This summer, my partner and I experienced two milestones: We had our first baby, and we bought our first house. We put in our offer the night before she was born, and it was accepted the day after, so it’s unsurprising that the two became deeply intertwined for us. Before we even closed on the house, we invested substantial time, energy and money into making it as safe and healthy for a newborn child as we could afford. And we learned some sobering lessons.

While American government officials use unproven scientific claims to warn against vaccines and Tylenol, what should really alarm us is the toxins in our homes. Americans spend up to 90% of their time indoors — 65% in their own homes — where air pollution levels can be two to five times greater than outdoors.

Since the use of synthetic building material exploded during the post-World War II housing boom, at least 10 different types of plastic and thousands of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, now popularly known as “forever chemicals”) have made their way into regular building construction. Prized for their water- and grease-resistance, PFAS have garnered attention for their extreme environmental persistence and their links to stunted cognitive, language and motor development in children, as well as high cholesterol, cancers, obesity and diabetes. It should be no surprise that PFAS are detected in the blood of over 98% of Americans. They are everywhere in our homes: wood stains, wall paints, lightbulb coatings, furniture fabrics, you name it.

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl) — a popular, affordable, and durable material used for flooring, windows, decking, countertops and more — is often made with phthalate plasticizers, which are significantly correlated with both childhood and adult-onset asthma, hormone-disruption and obesity, and are a known carcinogen. A 10-year study showed that children with PVC flooring in their bedroom were 1.5 times more likely to develop childhood asthma than when they had other flooring materials, and twice as likely if their birthing parent had PVC flooring in their bedroom during pregnancy. Yet PVC products account for nearly one-third of all new flooring in the United States.

The toxins don’t stop there. Households with gas stoves face a 24 to 42% increased risk of childhood asthma. Interior mold has been linked to poor cognitive development and chronic respiratory illnesses. Volatile organic compounds released into the air by most paints, wood finishes, household cleansers, furniture fabrics and insect repellants can cause eye and respiratory irritation, impaired memory, dizziness, and headaches. Long-term exposure has been linked to cancer and damage to the nervous system, liver and kidneys. And weatherization, which includes improving insulation and preventing air leakage, often leads to abuildup of toxic chemicals like radon and combustion gases like carbon monoxide, along with mold and mildew, that would gradually leave a leaky building.

But most Americans are unaware of the dangers. Only a small fraction of the 15,000 PFAS used today have been studied for their human health impacts, and only six have been banned by the EPA. There is no transparency in the manufacturing of most building products – companies do not even need to provide a list of the materials used. Some, like DuPont and 3M, knowingly concealed the dangers of PFAS for decades and are only now phasing them out after numerous lawsuits.

Building materials that do not involve VOCs, PFAS or carcinogens are typically expensive, require maintenance, or are hard to find. Wood must be refinished regularly and protected from moisture; brick needs drainage; natural stones like granite and marble require more energy to manufacture, transport and handle, and they are often sealed with PFAS-containing or petroleum-based products. Unsafe materials have become the default choice because they are durable, versatile and, most importantly, affordable.Ppeople want to know that their investment will last a long time with little to no maintenance. This expectation is frankly unreasonable; like almost everything in the natural world, buildings deteriorate and should be cared for accordingly.

Safe alternatives exist, however. The Harvard Healthy Buildings Program and Parsons School of Design’s Healthy Materials Lab regularly publish reports, including the Lab’s health database of the few building products that disclose at least 75% of their ingredients and avoid significant health concerns. The American Institute of Architects has established a Materials Pledge that encourages healthier material specifications, and larger firms like Perkins+Will offer their own resources to educate designers and clients.

But this only serves people with the means to modify their own homes. Low-income households suffer disproportionately due to toxic materials in homes they do not own or can’t afford to upgrade. Instead, builders need to shift toward defaulting to healthy materials rather than providing them at a premium.

It might seem impossible to turn an industry around, but it is not unprecedented. In the 1970s, studies linking lead paint ingestion to the neurological decline of children led to public outcry and the 1978 ban on lead paint for residential use, toys and other consumer products. Despite reports as early as the 1920s about the dangers of asbestos, it wasn’t until Dr. Irving Selikoff established a clear link to lung-related illnesses in the 1960s that organized labor and trade groups succeeded in their demands for partial regulatory action.

More recently, hundreds of toxic materials have been successfully banned at the state level, often after public pressure. Connecticut and Massachusetts banned PFAS in firefighting protective gear by 2027 after firefighters’ families learned that cancer from protective gear accounted for an estimated 66% of firefighter deaths between 2002 and 2019. Nonetheless, state-level bans are continually being thwarted; California Gov. Gavin Newsom just vetoed a bill to ban PFAS in common household products, and the Trump administration is planning to kill hundreds of such bans by requiring states to first prove a chemical presents “unreasonable risk.”

Rather than opposing regulation, state and federal government should fund research advancing the manufacture of affordable, healthy alternatives and educating developers and owners on renewable options like natural stone in warmer climates and cork tile in colder climates. Legislators and housing advocacy groups must push to require building product ingredient declarations and to ban toxic chemicals, like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Declare programs encourage, prioritizing human health over product longevity. Manufacturers and contractors who want to maintain a competitive edge should document the health impacts of all materials in their supply chains.

This is already happening in other industries; in 2014, KEEN Footwear found that 70% of the 100 PFAS in their product lines were unnecessary and discontinued their use. This became a major part of KEEN’s “Detox the Planet” initiative, and in 2024 they launched the “World’s Cleanest Shoe,” positioning them as leaders in sustainability.

As new parents, we tested and upgraded the plumbing, countertops, and painted surfaces in our 70-year-old brick house, but we had to accept that we will likely never remove all harmful materials from it. We hope, however, that our government officials will help. If they truly want to make America healthy, they should start with the spaces we live in. The cost of not doing so is too high.

This post was originally published on Next City.