Rx for Environmental Ills

What can be done to prevent new toxic substances from entering the environment? Answer: screen out dangerous chemical compounds before they are used in products or manufacturing processes. Easier said than done. Some 2 million chemical compounds are known, and an estimated 25,000 new ones are developed every year. Of the total, about 10,000 have significant commercial uses, and most of them are not dangerous. Even so, to test those that might cause birth defects, cancer or other diseases would be time consuming and costly.

Most of the current testing of new compounds is done by manufacturers. If their record is spotty, it is at least partially due to the difficulty of setting up foolproof test procedures. The tests depend largely on interpreting how results in laboratory animals will apply to man, and they usually fail to take into account synergistic effects (a seemingly benign substance, combined with other compounds in the environment, sometimes becomes hazardous). The chemical industry is moving to correct the situation. Eleven of the biggest companies have pledged $12 million to start a Chemical Institute of Toxicology to work out better test procedures.

Congress seems ready to go even further. Of four proposed toxic-substances bills now being considered, one is strongly backed by a combination of environmentalists and labor leaders. It would force manufacturers to prove that all their products are safe before they are put on the market, and make the Environmental Protection Agency responsible for screening that proof for "unreasonable risk" to human health and the environment. The chemical industry, claiming that such a measure would duplicate existing laws, favors a weaker bill requiring manufacturers to notify the EPA only about products containing compounds that the agency has listed as dangerous; the EPA then would test the products for safety. What will probably pass Congress is a compromise measure: only potentially hazardous chemicals would have to be tested by industry, with the EPA having final review power. Manufacturers who ignored the agency's decision to keep a product off the market would be subject to criminal prosecution and fines of as much as $25,000 a day.

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