Does Silicone Count?

California will measure chemical levels in people's bodies under new law

The first state to measure how residents absorb chemicals from everyday products will be, of course, Arkansas. Ha ha -- you wish, Arkansans. No, it'll be California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed a "biomonitoring" bill Friday that calls on state health officers to collect voluntarily submitted samples of blood, urine, tissue, hair, and breast milk from 2,000 Californians. The samples will be analyzed, taking into account ethnicity, age, income, and geography, to gauge levels of chemical exposure; the first report of the findings should be made available in 2010. "There are literally thousands of chemicals being used in our everyday products in the United States in cleaning supplies, pesticides, cosmetics, and more. It's important to know more about how those chemicals are building up in our bodies or how they may be affecting our health," said Schwarzenegger, who continues to cook up pre-election environmental bills like hotcakes.