Time to Change Standard of Care to Include Screening for Common Disease-Inducing Toxicants

Foundational to the standard of care is diagnosis of overt disease as well as testing for early predictors of future disease. Obvious examples of the later include measurement of blood pressure and cholesterol. The time has come to add to this thinking early detection of the environmental causes of disease. Substantial research now shows that metal and chemical contamination of the environment has resulted in body loads of these toxicants at high enough levels to induce disease. The time has come to add screening for toxicant load to the standard of care.