Our Chemical World
To give you an idea of the number of new chemicals being introduced into our world today look at the exponential growth in just 1 year. In 2009 alone over 10 million new chemicals were registered with the Chemical Abstracts Service, bringing the total number of registered chemicals to 50 million*. Liver toxicity has been documented for approximately 1/3 of 677 chemicals in the NIOSH Pocket Guide. However, what is more concerning is the fact that basic toxicity data is unavailable for nearly 75% of high production volume (HPV, 1 million pounds/year) chemicals as late as 1997**.
*American Chemical Society
**Toxic Ignorance 1997, Environmental Defense Fund.
Terry Pfau DO, HMD