Do they make hazmat onesies?

Is It Safe to Play Yet? asks a New York Times feature on the increasing paranoia of a certain demographic of parents when it comes to the perceived threat of household toxins. A photo image of a toddler in a tiny hazmat suit illustrates numerous anecdotes of concerned mothers and fathers, who all but dismantle their homes in an effort to purge the nursery and beyond of anything remotely chemical. The notoriously alarmist Environmental Working Group is mentioned throughout.

The feature itself is exhausting, suggesting the all-consuming vigilance that a growing number of parents experience. (But of course, eliminating all chemicals is a task doomed to failure.) The scare piece s catalogue of toxic substance databases and suspect products verges on the absurd. And, in between long paragraphs of reporting from the culture of toxic scares, Times writer Michael Tortorello is not unaware of this absurdity. So the world is a toxic cesspool and it s poisoning our children. What to do about it? he asks at one point, before launching into the recommended arsenal of toxic scare resources, which, he acknowledges, could lead you to scrutinizing Japanese lab studies on prenatal rats.

As ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan observes, When parents become obsessed with these minute risks, they often dismiss the real ones. And ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross adds, These are very likely the same parents who aren t vaccinating their kids.

While we don t recommend reading this particular Times feature (unless you re seeking material that s ripe for satire), we do recommend that you tell any of your acquaintances who are upset by it to stop by acsh.org and especially to take a look at some of our classic publications on this very topic: Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health and Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals? .