As a new mom, nearly every day brings another concern about your child. Lead in paint, lead in the wine you used to drink, asbestos in insulation, mercury in fish. The list could go on and on. You recently received a notice that the dry cleaner down the street from your house leaked perchlor-something into the ground and into the water, and it might be moving your way.
None of these things have anything familiar about them, well nothing except the fact that they get your new mom radar flashing and add to the new and seemingly never ending list of concerns for the new little being in your world. You wonder – where can you find reliable information on these things that are suddenly of concern? You learned a long time ago that you cannot trust these more worrisome questions to Google alone, you need a specific source you can trust.
Enter the Center for Disease Control’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The ATSDR created a Toxic Substances web portal that allows users of all different levels to investigate and understand for themselves, from an accurate and reputable source, what the health impacts are for different substances. The Toxic Substances web portal allows users to enter a query using the name of a substance, to search based on health impact, by a chemical classification, or from their specific user group, i.e. community member or professional, to find out a wealth of information about a toxic chemical they might be concerned about.
Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, known to most as “Superfund,” the ATSDR was required to create toxicological profiles for substances that were found on the National Priority List. This is a list of the most polluted and dangerous geographic locations nationwide that were identified as a result of passage of the Superfund Act.
The Toxic Substances web portal brings the time and effort of that research to the public’s virtual fingertips, allowing everyone the opportunity to educate themselves about the dangers of toxic chemicals they might run into in their everyday lives. The portal also provides high quality information to professionals who deal with emergency exposures, public health issues, and other concerns related to toxicity.
Information provided by the CDC on the Toxic Substances web portal is available to anyone who has questions about the toxic chemicals they run into in their personal and professional lives. Though the available information is not exhaustive, it is clear, accurate, and provided in a user friendly format.
Manufacturers of dangerous chemicals and products must be held responsible for any harm they cause. If you or a loved one has been harmed by a dangerous chemical product, call us at 888.777.1776 or use our online contact form. Delays can hurt your case, so please don’t wait.
