Environment: An Act in Time

It isn 't the pox that menaces us any more, or the plague. It's strange new creatures of our own making, and they are all around us—in the air, our water and food, and in the things we touch.

—Russell Train, Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency

Thousands of Americans are already suffering the grim consequences of excessive exposure to such chemicals as asbestos, vinyl chloride, carbon tetrachloride and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which can—and too often do—cause metabolic disorders, birth defects or even cancer. But now there is hope that many others may be spared such...