Our environment is a mosaic of chemicals that add to our everyday living. Despite their ubiquitous presence and essential role in society, chemicals continue to be vilified by the media and interest groups. Making Sense of Chemical Storiesis a consumer friendly 16-page guide stripping the negative impressions surrounding chemicals and their relationship to human health and the environment as a whole. The publication gives the field of chemistry a voice in a discourse that is largely dominated by anti-chemical activists or those outside the scientific discipline itself. Mark Lorch, a science blogger and senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Hull in the UK comments that while physics and biology have their celebrity scientists extolling the wonders of bosons, bugs and big bangs, chemists are left floundering in their wake or are left completely unrepresented in the mainstream media.
The consumer friendly document debunks six common misconceptions about chemicals. All points lead to a few fundamental lessons: chemicals are in fact a part our daily lives, the negative impact of chemicals on health and the environment is inflated, and most importantly, media-implanted fears of chemicals do more damage than good. Lorch adds, The point is that every time anti-chemical slogans are used people are being misinformed. The implication is always that the terms chemical and poison are interchangeable. . . . As a result of this common usage of chemicals the whole subject has been tainted with unpleasant connotations.
Read the complete guide here, and see ACSH s publication on this topic:
