Food and drug manufacturers had the responsibility for producing and selling safe products. The government’s role was to act when there was a public health crisis, as when consumers were poisoned by contaminated food. The dangers to public health rose exponentially with the advances in synthetic organic chemistry during the 20th century as new untested compounds were introduced into commerce. Most dangerous exposures came from burning, eating, or handling dangerous substances found in nature. It was assumed that people were wise enough to avoid products with dangerous contaminants like arsenic once they were appropriately labeled. Protecting public health was largely about accurate labeling and contamination. The first food and drug legislation, which was passed in 1906, prohibited interstate commerce in misbranded and adulterated foods, drinks, and drugs. Congress has regulated dangerous substances in the environment using the General Welfare clause and the Public Goods doctrine in which dangerous substances cross interstate public lands and waterways. Congress has enacted laws that have afforded the Executive Branch the authority and responsibility to assess risks that threaten the “general welfare” and commensurate with its findings, and establish regulations or guidelines for reducing the hazards under the aegis of public health protection. This vague, but weighty, dictum gives Congress the grounds for collecting taxes and expending funds for passing public health laws to protect people at work, home, and in the environment from dangerous products, working conditions, and industrial pollutants. The phrase “promote the general welfare” appears in 2 places in the US Constitution: the Preamble and Article 1, Section 8. This Essay is part of the Challenges in Environmental Health: Closing the Gap between Evidence and Regulations Collection. Provenance: Commissioned by the Collection Editors, Linda Birnbaum and Liza Gross externally peer reviewed. Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals TSCA, Nonmonotonoic dose response relationship OIG, This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: The author received no specific funding for this work.Ĭompeting interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.Įndocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee FDA, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, United States of AmericaĬopyright: © 2017 Sheldon Krimsky. Citation: Krimsky S (2017) The unsteady state and inertia of chemical regulation under the US Toxic Substances Control Act.
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