A recent report and video posted on the website of NBC News described the growing concern of the general public, particularly families with children, on whether crumb rubber in artificial turf is safe to play on. A women’s soccer coach at the University of Washington, Amy Griffin, has accumulated a list of 63 soccer goalkeepers who have developed cancer after playing on artificial turf, leading her to wonder if they had been exposed to carcinogens and chemicals in the crumb rubber. Unfortunately, federal agencies have remained mum on the topic, leaving state and city governments on their own to make regulatory decisions about artificial turf.

In fact, the NBC News report states, “On the local level, since the first NBC News report in 2014, more than 50 counties and cities in 17 states have debated or reassessed their approach to crumb rubber turf. While many of those locales have decided to move forward with crumb rubber turf installation, Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburban county with 1 million residents just outside Washington, banned new crumb rubber fields this spring.”

To read the full report and watch the five-minute video, click here.