Goals of Chemical-Free Kids echoed in report by President’s Cancer Panel
Organic food now recommended by mainstream physicians
CFK News 5.14.10
Could it be? Organic food recommended by some of mainstream medicine’s most respected practitioners? What’s the world coming to?
Actually, it’s finally coming to recognize the health risks (especially to children) posed by commonly used chemicals, judging from what representatives of the U.S. public health establishment now have to say on the subject.
In the newly released 200-page report of the President’s Cancer Panel, two eminent physicians, Dr. LaSalle Leffall Jr., an oncologist and professor of surgery at Howard University, and Dr. Margaret Kripke, an immunologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston -- both Bush administration appointees – have issued a strongly worded warning to Americans about the toxic substances to which we are routinely exposed.
Here. For example, is some of the advice they offer individuals (as opposed to “policy, research and program recommendations”):
“Exposure to pesticides can be decreased by choosing, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers and washing conventionally grown products to remove residues. Similarly, exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feed lots can be minimized by eating free-range meat raised without these medications if it is available.”
That might sound like a far cry from the way organic agriculture was once dismissed as a radical, unnecessary or counter-productive concept, but it reflects a whole new public-health perspective on the relationship between environmental chemicals and cancer, as well as other health concerns. Or, as the report’s executive summary notes, “A growing body of research documents myriad established and suspected environmental factors linked to genetic, immune, and endocrine dysfunction that can lead to cancer and other diseases.”
The report’s authors make a special point of emphasizing the effect of such factors on society’s youngest members, pointing out that “children are exposed to toxic and carcinogenic chemicals and radiation through the air they breathe, the food and water they consume, medications they are given, and the environment in which they live, including their homes, schools, day care centers, and even the motor vehicles in which they ride. Pound for pound, children take in more food, water, air, and other environmental substances than adults. Children also can be exposed to toxins in utero via placental transfer and/or after birth via breast milk. Tests of umbilical cord blood found traces of nearly 300 pollutants in newborns’ bodies, such as chemicals used in fast-food packaging, flame retardants present in household dust, and pesticides.”
Citing a rise in U.S. childhood cancer statistics during the period between 1975-2006, the report goes on to contend that such increases “have been too rapid to be of genetic origin. Nor can (they) be “explained by the advent of better diagnostic techniques” which “might be expected to cause a one-time spike in rates, but not the steady increases that have occurred in these cancers over a 30-year span.” But it does acknowledge that “research on environmental causes of cancer has been limited by low priority and inadequate funding. As a result, “the consequences of cumulative lifetime exposure to known carcinogens and the interaction of specific environmental contaminants remain largely unstudied.”
In an open letter to President Obama at the beginning of the report, the authors warn about the effects such a wide gap in our understanding could be having on everyday people, noting that the Panel “was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread.”
The letter goes on to recommend that “efforts to inform the public of such harmful exposures and how to prevent them … be increased. All levels of government, from federal to local, must work to protect every American from needless disease through rigorous regulation of environmental pollutants.” Observing that “the American people—even before they are born—are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures, it concludes by urging the president to use the power of his office “to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”
All of which echoes our sentiments exactly, as well as the mission in which we’ve been engaged ever since the publication of our original “Chemical-Free Kids” book seven years ago. The fact that we’re now hearing it from a government-sponsored panel comprised of major players from the realm of conventional medicine proves that once again, as Bob Dylan put it, “The times they are a–changin’…and hopefully, will continue to do so until the man-made risk factors have been substantially eliminated from our diet and environment.
To view a PDF of the complete report, click on: http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/pcp.htm
To read Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed column on this report in The New York Times, click on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06kristof.html
Replacing high-calorie sodas with diet beverages
may pose an even greater health risk to students
A Chemical-Free Kids investigative report
By BILL BONVIE
CFK News 4.13.10
From the self-congratulatory tone of the saturation ads now being disseminated over the airwaves by the American Beverage Association, many parents might now be under the impression that they need no longer be concerned about the health effects of the drinks being made available to their kids at school.
According to the message, the ABA’s School Beverage Guidelines program (co-sponsored by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, and with Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper playing leadership roles), has now succeeded in reducing the caloric content of those beverages by a whopping 88 percent.
“It’s a brand new day in America’s schools when it comes to beverages,” the organization boasts on its web site. “Our industry has delivered on its commitment to change the school beverage landscape. We’ve removed full-calorie sodas and replaced them with lower-calorie, nutritious, smaller-portion choices.”
To be sure, soft-drink consumption has been identified as one of the leading culprits in a virtual epidemic of obesity and diabetes – and it appears that the offending items in this regard may indeed have been removed from most vending machines used by students. According to the ABA’s director of communications, Christopher Gindlesperger, “shipments (to schools) of full-calorie soft drinks have declined by 95 percent since 2006, and we felt the need to share the news.”
But high-calorie drinks and the ingredients they contain – especially high-fructose corn syrup, or HFCS – aren’t the only dietary hazards to the health of the nation’s kids. And by substituting low-calorie or “diet” items, the industry may well have increased their consumption of other harmful additives – in particular, the artificial sweetener aspartame.
Aspartame’s adverse effects sugarcoated …once again
Gindlesperger, in fact, acknowledged in a phone interview that “aspartame is our low-cal sweetener in many of the products” now being marketed via vending machines in high schools throughout the country (although soft drinks are now being removed entirely in participating elementary and middle schools, he noted). And our own survey of diet sodas on supermarket shelves showed that virtually all of them still contain aspartame.
So it perhaps should come as no surprise that this shift from sugar and HFCS-saturated soft drinks to those laden with aspartame is being accompanied by an attempt on the part of the ABA to reassure consumers that the latter additive is indeed safe for most people to consume.
In fact, prominently displayed on the group’s web site, right below its lead article on the change in the “beverage landscape,” is an article bearing the headline “Safety of Aspartame Re-Affirmed…Once Again”. The story relates how “a team of experts from a number of European Union member states” have found “no new evidence on aspartame that would require EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority) to reassess its opinion that the sweetener is safe.” That conclusion, it points out, goes along with the position of such agencies as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It also maintains that aspartame and other artificial sweeteners used in beverages have “undergone extensive testing before being approved by the FDA.”
The fact that such safety claims have long been disputed by a number of leading health experts and medical authorities, however, isn’t mentioned --- nor is the fact that many thousands of adverse reactions to aspartame, ranging from seizures and migraines to vision problems, have been reported to the FDA (as well as being logged by non-governmental organizations, such as the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network).
Nor, for that matter, does the ABA bother to tell you about the exceptionally high number of rats that developed spontaneous brain tumors after being administered aspartame --25 times higher than normal, according to the original manufacturer, or 47 times, according to Dr. John Olney, the neuroscientists who reviewed the findings. Nor, when it comes to the FDA approval, that the FDA commissioner at the time of its introduction in the early 1980s overruled the opinions of a panel of scientific advisors in giving it an official green light.
Then, too, there’s no mention of aspartame’s being categorized as an “excitotoxin” -- described by Dr. Russell Blaylock, a prominent neurosurgeon and renowned authority on health issues, as a neurotransmitter capable of literally exciting brain cells to death, especially in children whose blood-brain barriers aren’t fully formed.
Such disturbing issues are merely dismissed by the article’s author as “sensational things about low-calorie sweeteners” that you might have read or heard.
A reality check on other artificial sweeteners
Sweeteners? Well, as it turns out, there are a couple of other synthetic ones used in some diet drinks that various experts have also been raising red flags about – particularly acesulfame potassium (or acesulfame K) and sucralose (Splenda), which is made by chlorinating sugar.
The web site Medicine net.com, for instance, notes that “Acesulfame K does contain the carcinogen methylene chloride,” long-term exposure to which “can cause headaches, depression, nausea, mental confusion, liver effects (and) kidney effects.” And sucralose has been the subject of few human studies, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the country’s most respected authorities on alternative health issues. But Mercola warns that it could make diabetes more difficult to control -- as well as resulting in such problems as shrinking of thymus glands, enlarged liver and kidneys, reduced growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, hyperplasia of the pelvis, aborted pregnancy and decreased fetal body weight.
And as it turns out, both of those additives are contained in sports drinks now being offered to high-school students as part of the ABA-sponsored campaign – “product innovations” such as Gatorade G-2 and Powerade that, according to Gindlesperger, have actually been developed in conjunction with the program. “These products didn’t exist before we started doing this initiative, he noted. (Both drinks, incidentally, also contain artificial colors, and HFCS is listed as an ingredient in Gatorade G-2.)
Gindlesperger, however, said he wasn’t sure if any soft drinks that contain the herbal sweetener stevia, which is non-caloric and not associated with any adverse health effects, were being offered by any participating schools, since “there’s such a limited number of stevia products on the market.” (Stevia, unlike aspartame, has only recently been given FDA approval as an additive, despite centuries of use and numerous studies attesting to its safety.)
So while parents might be justifiably pleased to see HFCS-laden, high-calorie drinks removed from schools – and all sodas made unavailable to students in lower grades – they should also be aware that their replacements are by no means a healthy or safe alternative, and might even have far more adverse effects on some kids. While “the safety of (these) products has been repeatedly reaffirmed by government agencies around the world,” as the ABA’s Gindlesperger puts it, there are also many credible, independent authorities who have had no role in allowing them to be marketed – and whose research has led them to the firm conclusion that the additives they contain are hazardous to our children’s health.
Bill Bonvie , content editor for the Chemical-Free Kids web site, is a veteran newspaper reporter, editor and commentary writer and co-author of "Chemical-Free Kids: The Organic Sequel."
Pesticides endangering bees as well as birds – and many of our basic crops
CFK News 4.4.10
Apparently, it’s not just the birds that are being killed off in large numbers by toxic pesticides, but the bees as well.
It seems the massive honeybee die-offs of the past couple years – a phenomenon known as "colony collapse disorder" – are getting worse, and pesticides are now regarded as one of the major culprits.
According to a study published Friday in the scientific journal PLOS (Public Library of Science) One, about three out of five pollen and wax samples from 23 states contained at least one systemic pesticide, which is designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant – a development that the Environmental Protection Agency is "very seriously concerned" about.
Responding to the study, chemists at a scientific conference in San Francisco this week are examining the link between chemical sprays and the depletion of bee colonies.
And in December, a federal judge in New York banned the sale of a pesticide developed by Bayer Crop Science, which had been granted conditional EPA approval with the proviso that it carry a label warning it was "potentially toxic to honey bee larvae through residues in pollen and nectar." The ban, sought by the Natural Resources Defense Council on the grounds that the public had not been given timely notice of the company’s application, has been upheld by two more judges.
What all this means is that even while pesticides continue to be promoted as being responsible for abundant harvests, they may quite literally be having the opposite effect – by killing off the pollinators that are essential to the very existence of our most important fruits and vegetables. Pesticides, in other words, could well end up starving future generations of essential nutrients if the extermination of bees continues at its present rate.
For the full story, click here.
Legal clash over pesticide carbofuran evokes ‘canary in the coal mine’ comparison
CFK News 3.29.10
In her landmark book "Silent Spring," the late Rachel Carson envisioned a time when the arrival of spring would no longer be accompanied by the singing of birds due to uncontrolled pesticide use having killed off all of these harbingers of the season.
The publication of that book back in 1962 has been largely credited with the subsequent banning of DDT and the growth of restrictions on other toxic pesticides, as well as for the launching of the environmental movement itself.
But the campaign against chemical threats to the environment hasn’t yet been won – and, as a protracted battle now in its climactic phase has shown, the fears expressed by Carson were not the hysterical exaggerations that her critics have claimed.
The chemical at issue is carbofuran, a pesticide used on used to corn, soy beans, cotton, potatoes, and other crops, which was estimated by the EPA to have killed up to three million birds per year in its granular form, which was banned 16 years ago (although other estimates put the avian toll as high as 90 million). Since then, only the liquid formulation has been in use - and in 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began the process of canceling the use of the chemical entirely.
But the manufacturer, FMC Corp., challenged that EPA mandate, leading to court proceedings that finally got under way this week in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, with the National Pesticide Reform Coalition, comprised of some 20 bird advocacy and environmental groups, facing off against the company and its supporters in the chemical industry.
While the estimated number of birds killed by pesticides is believed to have decreased significantly from about 67 million per year in 1992, to around 15 million currently, a more precise count has been made impossible by the relaxing of wildlife poisoning incident requirements a dozen years ago. And while an Aviation Incident Monitoring System (AIMS) has since been facilitated by the American Bird Conservancy, it hasn’t made up for the lack of official reporting that, according to ABC President George Fenwick, may be concealing the actual numbers of pesticide-related bird deaths.
Since publication of " Silent Spring," many critics have made the charge that environmentalists are simply "elitists" out of touch with the real world. But no one would ever say that of coal miners, who are known to have used canaries to find out if toxic gases had built up to life-threatening levels in their working environment.
In light of the statistics, as we await the final verdict on carbofuran, we may well ask ourselves whether everyday birds haven’t become our own equivalent of the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to the use of agricultural pesticides.
For a profile on carbofuran from American Bird Conservancy, click here.
Also interesting is a press release from the company that makes the chemical, FMC, stating they plan a legal challenge to the EPA's decision. This is the case going on now.
Health hazards of recalled foods not just limited to salmonella
CFK News 3.15.10
While news media focus on the perils posed by runaway Toyotas over which drivers have no control, far less coverage has been devoted to the latest revelation of inherent hazards in other manufactured commodities – processed foods.
In what could end up becoming "one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history," according to The Washington Post, items containing hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, a flavor enhancer used in numerous processed food products, have been removed from grocery shelves after salmonella contamination was detected in one lot of the additive and at the facility in which it was manufactured. While food processors had initially issued voluntary recalls of some 56 different products, Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, estimated that the ingredient at issue could "potentially be in over 10,000 products."
Not all the products involved, however are considered by the FDA as potentially hazardous to health, as the agency has indicated it will exempt those whose manufacturers can document that they were properly heated to kill any pathogens. To quote Don Schaffner, a professor of microbiology professor and food-safety expert at Rutgers University who advises the FDA, "They're trying to come to some reasonable decision about how to protect the public health but not be so cautious as to be ridiculous and throw out tons and tons of product that may be fine."
But that depends on your definition of "fine." For, as the Post observed in its account, HVP "is similar to monosodium glutamate, or MSG." And MSG, as we’ve pointed out both on this site and in the Chemical-Free Kids books, is an additive that can produce a whole range of adverse effects, including headaches, numbness and dizziness, as well as being considered an ‘excitotoxin" that can literally excite brain cells to death in small children, older people and those whose blood-brain barriers may have been compromised by injury or illness. (In fact, we describe HVP as a “disguised form" of MSG.)
The point is that, whether recalled or not, these thousands of conventional food products aren’t good for us in the first place. Even without the threat of salmonella contamination, substances like HVP pose hazards to your family’s health that should be avoided.
Scientists’ concerns about safety halt ‘second generation’ of GM corn
CFK News 3.4.10
Has genetically engineered food met its Waterloo? Perhaps not yet – but the withdrawal of applications to market a "second generation" of GM (genetically modified) corn by Monsanto, the world’s leading biotech company, appears to be a significant setback for this risky and untested experiment with our food supply.
After concerns about safety were raised by independent New Zealand scientists, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was notified by Monsanto subsidiary Renessen that the company wanted GM corn varieties pulled from the regulatory and assessment process at the eleventh hour," according to a communique from the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.
While neither the company nor the EFSA opted to make news of the retreat public, you can read all about it here.
'Cosmetic damage’ to children could occur prior to birth
CFK News 2.23.10
Could some aggression and misbehavior in children have cosmetic rather than genetic causes?
According to a new study conducted by researchers at New York City’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, a child can suffer “cosmetic damage” while still in the womb if the mother regularly uses products that contain phthalates. These chemicals, used to soften plastics, are commonly found in makeup, hairspray, perfume, body sprays, scented shampoos, soaps, and lotions.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, involved the testing of urine samples from 188 expectant mothers during their third trimester of pregnancy for the presence of 10 specific phthalate metabolites. The subjects were later administered questionnaires while their children were between the ages of 4 and 9 years old in regard to their behavior and cognitive functions.
The questionnaires revealed that prenatal use of the chemicals in question was associated with significantly more aggression and behavioral and emotional control problems, particularly among those children with the highest levels of such exposure.
“Pregnancy is a uniquely vulnerable stage in development. Even in the absence of consensus, there is sufficient evidence today to support the plausibility of harm from phthalate exposure, particularly in the context of fetal development," noted Stephanie Engel, MPH, PhD, associate professor of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai, who authored the study.
Check out the Environmental Working Group’s Campaign for Safe Cosmetics for more information as well as their cosmetic’s database here.
Be kind to bees -- by going organic
CFK News 2.8.10
As if we hadn’t provided you with enough reasons to choose organic produce, here’s yet another very important one: to help keep your best friends in the insect world alive and buzzing.
The Organic Center, in reporting on the causes of “colony collapse disorder” that has been decimating entire honeybee populations, notes that “scientists in Europe have discovered a major new, widespread exposure pathway through which bees are ingesting nicotinyl insecticides in virtually all intensively farmed regions – honeybee sources of drinking water.”
“(E)xposure to pesticides, and in particular the persistent, systemic nicotinyl insecticides are likely to be involved in many CCD episodes,” according to the report.
Of course, you don’t have to be a scientist to figure out that chemical weapons that target insects pose a threat to the beneficial ones we depend on as well. Or to know that we depend on honeybees for a lot more than honey -- in fact, were they to disappear, so would a good deal of the fruits and vegetables that we depend on them to pollinate.
You also don’t need an advanced degree to figure out that organic farming, in which no chemical pesticides are used, offers our best hope for the survival of our bee allies. Or that the more of us that opt for organic produce, the greater the demand for bee-friendly organic agricultural practices.
So the next time you hear someone say the world can’t afford to grow food without pesticides, ask that person how many things the world can keep on growing without bees.
Check out the Organic Center PowerPoint slides on the story by clicking here.
First Lady’s “Victory Garden’ Winning Converts to Healthier Culinary Culture
CFK News 1.29.10
Despite one of the coldest winters the nation’s capital has experienced in years, the “victory garden” cultivated last spring on the south lawn of the White House by First Lady Michelle Obama with the help of family and staff members and local school children, is as hot a commodity as ever.
The vegetable and herb garden, which aroused the ire of the chemical industry’s trade association (as we noted back in April of last year), because it is being grown using natural methods and without the help of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers, seems to have inspired a whole new generation of home gardeners.
Exemplifying the trend is the National Gardening Association’s estimate of a 19 percent increase last year in the number of home-based fruit and vegetable gardens, and a report from W. Atlee Burpee & Co., one of the nation’s largest seed companies, of a 30 percent rise in sales of vegetable seeds in 2009 compared with the previous year.
And just recently, two White House chefs were featured on an episode of “Iron Chef America” participating in a competition that involved whipping up five dishes using anything from the garden (which they both won).
The whole story about the positive influence the first family’s garden has been having on America’s culinary culture is available at The Huffington Post, and can be accessed by clicking on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/white-house-garden-michel_n_419763.html
Problems such as toxic cadmium in kids’ jewelry
may help spur passage of Kid Safe Chemical Act
CFK News 1.20.10
The discovery of high amounts of the toxic metal cadmium in children’s jewelry manufactured (as so many retail items now are) in China is but the latest manifestation of the many insidious ways in which today’s kids may be exposed to harmful substances in everyday products.
The amounts of cadmium used in the jewelry at issue were cited as particularly hazardous to cognitive development in children, who might be apt to suck on or bite such items. One researcher, Dr. Aimin Chen of the University of Cincinnati’s medical school, has determined that cadmium exposure can lower a child’s IQ even more than lead, according to The Associated Press, which broke the story.
Among the products found to contain high amounts of cadmium were pendants with themes from the movie, “The Princess and the Frog.”
The report resulted in an announcement that WalMart was pulling any suspect merchandise from its shelves, with a spokesperson for the retailer calling the report “troubling.” Also troubled were politicians and government officials who called for new restrictions on the list of the 275 most hazardous substances in the environment.
''This is just the latest example of the need for stronger consumer safety laws in this country, especially for products manufactured and marketed for children, and shows yet again why products from China should be subject to additional scrutiny,'' said Democratic Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut.
Congress, as it turns out, has been sitting on just such legislation for nearly two years
In May of 2008, a proposed law called the “Kid Safe Chemical Act” was first introduced by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Representatives Hilda Solis (who has since resigned to become the Obama administration’s secretary of labor and Henry Waxman (both D-Calif.) for the expressed purpose of protecting Americans, and especially children from toxic chemicals in everyday consumer products. The bill would require that the Environmental Protection Agency evaluate every chemical product created for commerce to ensure its safety before it is allowed on the market, rather than waiting until one already in use is actually shown to be dangerous, as is currently the rule.
“Every day, consumers rely on household products that contain hundreds of chemicals. The American public expects the federal government to keep families safe by testing chemicals—but the government is letting them down,” Lautenberg observed at the time. “We already have strong regulations for pesticides and pharmaceuticals—it’s common sense that we do the same for chemicals that end up in household items such as bottles and toys.”
Noting how recent news regarding bisphenol A in baby bottles underscored “the need for significant reform to ensure children are not unnecessarily exposed to chemicals which threaten their health and environment,” Solis said.the legislation was needed “to repair the fundamentally flawed chemical regulatory structure. Our nation’s children deserve adequate protection and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure their health is protected.”
Or as Waxman described it, “The Kid Safe Chemical Act will deliver what its name implies – a non-toxic environment for our children.”
What, exactly, is the current status of that promising-sounding legislation?
According to a member of Lautenberg’s staff who fielded an inquiry, the bill currently needs to be reintroduced by virtue of Congress having failed to act on it during its previous session, and is “the drafting is still being finished. A number of people have come to the table with contributions.”
Prior to its reintroduction, the aide contended, the senator has decided to make the bill even stronger. “Since the time it was last introduced and now, more science has become available. The bill is doing a good job of taking into account the recent science.”
The spokesman added that “we think it will be (addressed) in this Congress,” before anticipated Democratic losses make adoption of consumer protection reforms a more difficult proposition.
Waxman’s office had no new developments to offer on the progress of the measure, although a staffer for the congressman, a long-time consumer advocate, added,”‘we’re definitely working on these issues.”
More encouraging news, however, was forthcoming from the Washington, D.C., offices of the Environmental Working Group, which has championed the legislation since its inception. With the active sponsorship of Lautenberg and Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois,“we’ve been promised it will be introduced no later than this spring.” the group’s communications director, Alex Formuzis, said in response to an inquiry from CFK.
Although lawmakers have up to now been preoccupied with more pressing concerns such as health care reform and climate change legislation, Formuzis indicated that prospect’s for the bill’s passage this year were looking considerably brighter. In addition to having Democrats currently in control of both houses of Congress and a president and EPA administrator for whom consumer safety is a top priority, the chemical industry itself is “no longer a full-fledged impediment” to such reform, as it has been in past years, he contended.
That impression, he noted, was gleaned from meetings with EWG has had with representatives of the leading industry group, the American Chemistry Council, who “acknowledged that the current law is broken and needs to be reframed.” The law now in effect, Formuzis added, is one that “has allowed over 80,000 virtually untested chemicals into commerce that eventually wind up in all of us.”
The EWG spokesman also pointed out that there is a silver lining of sorts to disturbing reports such as the one about cadmium in children’s jewelry. While “news like this is unfortunate,” he said, the cumulative effect of the recent “waterfall” of such revelations is one that industry and policy makers can no longer afford to ignore and that “makes it much more difficult for nothing to happen. The problem is one that needs to be fixed.”
Despite that optimistic appraisal, however, the fact remains that the kind of sweeping reforms envisioned under such a bill are always subject to resistance from those who stand to benefit from preservation of the status quo – resistance that could be reinforced by next fall’s election results. That’s why it’s so important for all of us who are concerned about our families’ health and safety to put pressure on the members of our congressional delegations to bring this vital piece of legislation to a vote this year – and to vote it into law.
If they do, they’ll be benefiting not only their constituents, but those industry lobbyists as well, who, hard as it may be to believe, are human and have families they care about, too.
Keep saying 'No' to GMOs
CFK News 1.14.10
The dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods, which we explored in Chemical-Free Kids: The Organic Sequel, are now getting more publicity than ever. Monsanto and other biotech corporations, with the backing of the FDA, like to portray genetic engineering of crops as a thoroughly safe, innocuous and beneficial process that can only make life better for both farmers and consumers, But the information that’s been emerging on this relatively new, untested and alien technology paints a very different and disquieting picture.
The link below will provide you with some of the latest news in the campaign to inform consumers about the hidden hazards of GM foods, and a handy guide for avoiding them. You can read more on the subject, including the sneaky way this technology was approved without safety testing and the destructive effects it is having on agriculture, in Chemical-Free Kids: The Organic Sequel (available at Amazon.com at our CFK store).
http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/SG/Home/index.cfm
