If the downfall of Richard Nixon had not monopolized the news media in 1974, the year just past might well be remembered for its dramatic revelations about the various dangers to public health. For the first time, Americans learned that ordinary tap water in many areas contained potent carcinogens and that chlorination of water may cause cancer. In the aldrin/dieldrin hearings, the nation discovered how two carcinogenio pesticides have permeated the nation's food supply and the bodies of all Americans, to the point where breast-feeding of infants may be extremely hazardous.Americans learned also (in 1971) that diethylstilbestrol, a drug widely prescribed over a 20-year period to prevent miscarriage, has caused numerous cases of fatal vaginal cancer in girls who were still in the womb when their mothers took the drug. Freon, the propellant gas widely used in aerosol cans, was reported by several groups of scientists to be gradually disintegrating the ozone layer that protects the earth's population from cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation.

To many Americans, these discoveries came as a surprise. The United States is a society that, like many others, reasonably or unreasonably places great faith in its doctors and scientists. Perhaps, it is reasonable to assume that a nation capable of putting a man on the moon is able to ascertain whether a chemical causes cancer before allowing it to enter the food or water supply. This assumption ignores, however, an important distinction between the two situations: while there is no economic benefit for anyone in preventing men from landing on the moon, there is an enormous financial incentive for the manufacturers of pesticides, aerosol sprays, and drugs to prevent their products from being banned. Nor are the nation's laws designed, as many might imagine, to guarantee that in dubious cases the interests of public health will take precedence over mere economic considerations. In part because of legislation written with the interests of affected industries very much in mind, in part because of the application of traditional legal standards of proof to public health cases for which they are inappropriate, the last year has shown dramatically how inadequate existing law is to protect the American people's health.