These resources offer information about children and the environment and practical advice for protecting children from environmental hazards in their daily lives.
We will update this section regularly and encourage readers to send us requests for further information. Please let us know, too, if you’ve come across information to share.
Poisoned for Profit is also a compilation of information and analyses from the most credible sources, and includes extensive footnotes and references to them. The following list includes some of the public sources of additional information you may wish to explore.
Governmental Agencies
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services offers detailed information about the health effects of toxics. Its web site aimed at children and parents is user friendly. www.atsdr.cdc.gov/child
The Centers for Children’s Environmental Health & Disease Prevention Research of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences conducts extensive research on children and the environment and makes much of its work available to the public in formats usable by parents and even children. www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/centers/prevention/
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Children’s Health Protection has collected a storehouse of useful information about environmental dangers to children’s health, where they can occur and how to avoid them. yosemite.epa.gov/ochp/ochpweb.nsf
The National Institutes of Health has compiled a Household Products database tracks 7,000 products by brand name (but information is missing on ingredients that manufacturers withhold as trade secrets). householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov
The National Institutes of Health has compiled adatabase of Toxic Substances, where they can be encountered, and what various federal agency research says about them is available at toxtown.nlm.nih.gov
Web Resources for Scientific Research
Author and toxicologist Steven G. Gilbert has compiled a goldmine of information for the layman (woman) on various types of toxics, their effects on the body, the settings where you encounter toxics, regulatory agencies, and references to further sources, all in an interactive format, can be found at www.asmalldoseof.org.
Based on years of research by leading scientists, a web-interactive database of toxicants and diseases is available at database.healthandenvironment.org. Maintained and updated by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, it summarizes the evidence of exposure to chemical contaminants and over 180 associated human diseases or conditions. It is a useful tool for researchers, health professionals, health-affected groups and others interested in reviewing the weight of evidence between associated toxicants and diseases. The database also features links to other useful databases and resources.
For science-related questions about the toxicity of a chemical or situation, email ask@busbrp.org. This will bring you to “Ask the Researcher,” an initiative of Boston University’s School of Public Health; scientists of various disciplines will take on a question every few months and post their answer at busbrp.org/ask.html.
The Natural Resources Defense Council offers “Ask Dr. Gina,” who will answer questions; find her at NRDC’s good guide, Simple Steps, www.simplesteps.org.