Preventing exposure to environmental hazards

Despite the successes of modern medical technologies, little is known about the basic chemistry or physiology behind human exposures to environmental health hazards. A new science is required based upon integrative environmental approaches with multidisciplinary perspectives to replace traditional science that looks at parts of the whole from a single discipline's perspective.

In the last 10 years a number of issues of environmental health hazards have been addressed internationally, for example: the successful elimination of lead from gasoline and paint; the prohibition of the use of asbestos in construction; the elimination of DDT from use in the US; the banning of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) production in the US; and also in the USA, the passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act to decrease pesticides in the diet of children. By reducing or eliminating these toxic exposures, substantial burdens of disease have been addressed in the human environment.