Consumers have right, responsibility to know about common chemicals

Read the label.

It's the first order of advice for anyone hoping for a successful diet or a healthy lifestyle.

For years, food labels have carried information about the amount of fat, number of calories and recommended daily amount of various vitamins and minerals. Reading them is an eye opener for anyone wanting to lose weight, lower cholesterol, reduce sodium or avoid an allergen in their diet.

But there are is a whole class of products that basically tell us nothing about their contents; common household cleaners.

There's a good reason, of course. Few of us would chose to buy some heavily-advertised product if we new that its "secret ingredient" was ammonia, for instance, available for a fraction of the cost of the commercial mixture. Plus, manufacturers have a right to protect patents and proprietary information such as formulas.

But there are growing concerns about toxins in consumer goods, such as the chemical bisphenol A -- BPA -- used to line food cans and water pipes and make clear plastic baby bottles (look for the recycling number 7 on containers), or cadmium in imported jewelry.

Environmental groups and the American Lung Association are asking a New York court to force manufacturers of common household cleaners to list the ingredients of their products.

There are good reasons. Some studies have linked cleaning product components to asthma, antibiotic resistance, hormone changes and other health problems.

While federal environmental laws don't require most household cleaning products to list their ingredients, the Consumer Product Safety Commission requires hazard warning labels on some cleansers, and the National Institutes of Health offers some health and safety information for hundreds of cleaning products, drawn from data gathered for industrial use.

Cleanser industry groups mounted a pre-emptive strike last month, unveiling an ingredient-listing initiative via Web sites for major companies such as Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble and several others.

Many companies, such as Clorox, list all the company's products on their Web sites and other groups such as the Soap and Detergent Association, Consumer Specialty Products Association and Canadian Consumer Specialty Products association have developed a Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative as a way to provide consumers with information about the ingredients in products in four major areas: hair care, automotive care, cleaning and floor maintenance products.

The industries are to be lauded for taking the initiative to better inform their customers before being forced to by new laws.

Whatever it takes to get it done, consumers have a right and responsibility to know to what chemicals they and their families are being exposed.