Environmental toxicants are harmful to people, the environment and economics. Several studies have been done to estimate the cost of these toxicants and the diseases that they cause. Michigan is the latest to produce a report showing direct and indirect costs associated with environmental related diseases. Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health and the Michigan Ecology Center has produced a report that gives an estimate of environment-related childhood disease in Michigan. You can review this report here.
This report found that four childhood environmental disorders (lead poisoning, asthma, pediatric cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders) cost Michigan on average $5.85 billion per year. That is just the cost for these disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders include; cognitive impairment, autism and cerebral palsy.
These costs include both direct and indirect costs; direct costs include things such as prescriptions and hospitalizations, indirect costs include such things as parental wages lost due to their children’s missed school days and loss of lifetime earnings. The methodology used to develop these estimates was originally published by Landrigan et al. (2002).
The overall annual cost estimate for Michigan is $5.8 billion, with a range of $3.65 to $6.68 billion.
These cost estimates represent approximately 1.5% of Michigan’s Gross domestic Product every year.
If people and businesses can learn what is in their environment, they can mitigate harm. If you can reduce the amount of exposure you have to a particular environmental toxicant, not only can you improve your quality of life, it could be potentially economically advantageous.
Safety V. Money
I can only speak about lead poisoning and autism, as those areas I have been greatly involved in. Essco Safety Check has been providing non-destructive environmental testing for potential harmful toxicants such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals by utilizing X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Analyzers and software to collect and analyze the environment around us. Autistic families contact us because they claim their children have a variety of heavy metals in their blood and we can quickly identify a variety of heavy metals non-destructively, quickly, efficiently and accurately. We specialize in helping people and businesses know what is in their environment.
A study that I wrote earlier this year, The potential economic impact of the CPSIA, was submitted US House of Representative, House Energy Commerce Sub-Committee for Consumer Protection by the Handmade Toy Alliance as “Allowing XRF testing for CPSIA compliance could save $3.7 billion and save small businesses” This study looked at new federal regulation, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and how businesses are affected by the regulations and how XRF technology can help them reduce costs in testing, getting products to market faster and creating jobs.
If we can now combine these two visions of protecting children and saving small businesses, we are not only doing the ethical thing, were are going to be creating jobs, improving lives, while protecting children, creating jobs and saving people, businesses and government billions of dollars.
Essco Safety Check is proud to be a leader in XRF testing services and environmental software solutions as well as, equally proud to help protect children, homeowners, businesses and government.
Know what is in your environment and mitigate harm.
