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What's under your kitchen sink, in your garage, in your bathroom, and on the shelves in your laundry room? Do any of the household products you use pose a potential health risk to you and your family? An online consumer guide from NIH's National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides easy-to-understand information on the potential health effects of more than 4,000 common household products.
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For many years, NLM has been providing databases for toxicologists and other scientists. The Household Products Database, however, is for both scientists and the general public. This database allows you to browse a product category, such as 'Pesticides' or 'Personal Care,' by alphabetical listing or by brand name. You can also search for products by type, manufacturer, product ingredient, or chemical name.
For example, say you're trying to decide which algae-killing product to use in your swimming pool. You can select the 'Landscape/Yard/Swimming Pool' category in Household Products and click on 'algaecide.' You can then browse through several brands to look for chemical content and possible health hazards.
The Household Products Database can help you answer questions like:
- What chemicals are found in a specific product, and in what percentages?
- What are the potential health effects of the ingredients in a specific brand?
- Which products contain a specific chemical you are concerned about?
- Who manufactures a specific brand, and how can the manufacturer be contacted?
- What other information about a chemical can you find in other NLM databases?
Information for the Household Products Database comes from a variety of publicly available sources, including brand-specific labels and information provided by manufacturers and manufacturers' Web sites. The record for each product shows ingredients from the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS). Designed to provide workers and emergency personnel with the proper procedures for handling or working with a particular substance, MSDS sheets are required by federal law from manufacturers.
Initial selection of products in the Household Products Database was based on market share within each product category, and on-shelf presence in retail stores in the Washington, D.C. and San Francisco areas. NLM plans to continue adding more brands to the existing seven categories (Auto Products, Pesticides, Landscape/Yard, Personal Care, Home Maintenance, Hobbies, Home/Inside). Based primarily on user feedback, NLM will also continue to add new types of products to the Household Products Database as well as work to keep the existing information in the database current and accurate.
Visit the Household Products Database at http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov.
For more information about this and other databases from NLM's Division of Specialized Information Services, please contact: tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.
HHI Error Correction Policy
HHI is committed to accuracy of content and correcting information that is incomplete or inaccurate. With our broad scope of coverage of healthful indoor environments, and desire to rapidly publish info to benefit the community, mistakes are inevitable. HHI has established an error correction policy to welcome corrections or enhancements to our information. Please help us improve the quality of our content by contacting allen@healthyhouseinstitute.com with corrections or suggestions for improvement. Each contact will receive a respectful reply.
The Healthy House Institute (HHI), a for-profit educational LLC, provides the information on HealthyHouseInstitute.com as a free service to the public. The intent is to disseminate accurate, verified and science-based information on creating healthy home environments.
While an effort is made to ensure the quality of the content and credibility of sources listed on this site, HHI provides no warranty - expressed or implied - and assumes no legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, product or process disclosed on or in conjunction with the site. The views and opinions of the authors or originators expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of HHI: its principals, executives, Board members, advisors or affiliates.
