The Environmental Protection Agency is hosting a chemical safety data summit in Research Triangle Park today and tomorrow.
Unless a chemical is being used as a food additive, a drug, a pesticide or one of a few other specialized uses, EPA officials say there's not a significant amount of testing required.
Russell Thomas is a director at the EPA. He said there are hundreds of new chemicals introduced into the environment each year.
“A lot of the chemicals that we're screening incorporate many of the chemicals that are in different products in your house, those that are used every day, in different things like soaps and detergents and cleaners.”
Thomas said the agency is using advanced screening technologies to compile a huge database of information on thousands of chemicals.
He explained that data can be used to make better regulatory decisions.