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"When you have 92 percent of the American population exposed to a chemical, this is not one where you want to be wrong," said Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network. "Are we going to quibble over individual rodent studies, or are we going to act?"One of the problems we face when it comes to regulating toxic substances is that the EPA and the FDA aren't generally able to apply a strong "precautionary principle" the way regulators do in Europe. In essence, a strong precautionary principle would allow our government to act even when, as stated in a European Commission document, "scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain." In those cases, advocates for a particular substance would need to demonstrate unequivocally the substance's safety. Instead, we require almost total scientific consensus regarding a substance's danger before the EPA or the FDA will act.