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Are Californians more flame retardant than the rest of us??
Consumers to FDA: Be there or be square
FEATURED
Elected officials MIA; Instead Wal-Mart and Burger King protecting your health
Back to school: Are we ready? Are we non-toxic?
Fire retardants: Disproportionate risk to small children
Lead: Celebrate its ban, but don't cross it off your list
7 ways to reduce your exposure to PBDEs
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Mr. Yuk: He's in my house, is he in yours?
So this is a little embarrassing. On the one hand, I'm pleased with myself for getting the Mr. Yuk stickers, preventing my children from sticking them everywhere, and applying them to the grim, poisonous chemicals in our house. Job well done, mom!
On the other hand, no self-respecting EWG staffer can simply smack a label on the (many) poisons in her house and call it a night! Nope. So down I trod to the basement, where the chemicals reside, and counted them. And inventoried them. And yikes.
Worse yet, I tend to think I'm a little green, you know? No pesticides on the lawn, organic produce, recycled toilet paper, you get the picture. I know, I know, you're probably wondering what I found. So here they are, all seven of them, in all their unglory:
- Wash-in waterproofing for wet weather clothing (I live in the Pacific Northwest..)
- Hot shot flying insect killer ("kills fast!")
- Rust-oleum gloss protective enamel (husband?)
- Interior-exterior spray paint (no runs, no drips, no errors!)
- Chlorine bleach (brightens whites, removes stains, cleans and deodorizes)
- Carpet spot remover (for those really tough spots)
- Laundry stain remover (powerful stain fighting ingredients)
Continue reading "Mr. Yuk: He's in my house, is he in yours?" »
Poisonous pastime
Since the U.S. banned lead from gasoline and paint in 1978, there has been increasing recognition that even the smallest amounts of lead are extremely hazardous to human health. Basically, scientists and doctors have concluded that there is no safe level of lead exposure. The crusade against lead has gotten it out of faucets, lunchboxes, candies, toys, and many other items. But there's one significant source -- more accurately, hundreds of sources across the country -- of lead exposure that not only is largely unregulated but in some places operates on public land.
Jane Kay recently reported in the San Francisco Chronicle:
For 40 years on clear mornings, avid shooters have turned out at the Petaluma Trap and Skeet Club for the sport of popping away at clay pigeons hurled into the air.The western Sonoma County range looks idyllic with hawks and golden eagles diving over grazing sheep. But in a year's time, the rural outdoor range is strewn with seven tons of lead, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, which owns the land.
Health officials worry about even trace amounts of lead in gasoline, paint, plumbing, food and consumer products, which is why conservationists and regulators are warning about letting thousands of tons of lead accumulate at shooting ranges statewide.
Despite some cleanups and spotty county inspections, dozens of ranges in California remain under the radar of regulation.
Lead litter endangers wildlife and waterways, scientists say. Lead is so toxic that if consumed, it stunts the growth of animals and plants, and causes the loss of biological diversity, according to scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
How big a problem is lead pollution from shooting ranges? In 2001, EWG and the Violence Policy Center took a close look and found that
. . . [O]utdoor firing ranges put more lead into the environment than almost any other major industrial sector in the U.S. According to EWG and VPC, in just three years a typical firing range can become as contaminated with lead as a five-acre Superfund site, and the amount of waste lead contained in a single .45-caliber bullet is enough to contaminate the daily drinking water supply of a city the size of San Francisco to a level deemed unsafe by the U.S. EPA.
According to the National Rifle Association, there are more than 200 shooting ranges in California, and a number of them operate on public parkland, or in some cases, even receive funding from a local government's parks department. No matter how you feel about guns, even the staunchest defender of the Second Amendment would have trouble arguing that taxpayer dollars should be expended on an activity that is dangerous to the health of the community, of the facility's workers, its customers and their families. As we said seven years ago, that's like passing out cigarettes in school.
What's your personal body burden?
Most of us don't have the money to pay for a personal body burden analysis. And even if you do, you might be among those (like me) who would really rather not know.
I do read about other peoples' chemical body burdens, though. And while the news is generally horrifying, I don't think it hits home quite the same way when it's someone else's flame retardant breast milk or above-average level of PCBs. Don't you harbor the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you're different? That somehow your breastmilk is pure, your baby wasn't ingesting toxic chemicals when she was 3 weeks old - straight from your body? It's easy to do, even though the extensive body burden analyses conducted this century show that no-one is uncontaminated. No-one.
Get your score. Now there's a way to get an estimate of your body burden without going broke or providing blood and urine samples. We partnered with Sloan Barnett to create a simple online house tour that calculates your probable body burden based on your household environment and products - since they're a major source of our bodies' chemical loads. So this tool doesn't just deliver the bad news. It starts with the cause, making it that much easier to green your home and improve your health.
Continue reading "What's your personal body burden?" »
Are Californians more flame retardant than the rest of us??
A study released today by Silent Spring Institute finds higher concentrations of toxic PBDEs in California residents, raising concerns about the unintended effects of furniture flammability laws on children's health.
Regional data from a large CDC-sponsored study was re-analyzed and found to show that participants living in California had double the PBDEs in their blood than residents of other states. While today's study only evaluated concentrations in adults, EWG recently reported that kids – like Natalie, pictured with her mom Teri Olle of San Francisco – have significantly higher PBDE levels than their mothers. This is especially worrisome because pregnancy and early life are the times of greatest vulnerability to PBDEs' toxic effects.
Californians' exposures are due to a unique state law that requires chemical fire retardants be used on the foam inside furniture. PBDEs are a toxic fire retardant that was used to meet this standard until 2005, when they were pulled off the market due to safety concerns.
The PBDE levels analyzed in today's study were collected from nearly 2,000 people in 2003 and 2004, when PBDEs were legally used. Products with PBDEs include automobile seats, couches, easy chairs, and foam padding in baby items like seats, mattresses or nursing pillows. Foam scraps containing PBDEs were glued together for carpet padding.
Despite the ban, these exposures will continue for decades. The fire retardants made their way out of these home and office items and into the environment. We ingest them in food, or hand-to-mouth contact with PBDE particles in dust or sticking to items kids put in their mouths.
Today's findings highlight the significant impact that fire retardancy laws can have on public health. Sadly, this is a lesson that our government hasn't adequately internalized. Instead, the shift away from PBDEs has occurred with little thought about the toxicity of replacement chemicals.
PBDE makers now sell a replacement fire retardant mixture that contains a brominated phthalate (some phthalates are potently toxic and were recently banned from kids' toys) and tris, a chemical that was banned from children's sleepwear in the 1970s due to cancer concerns. California advocates have pushed for the most toxic forms of fire retardants to be banned from new products, but they have not yet been successful at ensuring that our efforts to protect kids from one hazard don't inadvertently expose them to another.
Wondering what to do at home with all this info? Check out our quick tips for avoiding toxic fire retardants:
- Inspect foam items. Replace anything with a ripped cover or foam that is misshapen and breaking down. If you cannot replace these items try to keep the covers intact. Beware of older items like car seats or foam mattress toppers where the foam is not completely encased in a protective barrier.
- Use a vacuums fitted with a HEPA filter. These vacuums are more efficient at trapping small particles and will likely remove more contaminants and other allergens from your home. HEPA-filter air cleaners may also reduce particle-bound contaminants in your house.
- Wash your hands and your children's hands before eating. Try to keep kids from putting toys and electronic items in their mouths.
- Choose snug-fitting cotton PJs for kids. Although PBDEs were never used in clothing, other chemical fire retardants are used on synthetic (fleece) pajamas.
Photo by Bonnie Durrance
Consumers to FDA: Be there or be square
While the federal Food and Drug Administration dithers about whether to ban bisphenol A (BPA), a plastics chemical and synthetic estrogen, from U.S. food packaging, increasing numbers of Americans are voting with their pocketbooks.
The winners: entrepreneurs who paid attention to the early scientific reports documenting possible health risks of trace amounts of BPA leached into food and beverages from epoxy can linings and polycarbonate plastic bottles.
Eden Foods, Inc., a Clinton, MI., natural food company that adopted BPA-free cans in 1999, around the time the Japanese food processing industry voluntarily eliminated the chemical from its wares, reports a 40 percent jump in sales of its canned beans since 2006.
Kleen Kanteen, a Chico, CA., company founded in 2003 to produce reusable stainless steel water bottles, did $2.5 million in sales in 2007. This year’s sales have spiked by a whopping 600 percent, and the company projects sales of $15 million or more by the end of the year. Since April, when Canada announced a ban on BPA in baby bottles, says Kleen Kanteen officer Jeff Cresswell, “It’s been pretty crazy.” Orders for Kleen Kanteen bottles, he says, “quadrupled in a matter of days.” The company has recently introduced new product lines, including a 12-ounce bottle that accepts a baby bottle top, sippy-cup lid and regular lid so it can stick with its owner from diapers to skinny jeans.
BornFree of Boca Raton, FL., launched in 2006 to make BPA-free baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers and other baby products, is enjoying "tremendous growth," according to a company official who declined to cite sales numbers.
The Environmental Working Group and other health and consumer organizations are pressing the FDA to order BPA removed from can linings, baby and water bottles and other food packaging. The agency is ignoring those calls -- and consumers are ignoring the FDA. Major North American retailers like Walmart, Toys “R” Us, REI, Costco, Sears and Home Depot have been pulling BPA-based baby bottles, water bottles and other products from their shelves. Earlier this year, popular sports bottle makers Nalgene and Camelbak introduced bottles made of Eastman Tritan copolyester, which contains no BPA.
Major baby bottle brands like Gerber, Evenflo and Playtex are also moving to non-BPA bottles, though more slowly. Top makers of canned baby formula, revealed by EWG to use BPA-laden can linings, have told Congress they are exploring alternatives. PBM, a maker of store brand formula, recently wrote the House Energy and Commerce committee, “[T]he possibility that bisphenol A may pose adverse health risks to the infants and children who are fed our formula was more than sufficient for us to begin the process of eliminating bisphenol A from our infant formula packaging." (In the meantime, to help parents through the transition, EWG has posted an online “guide to baby-safe bottles & formula.”)
Small, agile companies with the ability to ramp up production of non-BPA products appear to be enjoying the steepest growth curves. Earlier this month, the Investor Environmental Health Network, which calls itself a “collaborative partnership” of environmental health-savvy investment managers responsible for portfolios totaling $41 million, issued a “Bisphenol A Market Analysis Report” that concluded that demand for BPA-free food contact products has “exploded” because “consumers are not waiting around for the regulatory process to kick in.”
“Companies monitoring emerging science and taking strategic steps in advance of slow government regulatory processes appear to clearly have the competitive edge as ‘first movers’ in the marketplace,” the IEHN report says. “Whether they are innovative entrepreneurs or old-line companies, they are grabbing market share, enhancing their branding, and otherwise prospering from public awareness of toxic chemicals in common consumer products.”
The consumer revolt against BPA is an object lesson in how the power of information is changing the world -- one bottle at a time.
Photo by garageolimpo.
Rocket fuel, yet again
Enviroblog readers are very familiar with the health risks posed by perchlorate, a thyroid hormone disruptor and rocket fuel chemical that contaminates water supplies of millions of Americans in 28 states. EWG analysis brought public attention to the fact that three quarters of the most commonly consumed foods and beverages are contaminated with perchlorate, making food the primary source of exposure to people. And many Americans are getting a double perchlorate hit – both from food and water. Especially at risk from perchlorate are women with lowered iodide levels (a third of the US population) and newborn children whose developing brain vitally depends on adequate levels of thyroid hormone.
Ignoring an extensive body of science on perchlorate health effects and two recent reports by the Government Accountability Office, EPA has again and again refused to take any action to address perchlorate contamination of drinking water as well as groundwater, surface water, and soil across the country, leaving the health of Americans at risk. Why? As testified by the EWG Executive Director Richard Wiles before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “Perchlorate provides a textbook example of a corrupted health protection system, where polluters, the Pentagon, the White House and the EPA have conspired to block health protections in order to pad budgets, curry political favor, and protect corporate profits.”
Today, new research from scientists at the University of Texas Arlington points to the most vulnerable population exposed to perchlorate – nursing infants. Scientists examined perchlorate levels in thirteen mother-child pairs and compared a mother’s dietary intake of iodine, her exposure to perchlorate, and the resultant concentration of iodide and perchlorate in her breast milk. They found that a while only one fifth’s of mother’s dietary iodide enters into her breast milk, a full half of her dose of perchlorate is transferred to milk, which is of course ingested by the infant. The study also confirms strong concerns about sufficient iodine intake both by the nursing infant and by the breast-feeding mother.
This study highlights the urgent need to protect the health of our children at the most vulnerable beginning stage of life. However, rather than being consumed by worries, mothers can take several effective steps to protect their children.
First, breast milk is still the best food for the infants’ long-term health.
Second, intake of iodized salt is a good way to increase our intake of this essential nutrient. For other tips on what parents can do to create safer homes for their children, check out EWG’s Healthy Home Tips .
Finally, our society needs aggressive public health protections from thyroid toxins in the environment, starting with perchlorate. After 50 years of deception and delay we need to pass strong legislation to safeguard our water from perchlorate contamination. For millions of Americans who have dual sources of exposure to perchlorate both in food and drinking water, setting national safety standards for perchlorate in drinking water is imperative. EWG has been at the forefront of advocating for state and federal establishment of stringent, science-based health standards for perchlorate in water in order fully to protect infants and children, who are exceptionally vulnerable to the chemical.
By EWG Senior Scientist Olga Naidenko, Ph.D.
Don’t ask, don’t tell at the EPA
The chemical industry, public health-oriented scientists and
environmentalists may be on the same page a couple of times a century.
In a good century.
Those who attended yesterday's House subcommittee hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency were treated to one of those startling moments: a representative for the American Chemistry Council concurred with adversaries that the EPA's process for evaluating the risks of toxic chemicals is too secretive.
Reflecting both camps' frustrations with the EPA, Democrats and Republicans on the House oversight and investigations panel joined forces to pummel EPA officials about a recent overhaul that gave the White House's Office of Management and Budget the power to intervene secretly in agency decisions about particular chemicals. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., called the EPA's new process "indefensible."
Officials of Congress's General Accountability Office told the panel that the White House-imposed review process "limits the credibility of the assessments because it lacks transparency." For instance, GAO reported, the White House ordered the EPA to terminate five reviews of suspected air pollutants without explaining why. The GAO says the EPA, which has assessed just four chemicals since 2006, is likely to grind through its 70-chemical backlog even more glacially because of the White House's ability to intervene at several points.
Ironically, the EPA's secrecy benefited the chemical industry in an episode scrutinized by the House panel. Deborah Rice, a toxicologist for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, took the stand to describe how she had been fired as chair of an EPA panel assessing the risk of a neurotoxic fire retardant known as deca (decabromobiphenyl ether).
Documents obtained in March 2008 by the Environmental Working Group disclosed that EPA removed Rice after ACC vice-president Sharon Kneiss complained to George M. Gray, EPA Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, that Rice had testified before the Maine legislature on the hazards of deca. Acting on Rice's advice and that of other health specialists, Maine banned the chemical. The state of Washington has also barred the use of deca, and 8 more states are considering bans. The chemical is banned in much of Europe.
Rice told the panel that her professional expertise and actions as a state employee should have not been used as grounds for firing her. "I believe that having an informed scientific opinion constitutes neither bias nor conflict of interest," Rice testified. "Indeed, if this is the definition of bias, then only individuals who are uninformed on a particular chemical would be considered suitable to serve as peer reviewers."
The EPA, siding with the chemical industry removed Rice, one of the country's preeminent experts on the toxic fire retardant, from the risk assessment panel. Yet, as EWG discovered, scores of individuals with direct financial ties to the chemical industry remain on a number of different EPA advisory panels.
The hearing produced yet more support for health, environment and consumer advocates who contend that the Bush administration has stacked scientific panels, manipulated or changed data, appointed inexperienced people to positions of authority and, in Rice's case, punished respected scientists whose offense is threatening corporate bottom lines.
Photo by Christian Science Monitor
Who's minding the store? Not the FDA.
Understandably, this week's news media and the blogosphere are brimming with financial news. And BPA stories. Other than generally being very bad news, these two topics might seem worlds apart. But just under the surface lies a very common thread: consumers who are wondering - more and more - who's minding the store?
It's pretty clear the federal government's not. Between the Consumer Product Safety Commission's abysmal performance last year on lead and the FDA's current refusal to acknowledge a quickly growing body of science linking BPA exposure to adverse human health effects, I think it is safe to say that they are (at best) out to lunch. Which we've discussed once or twice before here on Enviroblog. We also wrote the FDA a letter about its recent assessment of BPA (relax, everyone, it's safe!), making our interest in additional safety controls quite clear:
FDA's conclusion that current standards are adequate to protect public health from BPA's hormone-disrupting effects is at odds with available science on BPA's potential to harm infants and with conclusions drawn by other public health agencies and BPA experts.With its current flawed assessment, FDA is far from the health-protective positions adopted by other health agencies and independent BPA experts who have taken a serious look at the many studies that demonstrate BPA's potential to harm health at current levels of exposure in the population. We call on FDA to act on the science and to set BPA standards that protect the health of infants and others who are most vulnerable to its effects.
But rather than wait a really. long. time. until the FDA can agree with the science and do something, we can make safer personal choices, vote with our purses when we shop, and ask manufacturers for what we want. Because unlike the FDA, they have to care what we think.
But frankly, it's a little exhausting to add all those steps to my list. I'd really rather walk in to a store, any store, every store, and just buy safer products. But apparently that is asking too much. Sure makes the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act look good. Unlike our current ineffective chemicals regulatory law, this Act would require that new chemicals be safety tested before they're sold (revolutionary!), among other positive changes. Check out our Kid-Safe fact sheet. With Kid-Safe, we could actually walk into a store, any store, every store, and buy safe products - without the three hours of research! Well worth the hard work it's going to take to pass it.
Protecting our society from toxic chemicals: Why is common sense so uncommon?
Anyone who has ever sewn a curtain or a Christmas stocking knows this simple rule: “Don’t cut too close to the margin.” Otherwise, a small mistake, a tiny miscalculation, and the entire task is in danger.
Somehow, this common sense approach is often missed in the governmental deliberations that shortchange public health while safeguarding the cash flow for the chemical industry. The obstinate position that FDA has maintained on bisphenol A is a telling illustration. Rather than setting aside an ample margin of safety, ensuring that our children are adequately protected from endocrine disrupting substances, the FDA has persisted with its insensate logic whereby nearly every chemical is considered safe. Already, the parents have spoken – they don’t want BPA in their kids’ products. The National Toxicology Panel confirmed its concern about likely life-long health effects of BPA. The vast and constantly growing body of independent, reliable scientific research points to the health risks of BPA – yet the chemical industry and the FDA play the “all safe” tune over and over again.
Amazingly, we have seen all of this before – in the tobacco industry denial that both direct smoking and inhalation of second-hand smoke causes cancer, in the refusal of the environmental polluters to clean up chemical waste dump sites, in the product defense industry that blocks health-protective regulation of toxic chemicals such as flame retardants in furniture or endocrine-disrupting chemicals in children’s toys. Those stories need to be remembered and revisited. There is a big difference between true scientific debate and an artificially created uncertainty that cuts so close to the margin so as to put us all at risk. We need to err on the side of safety rather than dash headlong down a very deep precipice.
In May, Enviroblog readers saw a review of David Michaels’ recent book, Doubt Is Their Product, that describes how industry use of “scientific credentials for hire” and rampant conflicts of interests again and again derailed government’s attempts to establish health protective standards. Now, we can see the author himself (above) presenting an insightful and inspiring analysis of the real truth behind the façade created by the chemical industry, in a YouTube video of the Authors @ Google event.
In his talk, Michaels points to the common sense, yet desperately needed, steps to stop the chemical industry’s efforts to frustrate public health and the government regulators. There must be full disclosure of any and all industry sponsor involvement in scientific studies – no more secret, behind the scene studies that are than conveniently used by the FDA to refuse any evidence of harm. The independence of federal and state scientists and scientific advisory committees must be ensured. Known and likely hazards of chemical toxicities must be publicly disclosed rather than swept under the rug and hidden from the general public and the exposed people themselves, as happened in the case of the C8 or Teflon chemical (PFOA).
Do we need progress? Absolutely. But we also need foresight and wisdom to tread lightly, lest the melting ice – tiny, nearly invisible, nearly non-existent margin of safety – breaks underneath us. None of us wants a sudden collapse – when in doubt, leave the room for the unexpected, and use the best available science to inform ourselves and to take the decisions that will protect our health and the health of our families for a long time to come.
Olga V. Naidenko, PhD
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.
Rotten eggs in Versailles, PA
What would you rather have lurking underneath your hometown: highly explosive methane, or highly toxic hydrogen sulfide?
Tough decision. How about both?
In Versailles, PA, that's exactly the situation they've been left with. Old, poorly sealed oil wells and an abandoned coal mine have been leaking methane for decades, but since at least 2006 there's been scientific evidence of hydrogen sulfide, a gas that smells like rotten eggs and is dangerous to human health. To date nothing has been done about the problem, because no one in the town has known.
A two-year study by the US Department of Energy was intended to reveal the direct source of the methane problems, but researchers found more than they expected hiding in the small town. Some residents had apparently complained of a rotten egg smell for years, without knowing they were being exposed to hydrogen sulfide. In small amounts the gas can cause breathing problems and eye irritation; exposure to high concentrations can lead to death.
The team conducting the study says they assumed the town government knew about the problem, but town officials say they were never informed. That means that it's been two years since there's been a documented problem in Versailles, and nothing has been done. Town officials are calling for the release of the report, which was expected on August 31st -- hopefully the report will contain not just the problem, but also the solution. Residents of Versailles have waited long enough.
Lots more in the AP Exclusive story.
History of the war on cancer no longer secret
We here at Enviroblog loathe chemical waste. You regular readers may have caught that. Most people don't know enough about it, though -- about its sources and the nasty things it may be doing to our health -- to despise it as much as we do.
Part of that is because many in the chemical industry, like Big Tobacco before them, have made a living off of covering up incriminating documents and intentionally casting doubt on evidence that environmental toxins cause cancer.
Devra Davis wants to change that. Her book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, aims to dispel myths and expose the realities of chemical exposure. From a review by Slate's Barron H. Lerner:
Davis' book reveals the barriers to changing the status quo. A strong indication of the hurdles that confront her hopes for reform is that her "secret history" is really not very secret at all—at least to anyone interested in the relationship of cancer to the environment. For almost as long as there has been a "war on cancer," there has been what might be called a "war on the war on cancer": a series of efforts to move beyond a sole focus on the detection and treatment of cancer (the standard war on cancer) to actual prevention of the disease.
Lerner seems doubtful that Davis' book will be the rallying cry that leads the masses against the chemical industry, but acknowledges that The Secret History is definitely a step in the right direction. It's true: it'll take a lot more than a book to scare the industry. But the first step is making the general population understand what's at risk, and Davis is on the right track.
Will California's condors be unleaded?
I’m having a hard time with this post. The issue seems so obvious, so clearly-cut, that there can’t possibly be much left for me to say. Lead bullets poison people in firing ranges, animals in the wild, and the environment in both – so we ought to stop using them. Right?
Not according to the NRA.
There are only about 300 California Condors left in existence (about half of those are in captivity), and lead shot is the biggest continued threat to their survival. The birds end up consuming the contaminated ammo when they’re eating from carcasses left behind by hunters, which causes lead poisoning. One condor recently died of lead poisoning, and other “wild” condors have to be captured and treated for lead poisoning regularly. A bill to restrict the use of lead shot within condor country (not to ban lead shot altogether, which is what makes the most sense to me) passed the state’s legislature and is on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk.
But the Governor is in the NRA’s pocket on this one. They claim that there’s no scientific evidence that lead is a threat to the birds. Worse, they claim that the expense of having to use non-leaded ammo would force many hunters to stop hunting, which “will have terrible consequences on wildlife management practices.” (Sounds an awful lot like the claims of bar and restaurant owners when smoking bans are being debated, doesn’t it?) When the state’s Fish and Game commissioner released a document outlining the threat to condors from lead shot, Senator Dennis Hollingsworth organized a letter to be signed by 33 other NRA-supporters urging the Governor to, er, terminate the commissioner’s term.
Three days later, the commissioner resigned – due, he said, to pressure from the Governor’s office.
So like I said, this one should be opened and shut. But it isn’t, because Governor Schwarzenegger must decide between protecting his NRA cronies and protecting the dwindling population of a bird he himself chose to represent his state:
In a nod to the condor's magnificence, Schwarzenegger chose the condor as the symbol of California on the state quarter. The governor now has another choice to make - whether the condor will remain California's symbol, or disappear again from California's skies.
7 ways to reduce your exposure to PBDE flame retardants
PBDEs are everywhere, and there's some evidence connecting them to brain and developmental problems in animals, and possibly even cancer. Exposure to flame retardant chemicals is ubiquitous, but there are things you can do to keep the concentration of PBDEs in your body as low as possible. Here are some ideas pulled from the EWG research archives:
- Whenever possible choose PBDE-free electronics and furniture. PBDEs should not be in mattresses, couches and other foam products sold in 2005 or later. However they are still put in some new televisions and computer monitors. Our 2006 PBDE-free manufacturer and product list is a good place to start looking for electronics with out them.
- Avoid contact with decaying or crumbling foam that might contain fire retardants. This includes older vehicle seats, upholstered furniture, foam mattress pads, carpet padding, and kid’s products made of foam.
- Use a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter vacuum cleaner. These vacuums capture the widest range of particles and are good for reducing lead or allergens in house dust too.
- Replace couches, stuffed chairs, automobile seats and the like that have exposed foam. If you can't afford to replace them, cover them with sturdy cloth and vacuum around them frequently.
- Do not reupholster your older foam furniture, especially in homes where children or pregnant women live.
- Be careful when removing or replacing old carpet, since PBDEs are found in the foam padding beneath carpets. Isolate the work area with plastics and avoid tracking construction dust into the rest of your house. Pull out a HEPA vacuum to clean up when you're finished.
- The replacement chemicals for PBDEs in foam are not fully tested for their health effects. Buy products made with natural fibers (like cotton and wool) that are naturally fire resistant and may contain fewer chemicals.
Photo: That adorable girl is Clover. Her daddy, Evan Long, is the photographer.
Mossville's dioxin-free dreams
I wonder what health insurance costs are like in Mossville, Louisiana?
Sky high, I imagine. Residents of that community have three times as much dioxin in their bodies as the average U.S. population. Dioxins are the worst offenders when it comes to toxicity; these byproducts of chemical manufacture can cause cancer and harm to the reproductive system, and can be incredibly damaging to a developing fetus. The EPA assigns contaminants like dioxins a “maximum safe exposure level,” generally in parts per billion, but dioxin’s maximum safe level is set at zero – meaning no amount of exposure is safe. This stuff is just that dangerous.
The government has had its eye on Mossville since at least 1998, when the EPA and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, a division of the CDC) began collecting data for an “Exposure Investigation.” But the EPA and ATSDR missed an important opportunity when they failed to investigate the source of residents’ dioxin exposure. Then again, maybe they just didn’t notice all the factories.
Mossville, you see, is surrounded on all sides by industrial facilities. There are 14 of them, and at least 6 of them regularly release dioxins into the air and water. The government’s Exposure Investigation never mentions these vinyl, chemical, and petrochemical production plants as possible sources of Mossville residents’ dioxin exposure. Now the Exposure Investigation data has been compiled and analyzed by Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, and they’re wondering why – with all this data in their pocket – the EPA and ATSDR have been sitting on their hands while the community is forced to deal with industrially produced health problems.
The government agencies involved, AEHR says, have ignored their duty:
“Allowing industrial facilities to release massive quantities of harmful chemicals, including dioxins, into the environment without regard to the long-term effects on human health and the environment completely contradicts the missions of both ATSDR and EPA.”
The organization’s recommendations for the government agencies [pdf] are about as straightforward as can be. They must make human health concerns a priority in their work, investigate contamination from dioxins and other toxins that persist in the environment and concentrate as they move up the food chain, and inform communities and test subjects of the results of their studies.
Sounds simple enough . . . so why haven’t the EPA and ATSDR been doing that all along?
Good question.
Another Katrina legacy: Arsenic coated playgrounds
It's tricky to write about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent rebuilding of New Orleans. Today's headlines are full of contradictions. New Orleans is reveling "in a new spirit of innovation," but the second anniversary of the hurricane is marked by anger and sadness. President Bush is in the city for the day; depending on who you read he's either marking the anniversary, reassuring residents ("We understand"), or celebrating [NB: Fox News has changed their headline since the post was published. Apparently "celebrate" wasn't quite the word they were looking for.]. Regardless of the angle any particular journalist chooses, all of those headlines probably ring true for many.
But this is an environmental health blog, and I am an environmental health blogger, so it was this headline that caught my attention:
It appears that when the floodwaters swept through New Orleans they unearthed deeply buried arsenic-based pesticides. At least 6 of the city's schoolyards are coated with a layer of sediment contaminated with arsenic, in some cases a two- to three times the amount at which federal law mandates cleanup. The report calls for further testing to see how widespread the contamination really is. The NRDC report has prompted the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality deny responsibility.
Let's face it, the LDEQ probably has their hands full. The arsenic hazard study is only one part of the NRDC's report titled Katrina's Wake, which also outlines health threats from pollution and the massive amounts of trash the storm created and distributed. But NRDC experts are quick to point out that the arsenic problem would be quick and easy to fix -- especially compared to some of the city's other headaches.
Need health insurance? Here's an idea...
Science has been demonstrating recently that there are links between increasing rates of chronic diseases in the US and environmental exposures. If you are lucky, you have health insurance that will help you deal with it. But, if you are one of more than 50 million uninsured Americans, you might want to consider other options. Like marrying a Canadian. From the website Hook-a-Canuck:
Arsenic and old lies in Baltimore
Today's villain is brought to you by the letter C, for Coverup:
Back in early June we posted a story about a couple of Jersey City journalists who were arrested for crossing police barricades to collect samples of contaminated soil on school grounds. That story revolved around a Paramus, NJ middle school and piles of soil contaminated with high levels of pesticides. The Superintendent of the district knew about the contamination five months before the information was made public and made no effort to clean it up until public outrage forced her hand.
But five months is nothing, or at least that must be what residents of south Baltimore are thinking after a city task force released its report on Tuesday. It turns out that high levels of arsenic found this spring in a south Baltimore park were caused by faulty smokestacks on a nearby chemical company -- 30 years ago.
Torn filters on the smokestacks of Allied Chemical Company released arsenic, a carcinogen, into the air -- and onto the waterfront park. Arsenic testing performed on behalf of the company in 1976 showed contamination as high as 10,000 parts per million, but the chemical company withheld that information when advising on the reopening of the park.
So south Baltimore kids have grown up playing in arsenic-laced dirt. A report released in June by the federal agency responsible for toxic substances concluded that the tainted soil was not a threat to children's health unless they ate it, but levels of arsenic in the park far outweigh the 10 ppm EPA limits for drinking water -- and as this 2001 arsenic factsheet shows (pdf), children don't have to eat something to ingest it.
Does anyone else feel like there should be someone keeping a closer eye on these things?
Before you send your children out to play in the yard...
It was recently revealed in a new study that among some of the other “ingredients” that can be found in fertilizers Americans use on their lawns and gardens are steroids, drugs and fragrances. How does this happen you may ask? The “biosolid” fertilizers are partially made from the sludge left over after sewage is treated, which, as one can imagine, would make for quite the concoction.
Of course, wastewater-treatment officials (oh, these are the guys who produce the sewage byproducts) claim there is no cause for concern – all is well. And, how do they arrive at this rosy conclusion? They say the levels of these drugs, steroids and fragrances are at such low levels it won’t pose any health risks to you and your toddlers as they roll around in the back yard, or play in the sprinkler during a hot summer day.
I for one would love to believe that, but maybe a little more information from scientists and public health officials with no ties to the fertilizer industry is required so consumers know exactly what they are spreading on their lawns.
You can find more information about sludge fertilizers and how they may be affecting you at the Center for Food Safety.
Which is the real Chevron?
Last weekend, on my 4-year-old's preschool campout, I was talking to another dad about the environmental commitment of the oil company he works for. They're putting millions of dollars into biofuels research, converting their vehicle fleet to hybrids or natural gas, and my friend is writing speeches for the CEO that proclaim the urgency of addressing global warming.
Today, in the San Francisco Chronicle, I read about an oil company that plans to increase production at its refinery to meet gasoline supply shortages that have helped push Bay Area pump prices to the highest in the country. Problem is, that will also increase the refinery's emissions – not just global warming gases but volatile organic compounds known to cause respiratory disease and cancer, as well as heavy metals and toxic chemicals that will be dumped into the bay. The community around the refinery, which has lived for decades with the impact of its pollution, flaring, and accidents, is demanding safeguards and considering special taxes to offset the health effects of the expansion.
So which company is going green and which is still mired in the muck of environmental evil?
Trick question. They're the same company: Chevron.