The Health Care Costs of Toxic Chemical Exposure
What if we passed the Safer Alternatives Bill in Massachusetts or reformed the Federal Toxics Substances Control Act, how much healthier would we really be? And how much money would we save in health care costs? A new report by the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Campaign looks to answer just those questions.
The report authors gathered information from a variety of peer reviewed studies on the health effects of toxic chemicals which estimated that toxic chemicals cause a minimum of:
- 3% of developmental disabilities
- 5% of childhood cancer
- 10% of diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease and neurodevelopmental disorders
- 30% of childhood asthma
We also know that more and more people are getting sick. Over the past three decades, the number of people suffering from breast cancer, asthma, learning disabilities, Parkinson's disease, difficulty conceiving and maintaining a pregnancy, leukemia and other chronic diseases has been on the rise.
In 2003 the European Commission developed a simple, and very conservative, estimate of how much money would be saved by passing new toxic chemical laws. They estimated that 1% of chronic disease is caused by toxic chemicals (the estimates above show us that this is probably extremely low). They also estimated that 10% of that 1% could be prevented by laws that prevent exposure to toxic chemicals.
Using the Europeans' very conservative formula to estimate savings here in the U.S. the report finds that the U.S. would save $5 billion in annual health care costs and that Massachusetts would save over $104 million.
Not only are those numbers very low estimates, but that's in direct health care costs alone! Passing laws to make us healthier would also save money in unemployment and lost work days, special education, lost school days, and much more.
Molly Jacobs, Project Manager at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production and a contributor to the report said,
“We have long known that prevention pays. It is a simple equation: take away the chemical exposures in our workplaces, communities and consumer products that contribute to illness and disease rates decline along with associated health care costs."
Yet another good reason to pass the Safer Alternatives Bill.
Download the report
Read the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow press release
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