We come into contact with countless chemicals everyday. In fact, we're made of chemicals. But the number of human-made, synthetic chemicals in our lives has skyrocketed, and many common household and personal care products actually contain chemicals that may be bad for our health.
Scientists can measure the amounts of these chemicals in retail products and the home environment, and they can study what they do to animals in laboratory. But that leaves one big, unanswered question:
Just how much of the bisphenol-A (BPA) in that plastic bottle - or the methylparaben in that hand lotion, or the triclosan in that anti-microbial hand soap - actually makes its way into the body?
Silent Spring Institute has conducted small studies measuring cancer-causing chemicals in female fire fighters' blood and urine, or showing that BPA is found in many people's blood and that eating fresh vegetables instead of food packed in BPA-lined cans can reduce the amount of BPA in a person's body.
Now, the group is looking to broaden the scope of that kind of research. Today, they're launching a crowd-sourcing campaignto test the levels of ten common chemicals of concern in at least one hundred people. Participants will receive their own test results, plus information about how their levels compare to others in the study, and actions that might reduce high levels of certain chemicals.