New chemicals should be assumed harmful until they have been thoroughly tested for all the kinds of harm we presently know about. This would be a win-win battle, well worth taking on. Strategically, it makes good sense to start with a campaign to reverse the burden of proof for chemical safety. It is an issue that everyone can understand. No corporation has the right to chemically trespass, to penetrate our bodies with poisons.
Few people have anything at stake if a chemical gets banned before it is ever manufactured.
Therefore, most people have no reason to oppose thorough testing of new chemicals. A campaign to shift the burden of proof for chemical safety would starkly expose the power relationship between the public and the corporate polluters. Corporations campaigning for the right to release untested poisons into the environment would be shooting themselves in the foot. To begin with, when a chemical is tested, its metabolites and degradation byproducts should be tested as well.