1998:

The Council for Responsible Nutrition reports that the U.S. health care system can save $10 billion a year on the costs of treating breast, lung and stomach cancers if only Americans would consume recommended levels of vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene.

A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that 106,000 people die each year in American hospitals from the side effects of prescription medications. Another 2.2 million people a year have serious but nonfatal reactions to prescribed drugs. Adverse drug reactions have become the 4th leading cause of death in the U.S.

As of this date, 75,500 synthetic chemicals are registered as appearing in consumer products, agriculture and industry. The EPA has over 24,000 pesticides registered and the FDA oversees 8,000 chemicals used in cosmetics and as food additives.

The Journal of Epidemiology publishes a study showing serious negative side effects from chlorine byproducts found in drinking water. Chlorinated tap water in three regions of California increased miscarriages among women who drank more tap water containing chlorine than bottled water.

1999:

according to the Centers for Disease Control, the annual reported number of foodborne disease cases in the U.S. amounts to 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. Most are caused by viruses and bacteria.

As of this year, more than 25,000 cosmetics chemicals are in use. Less than 4 percent of these cosmetics ingredients have been tested for safety in humans.

2000:

the National Academy of Sciences reports that half of all pregnancies in the U.S. result in less than healthy babies. Up to one-third of the developmental defects in these babies were caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.

Half of all Americans now take at least one prescription drug every day; 25 percent of Americans take multiple prescription drugs every day.

The incidence of testicular cancer is now estimated to be four times higher than just 50 years earlier.

The Physicians for Social Responsibility releases a report describing "an epidemic of developmental, learning and behavioral disabilities" affecting an estimated 12 million children in the U.S. Evidence suggests the epidemic may be a result of toxic chemicals affecting the central nervous system of these children.

2001:

the Center for Disease Control announces that the food we eat is responsible for twice the numbers of illnesses in the U.S. in comparison to just seven years earlier.

The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes a study revealing that of 6.7 million adult annual visits to the doctor for a sore throat between 1989 and 1999, antibiotics were prescribed in 73 percent of the visits even though antibiotics do not treat viral infections.

2002:

the Journal of the American Medical Association reports a relationship between chronic disease and vitamin intake, recommending that all adults take at least one multi-vitamin a day because the absence of these vitamins in their food puts them at risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis.

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry now employs 675 lobbyists, including 26 former members of Congress, and spends $91 million a year on influencing decisions made by Congress.

For the first time since 1958, the U.S. infant mortality rate increases. It is now twice that of Japan and most other industrial nations.

Harvard School of Public Health researchers report in the journal Epidemiology that phthalates found in plastics may be contributing to reproductive defects. The study of 168 male patients at a fertility clinic found that the men with the highest levels of phthalates in their blood were also those with the lowest sperm counts and lowest sperm activity.

A study in the medical journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood, reveals how 400 children were tested for the effects of food additives and artifical preservatives on their behavior. The results demonstrated "a substantial effect" of these synthetics stimulating hyperactivity and behavioral problems.

The FDA announces that it is issuing twice the number of public advisories about drug risks and adding five times as many black box warnings on drug labels as it did just a year earlier.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists in Colorado discover that the byproducts of anti-bacterial soap, prescription drugs, steroids, bug spray and other chemical products are entering streams and groundwater and disrupting fish reproduction while increasing resistance to antibiotics among people who consume the fish.

The medical journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention reports a Columbia University study examining the health effects of exposure of pregnant women to air pollutants in New York City. A 50 percent increase in the level of persistent genetic abnormalities in infants was detected in those whose mothers had high air pollution exposure.

Yale School of Medicine researchers report that low doses of the environmental contaminant bisphenol-A (BPA) used to make many plastics found in food storage containers can lead to learning disabilities in children and neurodegenerative diseases in adults.

Surgical clinics surveyed by The Sunday Times in Britain report a sharp upsurge in the numbers of men seeking breast reduction surgery. Hormones in the water are blamed for a doubling of cases in just a year of gynecomastia, a hormonal-induced growth in men's breasts.

Researchers with the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project discover that two-thirds of some species of fish examined from coastal waters off Los Angeles and Orange counties possess both male and female reproductive organs. The seafloor sediment in these areas is contaminated with estrogenic chemicals from wastewater effluent generated by nine million inhabitants of coastal cities.

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, finds that the EPA is failing to protect people from tens of thousands of toxic chemicals. Chemical companies have provided health impact data to the EPA for only about15 percent of chemicals introduced over the past 30 years.