Many Americans share a vague feeling of unease about potential health risks from the manufactured products that cocoon modern existence. We worry, at least a little, about everything from the pesticides applied to the coffee beans in our morning brew to the plastics in which fast-food soft drinks are often served.

Are these concerns justified?

Its difficult to steer a sensible course between activist hysteria and corporate smooth talk, but there are at least clear signs that not enough research is being done to assuage concerns or shield us from harm.

Last week, for example, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that 80 percent of baby products – from nursing pillows to car seats and strollers – studied by researchers contain chemical flame retardants that are either untested or known to be toxic.

Based on a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the Chronicles story quotes a study author: New parents would be horrified to learn some of their baby shower presents contain the same chemical that was removed from baby pajamas in the 70s.

Babies are obviously a vulnerable group worthy of the highest level of protection. That they arent getting it is deeply troubling in its own right. It also is an indication of the continuing laxness of consumer-safety testing and monitoring in general.

The authoritative Scientific American provided an eye-opening insight about this topic last October:

Experts guesstimate that about 50,000 chemicals are used in U.S. consumer products and industrial processes. Why the uncertainty? The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act does not require chemicals to be registered or proven safe before use. Because the Environmental Protection Agency must show, after the fact, that a substance is dangerous, it has managed to require testing of only about 300 substances that have been in circulation for decades. It has restricted applications of five.

The House Toxic Chemicals Safety Act of 2010 and the Senate Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 would require manufacturers to prove that existing and new chemicals meet specific safety criteria. Stricter scrutiny in Europe and Canada suggests that 10 to 30 percent of U.S. chemicals would need some additional level of control, says Richard Denison, a molecular biochemist at the Environmental Defense Fund. That would be 5,000 to 15,000 chemicals, not five.

In fact, Time magazine reported last year the situation is even worse – that there are 80,000 chemical compounds in use in the U.S. and that only 200 have been tested.

And what of the new federal laws mentioned? Congress ended work last year with neither law enacted and they had to start over again last month.

Pulitzer-Prize winning science writer Deborah Blum wrote May 15, The cost of our inadequate system of chemical regulation – not to mention the way weve skimped on honest investigation – has brought us to a point that the word chemical itself has become something to be feared.

It is time for prompt enactment of these new federal laws as a down payment toward finally making certain that babies and grownups alike are safe within the chemical soup that saturates our lives.