Ken Cook from Environmental Working Group presents Ten Americans: Part 3

For the past five years a campaign has been building to protect the most vulnerable to
protect all of us. It is called the Kids Safe Chemicals Act and here is what this law in
summary would do if it got on the books and we want it on the books. It would require
that chemicals be proven by the companies to be safe for children and others who are
sensitive before the chemicals are allowed on the market. What a concept. It assumes
that chemicals are harming people until it is proven otherwise, until it is proven safe
by the companies. Now it goes the other way. You have got tens of thousands of chemicals
where do you start trying to unravel the problem? Well this bill says let us start with chemicals
that we have reason to believe are hazardous and end up in people. And this is where the
ten Americans come in. This bill says that if chemicals show up in umbilical cord blood
we are going to assume that they are unsafe and we are going to require the companies
that make those chemicals to prove that they are safe on an expedited basis before they
can come onto the market or remain on the market. And that is what we hope the Kids
Safe Chemicals Act will do. Scientists, medical leaders, religious leaders,
environmental organizations are coming together and it is the most exciting development in
my professional life dealing with toxic chemicals and the problems they cause.
This is another image of my baby Callahan Cook. He is about two weeks old. When I look
into his face I see every hope for a healthy future. I know that when he came into the
world like all American babies he did have some toxic chemicals in him for all our best
efforts. But my hope is that going forward we can do better and we have to do better.
We can protect babies and the rest of us from these toxic chemicals if we just make it our
business to do so. Yes be smarter when you shop. But even more importantly tonight get
involved and help us pass the Kids Safe Chemicals Act. We owe it to our kids. We owe it to ourselves
to protect them so that no baby is born into this world pre-polluted in the future.