Soccer dad Mike Miller prefers the smooth, cushioned surface of synthetic turf because his 13-year-old daughter can play year-round, even in the long rainy season that closes Seattle's grass fields. But as Caty Miller and her teammates dribble, pass and shoot, their cleats kick ...

When Pamela Davis was pregnant with her daughter Meaghan, she started to worry about contamination from the lead paint in her Hoboken, N.J., row house. Then she started reading about chemicals in plastic toys and baby clothes treated with flame-retardant. Soon her entire nursery seemed to pose some mysterious threat to her impending bundle of joy. She was surrounded ...