Daily Vanguard - Thousands of chemicals approved without safety testing" European officials vote to adopt toughter standards on U.S. products
Tom Avril
November 05, 2003

Without requiring lab tests to determine their safety, the U.S. government has approved thousands of chemicals for use in such products as sofa cushions, soaps, paints and baby bottles. On average, two more chemicals are approved every day. The result: consumers are unwittingly part of a kind of vast, uncontrolled lab experiment. 'We're treating (people) worse than lab rats,' Karen Florini, an attorney with the non-profit group Environmental Defense said. 'At least with lab rats, somebody bothers to collect the data.'"