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July 13, 2008
The chemical industry's war on California toxics reform
Raise your hand if you want your food packaging – hamburger wrappers, french-fry bags, pizza boxes – coated with cancer-causing Teflon chemicals that pollute the bodies of unborn babies and Arctic polar bears. How about baby bottles and sippy cups made with hormone-disrupting chemicals that are about to be banned in Canada and that Wal-Mart and Target have pulled off the shelf?
I didn't think so.
But the chemical industry, with its typical regard for your health, is waging a take-no-prisoners war in California to stop the state from banning those same chemicals.
The American Chemistry Council and DuPont are leading the ranks of lobbying groups and companies who, between them, have hired an army of lobbyists – including a K Street firm that ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first campaign – and are paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars to block the proposed bans. They're using scare tactics, telling food banks that a ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles would mean the end of canned goods. They're brazenly greenwashing, calling one of their food-packaging chemicals – C6, which EWG found in the blood of 10 of 10 newborns – a shining example of the "green chemistry" movement they say is going to transform the industry.
An aide to Sen. Ellen Corbett, author of Senate Bill 1313, which would ban perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) from food packaging, counted 13 lobbyists who've been hired by companies or groups trying to stop the bill. The odds seemed so long against the outnumbered environmental, health and labor groups backing the bill that gasps were heard from lobbyists in the hearing room when the Assembly Health Committee approved the bill a couple of weeks ago.
SB 1713, by Sen. Carole Migden, would ban BPA from baby bottles, sippy cups, and any food container or feeding device intended for children 3 and under. It doesn't have as many registered opponents arrayed against it. But the most recent players to come on board are Navigators LLC, a lobbying firm with offices in Washington and Sacramento, that steered Gov. Schwarzenegger's 2003 campaign and his campaign for budget reform in 2004. Navigators principal Mike Murphy was chief campaign strategist for Arnold in 2003 and Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign in 2000, and just joined NBC and MSNBC as a pundit, after speculation that he would step in to rescue McCain's currently floundering campaign.
Navigators wasted no time in raising the ante and lowering the bar. On July 9, Colleen Coghlan, a senior communications consultant in the Sacramento offices of Navigators, sent the following email, obtained by EWG, to an unknown number of non-profit food banks in California. I'm not sure who the coalition she mentions consists of; disclosure reports for current lobbying activity won't be available until the end of the month.
Canned Goods Removed from Food Banks?By way of introduction, my name is Colleen Coghlan and I am working with a large coalition of members within the health, business and food community to build awareness of a bill moving ahead in Sacramento.
As written, SB 1713 (Migden) could lead to the removal of food from the shelves of grocery stores as well as those from local food banks. SB 1713 becoming law will result in the loss of safe and necessary consumer products such as the following canned and jarred:
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Sauces
• Olives
• Pickles
• Tuna and other seafood
• Pasta
• Beans
• Soup
• Chili
• Whipped Toppings
• Cooking Spray
• Chicken
• Sausages
• Meats
• Milk, condensed and evaporated
• JuiceThe burden on consumers created by SB 1713 unfairly falls upon society’s most vulnerable who do not have access to alternatively packaged products which are often more expensive and less available to consumers. This bill would ban Bisphenol A (BPA), an epoxy lining, which acts as a barrier to contamination, used in almost all food containers.
BPA has been tested, scientifically reviewed and approved for safe use in food containers by the responsible regulatory agencies in the USA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency), European Union (European Food Safety Commission), Canada (HealthCanada) and Japan (Japanese Ministry of Environment) and has been safely used for over 50 years.
Ensuring CA families eat healthy and have access to the foods they need should be a priority for the state. The current manner in which this bill is written would create greater difficulty for parents to get access to the food their families need.
I could call in an EWG toxicologist to refute Coghlan's claims one by one, but it should suffice to counter the biggest whopper: Migden's bill is specifically aimed at containers for food intended for babies and toddlers – most importantly, formula packages. Even if you don't believe the hundreds of studies showing harm at current levels of BPA exposure, shouldn't we be more cautious when it comes to babies?
This is not nanny government. Neither one of these bills tries to ban all uses of the chemicals, or any uses for which there aren't already safe alternatives. Corbett's bill seeks to eliminate the most direct route of exposure – putting the chemical in your mouth and swallowing it – for a chemical that DuPont has agreed to phase out nationally by 2015. That's too long to wait on a toothless, loophole-ridden agreement the company only accepted after the EPA fined it $16 million for concealing evidence of PFCs' health risks.
The chemical industry is trying to have it both ways, saying legislators shouldn't have to make chemical-by-chemical decisions, but at the same time refusing to support more ambitious reform bills. If reform must come, they would rather see it come from the state-sanctioned Green Chemistry Initiative, which gives corporations a seat at the table in proposing safer chemicals. But the GCI is still in its first draft, and today's 3-year-olds could be in middle school before we see results. I don't think the prospect of a better chemical regulatory system in the future frees the Legislature – or the governor – from taking action now against two very clear threats to public health.
July 26, 2007
The Onion on pollutants in people
Oh, The Onion. From an article titled EPA Warns Human Beings No Longer Biodegradable, snip:
WASHINGTON, DC—The Environmental Protection Agency issued a bulletin Tuesday warning the bodies of American citizens, with their large concentrations of artificial, synthetic, and often toxic substances, have been reclassified as industrial waste.
Funny! Except that it's not. From EWG's Body Burden Report:
In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.
Read the rest of The Onion article and snicker, then check out EWG's Human Toxome Project to learn more about the pollution in people.
November 8, 2006
Study calls for protection of children from industrial pollution
A report in the Lancet, considered the world's most prestigious medical journal, warns of ''a silent pandemic” of impaired brain development due to exposure to unregulated industrial toxins, both in the womb and during a child’s first years.
The researchers, from Harvard School of Public Health and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, have identified 200+ industrial chemicals toxic to the human brain—only several of which (lead, mercury, PCBs) are regulated to protect children. They are calling for more research into the extent of harm caused by industrial chemicals and into how best to regulate them. Until then, the researchers have advised a “precautionary approach” which will strictly regulate any compound shown to be toxic, rather than require undisputable proof of damage already done. [ via : Reuters & Health News ]
Continue reading "Study calls for protection of children from industrial pollution" »
October 12, 2006
California begins biomonitoring initiative
Last week California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed a bill to establish a state-wide biomonitoring program aimed at helping to identify populations at-risk from long-term chemical exposures as well as isolate the trends that put certain groups in harm’s way. According to Environmental Science & Technology, public health officials are gaining confidence in the importance of biomonitoring as the method has helped uncover hidden threats as it did with an arsenic-laden skin cream in New York City.
Related Links:
CA Senator Senator Deborah Ortiz on importance of biomonitoring.
Body Burden: The Pollution in People: EWG’s comprehensive studies of the multiple chemical contaminants found in humans. (In short: 455 industrial pollutants, pesticides and other chemicals in blood, urine, and breast milk in 72 people altogether, from newborns and and grandparents to mothers and teens.)
October 5, 2006
Journalism 101: Who's a Source?
In response to the debate National Geographic magazine has recently sparked with its October 2006 article, "The Pollution Within," Environmental Working Group invites journalism students, working journalists and National Geographic in particular to address questions of whether information sources who espouse policy views should be cited in stories.
Continue reading "Journalism 101: Who's a Source?" »
July 13, 2006
Like Mother, Like Baby
In a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers watched levels of plasticizing chemicals called phthalates ("THAH-lates") rise and fall in breast milk over a six-month period.
In other words, baby ingests chemical residues of the consumer products such as moisturizer, nail polish and plastics that Mom uses.
Some of this sharing of pollution is inevitable, because phthalates are used to make products all over the home. Breast milk is still the best baby food there is!
For now, nursing Moms can avoid using nail polishes that contain phthalates, but in the long run what we need is a better public health system. Did you know that most chemicals are not tested for health effects before being put on the market? We should revise our laws so that companies have to prove a chemical is safe enough for kids before putting them on store shelves.
July 11, 2006
Government Study Confirms Dangers of Dioxin
Today the National Academy of Sciences released a report confirming that dioxin, the byproduct of several industries, is a potent carcinogen.
In a 2005 investigation, Environmental Working Group (EWG) researchers tested the umbilical cord blood of 10 newborn babies, and found that all of them had dioxins in their blood from the moment they were born.
March 14, 2006
Parents Take Precautions on Toxics
The New York Times has a great profile on parents who don't care how safe the chemical companies say their products are -- they want toxics-free kids, and they'll protect them as best they can by choosing the greenest products available. It's another endorsement for using purchasing power and word-of-mouth to let industry know that consumers want them to err on the side of safety for families and children, rather than introducing chemicals and products before they've been fully assessed for health risks.EWG's word on pollution in newborns is available here.
February 3, 2006
Chemical Mixtures More Toxic Than Sum of Their Parts
A new study from the University of California Berkeley found that combinations of low doses of toxic chemicals can be more harmful than any of the chemicals alone, suggesting that the vacuum EPA and other government agencies study individual chemicals' toxicity in does not mirror conditions in the real world. The study gave a cocktail of agricultural pesticides commonly found in runoff water to frogs. Although each chemical was at levels 10 to 100 times below safety standards, the mix created significant harmful health effects.The Oakland Tribune story is here, and EWG's work on body burden is here.
November 9, 2005
Toxic Nation: Canadian BodyBurden
Environmental Defence Canada has released "Toxic Nation" the first Canadian BodyBurden study, with 11 participants tested for 88 chemicals, including PCBs, fire retardants, PFOS (a chemical in the same family as the Teflon chemical PFOA) and heavy metals, all of which are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, or reproductive or hormonal harm.The subjects had an average of 44 chemicals in their bodies, and, as the director of the study said, "...it doesn't matter where you live, how old you are, it doesn't matter how clean living you are or if you eat organic food, or if you get a lot of exercise. We all carry inside of us hundreds of different pollutants and these things are accumulating inside our bodies every day." Health Canada promises to look into the issue.
The Toronto Globe and Mail has the rest, and EWG's work on BodyBurden is available here.