Following National Poison Prevention Week, a renewed emphasis is being placed on everyday household product safety across the United States.
The Press-Leader reports that various state departments of health have announced that homeowners should increase their efforts to protect children from harmful contaminants coming from household medications and products.
Parents are encouraged to never refer to any kind of medicine as “candy” or another appealing name in a misguided bid to make medicine more palatable. While this may work in the short term, it may also make children mistakenly think unknown substances are harmless. In addition, parents should never leave medications in areas where children can reach them; keep all harmful products securely locked and out of reach of children; and have a Poison Control number on file in the event of an emergency.
Although medications can lead to serious harm, parents should educate themselves on the dangers of more everyday products that aren’t exactly thought of as harmful. Products like water bottles, which can often contain unhealthy amounts of fluoride, as well as common cleaning and cosmetic products that contain dangerous carcinogens.
According to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Pediatric Dentistry, more than 65% of parents that allow their children to drink bottled water were unaware of what levels of fluoride the bottles contained. The Whole Story reports that fluoride is good for teeth, but too much fluoride can be harmful and lead to serious long-term health issues like skeletal fluorosis, which is a dangerous bone disease.
Environmental factors still contribute to wholly 80% of all cancers, which is much larger than that of carcinogenic chemicals stemming from household products, but these products should still be kept away from children as much as possible.
Telegiz recently released its top 10 carcinogenic household products list in order to help parents prepare to fight cancerous products from affecting their families. Although not all of these carcinogenic products have the exact same result on the human body, continued high exposure to any of these items can significantly increase the risk of cancer in the future.
In particular, be aware of pesticides, cleaning products, cosmetic products, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, food dye, pet flea collars, nail polish, and incense.