Slow death by rubber duck : the secret danger of everyday things

Absolutely fascinating and horrifying book about what chemicals are doing to our bodies and how prevalent they are in our environment. I'd known a lot of what this book was about but it's always good to have everything in once place to reinforce the message. After reading, I went out and bought new shampoo and tossed my one non-stick pan in favor of a cast-iron.

This books contains good information about all the toxic chemicals contained in everyday household items, in beauty products, and food. I found it hard to read for one reason only, it's scary. I felt paralysed at times, debating whether to cook my eggs in my non-stick frying pan the morning after reading about Dupont and their Teflon coatings. Then I would go out for sushi and wonder how much mercury I was ingesting in that serving and try to calculate how many more times I could eat that type of food that month. And of course, my favourite shampoo, was full of suspect ingredients, some straight out bad for me type ingredients. So in the end I got over my fears, changed my shampoo, threw out some frying pans and starting eating yam show more tempura rolls instead of sashimi. Ignorance in bliss, but I'm glad I read this book. show less

Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie write about the toxic substances found in many everyday items, and the effect these substances can have for the human body. The language is delightful, easy to read, and understandable even if you don't have a degree in biology. At times this down-to-earth tone feels a little too light for the subject matter, though; I was left wondering whether there might be other considerations or details they're not covering. The book may be better enjoyed one chapter at a time rather than larger chunks.
EJ 03/2010

This is one of those books that is so hard to rate because I just don't know what would be appropriate. The writing itself was very conversational for such a hard topic as chemical awareness. The book could have easily been an essay in a medical journal filled with terms only a trained professional could understand, but instead as it followed the experiments and work of the authors it read more like a diary or a letter to a friend. The amount of toxins in everyday items is actually shocking when you think about it in terms of the products you buy and keep in your home; but what is even more shocking is the action (or non-action in most cases) of the companies who make these products they know full well to be toxic. Many simply ignore show more the issue, while others make an active fight to show all evidence proving them to be dangerous to be lies.
I will definitely be checking labels and ingredients more vigilantly before I make my next purchases, that is for certain. show less

A few chemicals reviewed, but thoroughly (phthalates; PFCs - Teflon; PBDEs - fire resistants; Mercury; Triclosan - antibacterial, such as Microban; Pesticides; Bisphenol A - in plactics)