Maybe you don’t view the behavior of honeybees as a matter of public interest. But how about the successful pollination of some of our most common food crops, such as apples, onions, cherries, even the vanilla that goes into your favorite ice cream? Personally, I view $15 billion worth of American food that bees pollinate each year as a public matter. Unfortunately, the government agency tasked with keeping our crops and environment safe failed to make its relevant information public.
A couple of weeks ago, NRDC had to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to hand over records about clothianidin, a pesticide suspected of playing a role in Colony Collapse Disorder—the name given to the rapid decline of almost 30 percent of the honeybee populations that pollinate our food.
No one knows exactly what is causing Colony Collapse Disorder, but France and Germany suspended the use of the pesticide because of concerns that it may be linked to the bees’ demise. Both nations are conducting further studies, and scientists and farmers around the world are eager for any pertinent information they can find.
That’s where the EPA comes in. Back in 2003, the agency gave conditional approval for using clothianidin in the United States, but it required the manufacturer to submit studies on how the pesticide might impact bees.
Did the studies ever get completed and filed? What did the studies reveal? How did EPA evaluate the information in deciding to leave the pesticide on the market, and what else did the agency consider? The EPA wouldn’t tell us, so we filed a Freedom of Information Act request. When the agency stonewalled further, we sued them. The EPA wasn’t happy, and it posted a letter to me on the agency’s website.
We would prefer not to have to resort to FOIA requests and lawsuits in order to review documents that should be available to the public in the first place. It is costly and time consuming. But in this case, the EPA expressly asked us to file a FOIA request after it declined to hand over the records informally.
According to FOIA rules, an agency has 20 days to furnish the request, but the deadline passed and NRDC still hadn’t received relevant information.
The EPA claims it responded to our requests with two letters. The first one we received said that the agency had received our request. The second one (posted August 18, the day we filed our lawsuit, and not received until August 20) said that the agency still had not made a final determination on our requests.
This kind of bureaucratic reaction doesn’t count as a meaningful response to our call for scientific studies. And it certainly doesn’t meet the agency’s legal obligation to provide a final ruling on our FOIA request within 20 days.
In the agency’s letter to me, it claims the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Program “sets the bar” for transparency and public participation. NRDC begs to differ. The program has repeatedly refused to disclose information in response to FOIA requests until months or even years after the deadline. Several times, federal judges have rebuked the Office of Pesticide Programs in cases NRDC was forced to litigate regarding the EPA’s lack of transparency.
There has even been significant press coverage of the agency’s repeated private negotiations with the pesticide industry on key regulatory decisions—to the exclusion of public health and environmental groups.
The most important issue here is that there is still no complete public record of the agency decision that NRDC is concerned about here: the EPA’s approval of a new pesticide dispute expressing significant concerns about harm it may cause to bees.
The agency has posted some information on its website since our lawsuit, but we will push until all relevant material is shared. We believe that a decision about a pesticide which might impact what the USDA says is one-third of the diet of the average American should be made openly. The public has a right to know.
]]>Despite my many years of working to protect the environment and public health, I still have trouble understanding the alphabet soup of toxicology--knowing my perfluorooctanic acid (in nonstick cookware and stain resistant fabric) from my polybrinuibated diphenylethers (in flame retardant bedding and furniture).
Still, most of us are familiar with a short list of common, really nasty pollutants: lead, mercury, PCBs, even the old standard, DDT. Now there is a new family of toxins worthy of being awarded this household-name recognition: endocrine disruptors.
Why, among all the pollutants to choose from, should endocrine disruptors become a part of our daily lexicon? For three main reasons.
Hopefully, regulation will follow more data. Right now there is no law regulating endocrine disruptors. No standard for exposure has been set; no rule has been passed to require manufacturers to list them on their ingredient labels.
NRDC is fighting to change that. We are trying to get companies to join with us in the call for much needed science and regulation. Because if endocrine disruptors are going to join the list of well-known pollutants, they should get the benefit that goes along with that status: binding regulation. Lead, mercury, PCBs, arsenic, all of those have been regulated. The laws are not perfect for those toxins, but at least we have started to reduce our exposure to them. NRDC wants to do the same with endocrine disruptors.
In the meantime, educate yourself, find out what products contain endocrine disruptors, and demand your stores offer you safer products.
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This is personally gratifying for me. As I have written about before, I had breast cancer several years ago, and breast cancer is what is known as a hormone-sensitive disease. It is fueled in part by estrogen. Women at risk for breast cancer are advised to avoid ingesting estrogen, such as excess amounts of soy (which has a natural form of estrogen) or hormone replacement therapy (which includes estrogen).
BPA is a synthetic form of estrogen. It was developed in the 1930s by scientists looking for hormone replacement drugs. BPA was sidelined in favor of another estrogen, DES, which of course turned out to be all-too toxic after a generation of women gave birth to daughters with reproductive defects.
But BPA didn’t die. It resurfaced as a building block of some of the most popular plastics, including the beloved Bakelite in the 1950s and 1960s and the ubiquitous polycarbonate today.
The problem is the stuff doesn’t stay inside the plastic. It leaches out into food and water. In other words, we are likely taking in small doses of estrogen when we drink from a Nalgene water bottle or make spaghetti sauce from canned tomatoes. Worse, our babies could be receiving doses when they use most plastic baby bottles or drink formula made from a can.
What does this extra estrogen lead to? A decade of research has shown that BPA causes abnormalities during fetal development. In lab animals, it has been shown to feminize males. Most alarming to me, it has been found to cause the early onset of puberty (a risk factor for breast cancer, because it means a prolonged exposure to estrogen) and to promote pre-cancerous changes in the breast. Many studies show these effects at low levels – near or at the levels that come out of food cans or bottles.
NRDC has been working to get government agencies to take this chemical seriously for years. In fact, it wasn’t until NRDC blew the whistle on the U.S. government for using industry-paid scientists to determine the toxicity of BPA that the EPA fired its tainted contractors, started over again, and came to more objective conclusions.
On Monday, the U.S. National Toxicology Program became the first federal agency in the world to express concern regarding this chemical’s potential to cause harm to fetuses, infants and children (see my colleague Dr. Gina Solomon’s blog post).
And on Wednesday, it became clear that Health Canada will likely declare bisphenol-A (BPA) a toxin, which sets it on the road to a partial or complete ban in food-related containers.
We are happy for the vindication of things we have been saying for years, but we won’t sit around. Now it’s time to take action!
NRDC will work to first get BPA out of baby products. Then we will turn to outher sources of exposure, including the lining of other food and soda cans, and polycarbonate water bottles--the ones marked #7.
In the meantime, here are some steps you can take.
The trouble is our job of protecting our children is getting harder, particularly shielding our daughters--and ourselves--from breast cancer. Why? Because one of the most pervasive chemicals in modern life has been linked to breast cancer.
Known as bisphenol-A, or BPA, it is among the 50 most produced chemicals in the world. It is found in everything from plastic water jugs labeled #7 to baby bottles to canned food liners to take-out containers from your local deli. It is so omnipresent that the CDC has found that 95 percent of Americans have the chemical in their urine.
What does this mean for women concerned about breast cancer? BPA is a synthetic form of estrogen, and estrogen feeds breast cancer. It ramps up cell division in pre-cancerous cells and it can prompt tumors to metastasize.
In animal studies, BPA has been found to cause the early onset of puberty and stimulate mammary gland development in females. The estrogen-like properties in BPA are so strong that even when male rodents were exposed to it, they had an increased risk of mammary tumors.
I do not carry the genetic mutations that scientists have linked to breast cancer, but still my daughters are at greater risk for the disease simply because I had it. I hate to think that every day they come into contact with a chemical that adds to their burden of risk.
One of my environmental heroes, Rachel Carson, died of breast cancer, but before she did, she set us on the path to outlawing another estrogenic chemical, DDT. Surely we can do the same with BPA.
NRDC’s Health Program is focusing hard on eliminating BPA from consumer products. Meantime, here are some steps you can take to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported on a study that found that infants and toddlers who used baby lotions, shampoos, and powders have high concentrations of phthalates in their bodies. Phthalates are known to disrupt hormone functioning and can cause abnormalities in sexual organs and infertility, particularly in boys.
The study’s findings were stark:
This is frightening news for parents. We have enough to worry about--and feel guilty about--what with ensuring that our children are kind, learn to share, and do their homework. Now add to that list the concern that the nightly bath routine may cause our children to experience the heartbreak of infertility or worse, cancer.
But worry we must because the government is failing to do anything. The EU has laws banning various phthalates, but here in the US, manufactures of consumer products don’t even have to include them on their labels. When NRDC’s public health specialists are trying to identify phthalates, we have to send products to a lab and pay for elaborate testing.
The EPA is in no better position. NRDC recently petitioned the agency to take action on phthalates in household air fresheners (see our report), but the agency admitted it had no idea what was in these products.
We are continuing to put pressure on manufacturers, retailers, and government agencies to protect consumers from these dangerous toxins. In the meantime, what’s a parent to do?
And frankly, I’m worried about the lotion I use too. We need to get to the bottom of this.
]]>Many sushi devotees knew about the lurking risks of mercury in fish, but these levels shocked everyone. In five of the stores tested, the mercury levels were so high that the EPA could take legal action to get the sushi off the market.
I don’t eat sushi often, but two of my daughters eat it every week, and these results had me worried. My girls are in their twenties--childbearing age--which makes them prime targets for mercury hazards. Mercury stays in the body for years and is a neurotoxin that can cause developmental delays in children whose mothers’ bodies contained elevated mercury levels during pregnancy.
My husband and I made sure our daughters saw the flurry of newspaper reports about the Times’ findings (including a funny Times spoof of where the presidential candidates stand on the sushi crisis). And while many of the articles included helpful information, they tended to look at the story from the point of view of individual diners and restaurant suppliers.
But this shouldn’t end up as a story about should you or should you not order the bluefin. It raises much bigger questions, such as do we continue to build dirty coal-fired power plants that spread pollution through our skies, waters, and now our food.
Granted, this is a complex issue to ponder when you are standing at the deli counter wondering what to eat for lunch. But by asking your local sushi maker, restaurant, or chain store to label what country their fish comes from, you can start exerting some influence over environmental safeguards and consumer information.
You have a right to know, for instance, if your eel sushi comes from a farm in south China, for instance, where fish have been found to be contaminated with mercury heavy metals, flame retardant, and outlawed antibiotics. If you stop buying that eel it will send a signal to aquafarmers and Chinese officials.
Just think of salmon. Five years ago, all salmon in the fish section looked the same. Now you can read the packaging to find out if the salmon is wild, organic, or farmed, from Alaska or Scotland, and even if it is naturally pink or dyed with food coloring.
The most important thing you can do is educate yourself. Here are some helpful guidelines sushi lovers can use for:
And, if sushi leaves you cold, here are some excellent recipes from world-renowned chefs like Eric Ripert and Nora Pouillon (and some NRDC amateurs) for cooking healthy, safe fish caught from sustainable fisheries.
]]>When my three daughters were small, I didn’t go to great lengths to feed them organic food. It was the 1980s, and it was hard to find organic produce in our New York neighborhood then. Besides, my husband and I come from long-lived, robust families, and we were confident that we passed on vibrant genes to our children.
Two things happened in the ensuing years to change our point of view. A greater cultural awareness emerged about the toxins lurking in pesticide-laden food. And I got diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999--something I am convinced can be traced in part to environmental causes.
Now my daughters are much more aware of the role diet plays in maintaining health. They are more focused on eating organic food and exercising than I was at their age. But on the other hand, they feel like there is a hammer hanging over their heads waiting to drop.
That is what we have left the next generation--this anxiety about health. You can add that to the global warming tab we are leaving them, and the costs seem awfully high. The question resting on Baby Boomers’ shoulders is: are we going to help our children make the future safer or leave them with the mess?
The answer is simple for me, as it is for any parent: we have to break the links between food, toxins, and disease. Food should sustain and nourish us. Not endanger our longevity or the environment.
Here are three things we can do to protect our own health and the health of the next generation.
Mothers today can’t be quite so sanguine. They have to worry about the long list of toys recalled due to lead contamination. And they have to scour the Internet for the rare baby bottle or plastic teething ring that doesn’t include phthalates or bisphenol-A--proven endocrine disruptors associated with cancer, abnormalities in reproductive organs, and infertility.
In their attention to the toxic details of their children’s every day lives, these concerned parents have become a staple of parody: the neurotic mother who will throw herself between her precious offspring and non-organic mac and cheese.
But in my view, the trouble isn’t with the over-protective mothers. It’s with our inattentive government. We like to assume that someone is carefully regulating the levels of toxins in our food and household goods, but that simply isn’t the case. Of the approximately 87,000 total chemicals now in common use, only 1,350 have been tested to see if they lead to cancer or other health risks. That’s 7 percent.
Too often, when toxins are called into question in court rooms or statehouses, scientists must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a chemical has an irrefutably harmful effect. The EU prefers the “precautionary principle.” It doesn’t wait for 100 percent proof of harm--after all, once that arrives, it generally too late to protect people. Instead, when there is solid of evidence that a chemical is hazardous, the EU typically acts to regulate it. That’s why the EU banned several phthalates in toys years ago.
Luckily, Americans are beginning to catch on. In October, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a law that bans the use of certain phthalates in toys and childcare products for kids 3 years old and younger. We should call on our representatives to expand that into a national law and use it as a model for the other hazards lurking in nurseries.
We live in a chemical society now. When I look around my house and see all the ways plastic has insinuated itself into my daily life, I get nervous. And I don’t even have small kids at home anymore. Today’s parents have to work hard to keep their children safe from toxins, but it shouldn’t be their job. That job belongs to the government, and we should demand that it get to work.
]]>That’s great. But I couldn’t help wondering: where is the cluster of companies devoted to preventing cancer? Where is the industrial park or corporate campus for them?
This is personal as well as professional for me. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. No one is ever prepared for a moment like this, but I was really caught off guard. I was in my forties--which is young for breast cancer--and no one in my family had ever gotten cancer before.
After researching the disease and talking with specialists, I became certain that the cancer was caused by a combination of my genetic makeup and environmental factors. I grew up in northern New Jersey during the 1950s and 60s. This was the boom of the 20th century chemical society, and there was a tremendous amount of pollution in the region then.
We may have put DDT behind us, but now everyday products--such as fruit grown with pesticides, milk doused with hormones, and cosmetics made with phthalates--include something called endocrine disruptors, chemicals that are associated with abnormalities in reproductive organs and with hormone-sensitive diseases like breast cancer.
Every time I see my oncologist, I tell him, “You are doing great on the treatment front, but what about finding the cause?” I ask because I am worried about my three daughters. And the truth is they are worried too. When I was their age, I never thought about cancer, but this is the legacy we are leaving behind. Because we are cancer survivors, our children think they are going to be next.
Today’s New York Times ran a story about the Wall Street performance of Genentech, the nation’s largest biotech company. During the final quarter of 2007, Genentech’s revenue rose to $2.91 billion. Some of that growth is driven by the company’s breast cancer drugs, including Herceptin--one of the most exciting developments in breast cancer treatment to come along in years. I wish that drug were available when I was getting chemotherapy.
Of course we need money for cancer treatment. But we also need to invest money in preventing it. We need to reward companies--and their stock prices--for removing carcinogens from their products. We need to use our consumer power to send a powerful signal to manufacturers: safe, green toys, baby bottles, household cleaners, and cosmetics and body care is where the money is.
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