Let’s face it: The current system for overseeing chemicals used in consumer products is broken.

Last year, Congress banned lead in children’s products. But recently, we learned that some manufacturers that phased lead out of children’s jewelry are using cadmium, another brain toxin that’s a carcinogen to boot. How can we prevent the next chemical crisis from threatening our health and contributing to rising health costs?

When Congress enacted the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1976 to protect us from toxic chemicals, it grandfathered in some 60,000 chemicals with no testing requirements. Another 20,000 chemicals were added to this list over the next three decades. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has required testing on only 200 chemicals. The EPA’s hands were so tied that it didn’t even have authority to ban asbestos, an established carcinogen banned in 40 countries.

A recent report by some of the nation’s leading public health professionals describes the toll that toxic chemicals are taking on our health and our budget. This report, called the Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act, summarizes the insidious contribution of environmental toxins to an array of chronic health problems.

For example, childhood cancers have increased by more than 20 percent since 1975. A woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer is now one in eight, up from one in 10 in 1973. Chemicals in common products like baby bottles and “sippy” cups have bisphenol A, a hormone disruptor linked to cancer. Composite wood used to make many things around the house often contains formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing toxin. Children’s toys and jewelry have been found to be contaminated with lead and cadmium, both neurotoxins.

And there’s more than cancer to worry about. Learning and developmental disabilities now affect one in six children. Since the early 1990s, reported cases of autism spectrum disorder have increased tenfold. Children and pregnant women are routinely exposed to chemicals known to be developmental toxins, including methylmercury, lead, cadmium, brominated flame retardants, dioxins, arsenic and many more. More than 100 chemicals that adversely affect the brain and nervous system have also been implicated as playing a role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.