> It is my understanding that currently you're allowed to manufacture a completely new chemical and put it into your product with essentially no testing of the

> It is my understanding that currently you're allowed to manufacture a completely new chemical and put it into your product with essentially no testing of the long term effect of that compound. Pretty much. There's also a fairly long history of a compound being found to be harmful and banned, only for industry to come up with a very similar compound to replace it, but since it's not the same compound the previous ban doesn't affect it. Then after some time the new compound is found to be harmful as well, rinse and repeat. The counter-argument is that requiring each chemical to be extensively studied before it can be taken into use would drastically slow down the rate of innovation. So to an extent there's a conflict between safety and innovation. But of course it's not black and white, and I think there's good reasons to turn the lever more towards the safety end.