Health-Averse Products

None too soon, the government of Canada has come to a laudable decision which in its prosecution and further development will help Canadians live healthier lives. It's inconceivable to begin with that government health agencies wouldn't be alert to the problems inherent in producing everyday consumer products using chemicals that prove to be inherently harmful to human health and the environment.

People do trust that government agencies tasked with ensuring the health, safety and security of the population take themselves seriously enough to protect Canadians against harmful elements in the manufacture of consumer goods used on a daily basis. We're so trusting as consumers that we take it on blind trust that government agencies oversee such matters routinely.

Yet it has taken an initiative by the current government to identify and label as toxic chemicals elements commonly used in products such as chewing gum, cosmetics, hygiene products, and even silicone breast implants.

Eleven such chemicals (out of thousands used in various products) have been isolated, including Vinyl acetate, a carcinogen used as a base in chewing gum. Cancer-causing agents heedlessly included in products used on a daily basis by people unaware of their potentially harmful effects.

Additionally, there are some synthetic chemicals whose use may be eliminated entirely because of their potentially harmful effects on the environment. These are synthetic chemicals used in the preparation of cleaning compounds, cosmetics and shampoos, creams, lotions and antiperspirants.

Six of the eleven chemicals have been noted as being toxic to human health. Those toxins are Vinyl acetate, used in food additives, paints, sealants and plastics, along with yellow and red pigment dyes, used in paints, dyes, inks and plastics. Others are used in the manufacture of electronic products, insecticides and textiles; others still in rubber and plastic manufacture, coatings and adhesives.

Incredible: a chemical normally used in paints, sealants and plastics also goes into the food we eat, as an additive. Vinyl used in the manufacture of chewing gum. Little wonder our bodies are so unbelievably tainted with toxic chemicals; we ingest them, we breathe them into our systems from our polluted environment, our skin introduces them into our systems.

These toxic chemicals have been used because they offer some identified product enhancement. Making the product more indelible, smoother, more elastic, giving a silkier texture. In other words they offer to the manufacture the ability to produce a given product that exhibits some manner of consumer-favourable trait.

This is a government initiative long overdue. Manufacturers of consumer products should long ago have been placed on alert that their products, not conforming to basic safety standards for the consuming public, would not be permitted entry to the Canadian market either through home-based manufacture, or import.

This is, however, only a start, a beginning. Much more needs to be done. There are, without doubt, other harmful chemicals commonly used in manufacturing consumer goods. The constituents of too many products accepted as safe by the public prove to be anything but.

Government agencies need to be more vigilant, more willing to impose regulations in favour of peoples' health.

But it is a start, and a very welcome one.