First-Ever Government Report a "Wake-up Call"
on Toxic Exposure of Average Americans

Public Health Experts Troubled by Higher than Expected
Levels of Mercury, Pesticides, and Phthalates

Washington -- Public health experts and representatives from some of the
nation's largest health, education, religious, environmental, children's,
and women's organizations reacted with serious concern today to a government
report confirming the presence of multiple toxic chemicals in the bodies of
ordinary citizens. The report released today by the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) found that chemicals commonly used by industry,
in agriculture, and in some popular consumer products were present in the
bodies of most of the 5,000 Americans tested.

"This report is a wake-up call," said Philip Landrigan, M.D., Professor of
Pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Chair of the Committee
that produced the1993 National Academy of Sciences report, Pesticides in the
Diets of Infants and Children. "Americans are clearly being exposed to an
array of toxic chemicals, many of which can and should be avoided."

"The widespread exposure identified by the CDC is cause for concern"
according to John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., Director of the Center for Risk
Science and Public Health at George Washington University. "We do know that
some of these chemicals have been associated with various health effects at
higher levels-including certain cancers, birth defects, and developmental
and reproductive disabilities. What we don't know is what kinds of problems
may be associated with these chemicals at the levels identified today. We
should take these findings very seriously."

Today's report had particularly bad news for some children and women of
childbearing age for whom levels of mercury were higher than experts,
including the National Academy of Sciences in a report last fall, had
predicted. Every adult woman in the study has some measurable amount of
mercury in her body, and 10 percent of women of childbearing age have
levels so high that small increases in their exposure while pregnant could
jeopardize the health of their baby.

The report also revealed that women of childbearing age are regularly
exposed to a phthalate (tha-late) most clearly associated with developmental
effects in animals, and at levels much higher than estimated by the
government's National Toxicology Program just last year. Phthalates are used
in plastic products as softeners and in cosmetics and personal care products
as carriers of fragrance.

Additionally, experts noted very high levels of pesticides in 10 percent of
those tested. If results accurately predicted exposure for the rest of the
U.S. population, then millions of Americans could be exposed to very high
pesticide levels.

"What's really remarkable about the CDC's results is that in several
instances the chemical exposure levels they measure in the real world are
higher than levels predicted by scientific panels, the National Academy of
Sciences, and other experts," said Michael McCally, Codirector of the Center
for Children's Health and the Environment at the Mount Sinai School of
Medicine. "We may need to rethink a lot of our assumptions about the
public's exposure to a range of toxic substances," according to McCally, "or
at the very least increasingly rely on these direct, real world
measurements."

Balbus and McCally were joined by other physicians and representatives of
almost 20 national organizations highlighting the above conclusions of the
report and calling for a national program of chemical exposure monitoring
vastly larger than the pilot program which produced the results CDC
announced today. "There are 80,000 chemicals in commerce today, but only
the 27 chemicals in today's report have been systematically monitored for,"
said Richard Levinson, M.D., associate executive director of the American
Public Health Association. "We have to do a lot better," said Levinson.

The organizations called for exposure monitoring programs in every state,
monitoring for many more chemicals, and looking much more closely at
sensitive subpopulations like children and more highly exposed minority
populations. They also noted that additional information on the chemicals
covered in today's report will be available for the public at
www.toxicexposure.org.

"When a pregnant woman is exposed to poisons, so is her baby -- and that baby
is prey to long-term and irreversible neurological, developmental and
physical damage," said Gail Kincaide, Executive Director of the Association
of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. "Women need to know about
the chemicals in their environment and about the potential damage those
chemicals can wreak on their health and the health of their children and
their children-to-be."

The organizations underlined two pieces of good news in the government's
report today: national blood levels of lead and cotinine-from second hand
smoke-appear to be declining. "The national lead data show that government
regulations to control lead have benefited human health," said Bailus
Walker, M.D., Chairman of the Alliance To End Childhood Lead Poisoning and
former president of the American Public Health Association. "But these
national data mask the crushing reality that one-third of pre-school
children in many low-income minority communities are still poisoned by lead
paint hazards in their homes."

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For more press information, go to: www.toxicexposure.org/press/.