The old saying, "what you don't know can't hurt you," isn't always good advice. When it comes to toxic substances, what you know can indeed help you.
Some examples of what we didn’t know that does hurt us are radon in basements, lead in drinking water, exhausts from cars and chemicals released from landfills are just a few examples of toxic substances that can hurt you. By understanding how, we can reduce our exposure to chemicals and reduce our risk of harmful health effects and harm to our environment. Some substances are more toxic than others. The toxicity of a substance is described by the types of effects it causes and its potency. How harmful toxic substances are is also dependent on the dosage, exposure, route of exposure, exposure medium, length of exposure and other factors.
So what you know can indeed help you and to help us better understand this are Jennifer Horney, Professor and Founding Director of the Epidemiology Program at the Disaster Research Center and Emily Rogers, U.S. PIRG’s Zero Out Toxics advocate.
