Climate change policy has finally reached the center of the political agenda as President Biden and other world leaders prepare to discuss how the planet can collectively mitigate this grave threat. There are many other issues of environmental sustainability that receive less attention but also pose substantial threats to human and ecological well-being. While all new drugs are reviewed by medical experts in our Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration before they are authorized for use, new chemicals face no similar rules and are only regulated after they are proven dangerous. Many dangerous chemicals continue to be unregulated due to the weakness of the rules and the political power exerted by chemical companies. New drugs are subject to rules based on the precautionary principle, while new chemicals are not. Last week, the Biden Administration took a small step toward regulating some of the more persistent and dangerous chemicals in wide use. As Lisa Friedman of the New York Times reported on October 20:
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Source: Phys.org