances per U.S. resident, per
day, with the potential consequences of exposures to those
chemicals going beyond the indi-