Legally poisoned : how the law puts us at risk from toxicants / Carl F. Cranor.

Take a random walk through your life and you'll find it is awash in industrial, often toxic, chemicals. Cosmetic ingredients, industrial chemicals, pesticides, and other compounds enter our bodies and remain briefly, or permanently. Far too many suspected toxic hazards are unleashed every day that affect the development and function of our brain, immune system, reproductive organs, or hormones. But no public health law requires product testing of most chemical compounds before they enter the market. If products are deemed dangerous, toxicants must be forcibly reduced or removed, but only after harm has been done. In this scientific legal analysis, the author argues that just as pharmaceuticals and pesticides cannot be sold without pre-market testing, other chemical products should be subject to the same safety measures. He shows, in detail, what risks we run, and that it is entirely possible to design a less dangerous commercial world. -- From publisher description.