By Kerry Trueman

When it comes to consumer safety, Europe’s leaving the U.S. behind in a cloud of toxic dust, as investigative reporter Mark Shapiro told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross on Monday. We don’t ask our manufacturers to try to minimize the use of harmful chemicals in their products, and we don’t even require them to list potentially harmful ingredients to give consumers the option of making an informed choice.

Shapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products, and What’s at Stake for American Power, compares the European Union’s proactive approach to keeping dubious chemicals out of consumer goods to our own laissez faire, let-them-eat-lead policies.

Of course, much of this stuff is made in China, which, according to Shapiro, is perfectly happy to cater to the EU’s more stringent, consumer-friendly specifications on the one hand, while still cranking out stuff for American companies using inferior materials suspected of posing a hazard to consumers.

But American manufacturers’ decision to use potential toxins in their products doesn’t just threaten our own health. It harms our economy, too, as consumers here and abroad increasingly opt to buy goods from countries who hold their manufacturers to higher standards. We’re getting a reputation, globally, for being the toxin-tolerant nation. It’s truly sickening.

You can learn more about what to look out for–and who’s looking out for you–at the Environmental Working Group’s website.