It feels like every week I find out about something else that is a danger to my health. This time it’s formaldehyde.

ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism site, last month released a story with the headline: Formaldehyde Causes More Cancer Than Any Other Toxic Air Pollutant. Little Is Being Done To Curb The Risk.

The riskiest areas in California include my ZIP codes and that of my sister and brother-in-law’s in Chico. Both show a 1 in 28,000 incremental lifetime cancer risk from formaldehyde. I don’t know how many people live in either ZIP code, but a little more than 100,000 live in the city.

The news article said, “As the backbone of American commerce, formaldehyde is a workhorse in major sectors of the economy, preserving bodies in funeral homes, binding particleboards in furniture and serving as a building block in plastic. The risk isn’t just to the workers using it; formaldehyde threatens everyone as it pollutes the air we all breathe and leaks from products long after they enter our homes. It is virtually everywhere. Federal regulators have known for more than four decades that formaldehyde is toxic, but their attempts to limit the chemical have been repeatedly thwarted by the many companies that rely on it.”

I’m sure it’s important for me to know about the prevalence of formaldehyde, but the truth is I’m not going to do anything different. All I’ve done is shake my head, become temporarily angry that the government agency that could do something about this—the EPA—instead is more interested in protecting businesses.

The public’s health is secondary, if that, is so many of these situations. Money. That’s what rules the world. There are so many worthy fights, causes and crusades. I can’t join them all. Instead I keep losing trust in government—at all levels.