alt Hacker NewsLiterally everything is "chemicals".
And when we're talking about things in this realm, the general saying is "The dose makes the poison"... Water will kill you if you drink enough of it.
And we do have all sorts of studies showing that harm from these substances isn't immediately apparent (they all have safety sheets, and maximum safe exposure levels) . What we're missing, mainly because it's just incredibly hard to ethically source, is long term studies.
So the question you're really asking is "what's your tolerance to risk?". I think it's fine to have different governing bodies take different stances on that scale. What's less fine is failure to act on information because of profit motives.
Long story short - this isn't so simple. You bathe in chemicals all day every day.
I daresay that the issue is less about "chemicals" and more about "new chemicals". If a substance already exists in nature and has been in use for a long time, then it's reasonable to take the position that it is probably within harm limits. If it's a newly synthesised/extracted substance, then it should be subject to reasonable testing.
Also, if a chemical is known to be toxic, then rigorous testing should be performed before allowing it to be widely distributed and used.