Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry » (1)

Elizabeth Grossman is the author of High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health, Watershed: The Undamming of America, and Adventuring Along the Lewis and Clark Trail. Her writing has appeared in Mother Jones, The Nation, Salon, The Washington Post, and other publications. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed journalist who brought national attention to the contaminants hidden in computers and other high tech electronics, now tackles the hazards of ordinary consumer products. She shows that for the sake of convenience, efficiency, and short-term safety, we have created synthetic chemicals that fundamentally change, at a molecular level, the way our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders.

Yet it’s hard to imagine life without the creature comforts current materials provide—and Grossman argues we do not have to. A scientific revolution is introducing products that are “benign by design,” developing manufacturing processes that consider health impacts at every stage, and is creating new compounds that mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this radical transformation.

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"Grossman profiles the worst offenders, including bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, but she also portrays the good guys who are coming to the rescue, John Warner and Paul Anastas, founders of the burgeoning green chemistry movement. Green chemistry aims to replace hazardous synthetic chemicals with chemicals that are "benign by design." Grossman's clarion expose should give this lifesaving initiative a big boost.”

— Donna Seaman