A bill is pending in Congress which can help to reduce the exposure of children to potentially toxic environmental hazards. The School Environmental Protection Act (SEPA), S. 1716, would result in several important first steps in making our schools safer places for children.
Children face an array of exposures to potentially toxic environmental hazards. We are polluting our children’s primary environments, including our work and school classrooms and playgrounds, with known hazardous substances. These include lead, PCBs, solvents, asbestos, radon, and pesticides. Exposure to these substances may be doing damage that will only show up 10, 20 or 30 years from now. Some actually refer to this as a great, uncontrolled experiment on our children—the full consequences of which we will only know in 2 or 3 generations.
Very little is known about the health effects on children of continued exposure to most of these chemicals and virtually nothing is known of the effects of being exposed to combinations of these chemicals. A recent study in the United Kingdom found that combining three common pesticides made them over 100 times more toxic in some circumstances.
In general, SEPA
You can find out the current status of the S. 1716 by visiting the “Beyond Pesticides” web site (http://www.beyondpesticides.org/schools/index.htm). You can also check the web site of the “Children’s Environmental Health Network” (http://www.cehn.org/).
The actions suggested above are important and timely and should be carried out whatever the current status of the bill. In the event that a bill has been sent to the President’s desk, you can direct your activity towards his office.
Copyrighted by the United Methodist Church-General Board of Church & Society. Permission granted for use by denominations of the National Council of Churches of Christ and their congregations.
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