SCHWARZENEGGER OKS CHEMICAL EXPOSURE RESEARCH
Reuters
September 30, 2006
Original LinkSACRAMENTO, California - California will become the first U.S. state to try to measure how its residents are absorbing chemicals from common products under a "bio-monitoring" bill signed on Friday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
State health officers will use blood, urine, tissue, hair and breast milk samples collected voluntarily from a cross-section of California, taking into account ethnic, age, income and geographic differences, to gauge levels of exposure.
"There are literally thousands of chemicals being used in our everyday products in the United States in cleaning supplies, pesticides, cosmetics and more. It's important to know more about how those chemicals are building up in our bodies or how they may be affecting our health," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
"Bio-monitoring will do just that by shedding some light on our bodies, our environment and on public health," he added.
State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, who advanced the legislation, said he had a personal interest in obtaining data on the extent to which Californians were exposed to potentially harmful chemicals.
"I have in my office alone five women recovering from cancer and I can't believe that my experience is much different from other people," Perata said.
"There seems to be demonstrably more cancer," the Democratic lawmaker said. "There has to be some correlation at some point."
Schwarzenegger's endorsement of the effort comes as he seeks re-election by promoting himself as a bipartisan problem-solver.
The celebrity Republican governor has in recent weeks signed a number of bills on environmental matters, including regulations aimed at industrial pollution linked to global warming, passed by the state's Democratic-led Legislature.
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