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And we are all concerned by rising rates of certain childhood cancers, infertility, learning and developmental disabilities, not to mention things like early puberty and breast formation and the escalating rates of autism.
Studies show links between toxic chemicals we're exposed to every day and many of these negative health trends. And almost all pregnant women in America have toxic chemicals in their bodies.
On top of that (or perhaps because of it), the U.S. spends more than any other country on the planet managing disease. We now spend over $7,000 per person per year directly on health care. This sum does not include the cost of additional impacts, such as the costs of educating children with learning disabilities or emotional costs to a family coping with a mother's breast cancer diagnosis.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 133 million people in the U.S. - almost half of all Americans - are now living with these and other chronic diseases, which account for 70% of deaths and 75% of U.S. health care costs.
Which is why this week is such an important one. Congress will be debating the Safe Chemicals Act on Wednesday, a piece of legislation that would vastly improve the pre-marketing testing of many chemicals.
Why is this necessary? Because the legislation dates back to the 1970s and grandfathered in over 60,000 chemicals which means that safety testing was not conducted.
And as the rates of childhood cancers, pre-menopausal cancers, asthma and other diseases and conditions continue to impact the lives of our families and loved ones, we are learning that there is so much that we can do to help prevent these diseases from even starting in the first place.
And while some of this information can be hard to hear, knowledge is power and love is a rocket fuel. So stay with us this week, as we dig a bit deeper into the Safe Chemicals Act ahead of Wednesday's vote. Because together, we can create the changes we want to see in the health of our families, one consumer, one voter, one inspired American at a time.
To learn more, please visit here and follow us here at Prevention on Inspired Bites to learn what you can do as Congress votes on this important piece of legislation.
Saturated with environmental toxins, pharmaceutical poisons and stuffed with garbage food. Americans are fat, lazy, stupid and depressed. But for an accident of geography these are dead people. If they were living pretty well anywhere else in the world.
Therein lies the hope for the rest of the world. Americans just can't take what their government dishes out to everyone else. Too fragile and spoiled to cope with dislocation, shock, hardship that their own system is now inflicting on them.
Right now, the American polity is merely paralyzed. Soon enough though, they will turn on each other