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High Expectations for President-elect Obama to Address Chemical Exposure
Christopher Gavigan
Friday, November 21, 2008
Physicians, scientists, health advocates, and parents (myself included) hold great optimism and high expectations for the Obama administration in addressing toxics issues, and its ability to choose administrative staff who will prioritize public health, worker safety and a clean environment. Today, we submitted our pleas for a halt to the urgent chemical exposure crisis in the U.S. and the world, and have proposed ideas on what to do about it to President-elect Obama's Change.gov website.
- Immediate steps toward prevention of exposure from known dangerous chemicals
- Public disclosure of chemistry in products
- Protection for scientists
- Transforming the chemical economy to a green collar economy
- Addressing toxic chemical issues throughout all government agencies
“Our members don’t want to have to feel like they have to be research chemists to buy products for their children,” says Joan Blades, co-founder of MomsRising. “Chemical regulatory reform is past due. It is outrageous more and more parents look for labels that say items meet European regulatory standards, because American standards are not to be trusted. We want our families protected from chemical exposure.”
Health and environmental advocates point to recent developments around the chemical bisphenol-A as a prime example of the need for greater integrity at the administration level. “An immediate priority for the new administration should be to support a ban on bisphenol A in food can liners and plastic baby bottles. More than 130 scientific studies have linked this toxic hormone disrupting chemical to breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, neurological effects and other illness--even at very low doses,” said Janet Nudelman, policy director at the Breast Cancer Fund. “We have more than enough evidence of harm to act, and we need to do so quickly.”
“Toxic chemical exposure is such a great threat to American health. It effects some of our most fragile individuals in our society, children and the unborn child, who cannot protect themselves from these assaults. That is why we must do it for them. We are looking to the Obama administration to listen to the scientists, physicians, and health professionals to immediately implement strategies that will save lives and prevent human suffering,” says Kristen Welker-Hood, ScD MSN RN Director, Environment and Health Programs with Physicians for Social Responsibility.
“The EPA’s own scientists had to stand by, silenced by a gag order, and watch as chemicals and rules were approved without adequate scientific study,” says Dr. William Hirzy, EPA scientist, and vice president of EPA scientists’ union, NTEU 280. At least one EPA advisory scientist was publicly attacked in a letter and removed from an advisory panel on a chemical used in flame retardants by industry.
"Our government has failed to protect us from toxic chemicals leaking from dumps, being released into the air and water in environmental justice communities, and even in children's toys and baby bottles. We need nothing short of a total overhaul of our nation's failed chemical regulatory system, which for years has benefited the big polluters and left communities and workers struggling for justice," said Lois Gibbs, Executive Director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice,
“We believe that living without toxic chemicals in our water, soil, air, and bodies is a universal human right. It’s time to stop the contamination of our nation’s cities, towns, and rural areas - often located in low income communities of color. But chemical exposure also knows no boundaries and depending on the chemical, can travel thousands of miles from where it is applied,” according Pam Miller, director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics, “So no one is protected from toxic chemical exposure. Arctic Indigenous peoples are among the most highly exposed people in the world.”
Martha Dina Arguello, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, says, “Whether people are living in rural communities contaminated by pesticide drift, or living in cities and exposed to air contaminants from traffic, or just becoming exposed buying unregulated products, everyone is in danger from unregulated chemicals. We are asking for immediate attention to these issues with help and support for the people working toward real solutions.”
Even the administration's efforts to restore the integrity of the financial marketplace can play a role in ensuring safer chemicals, said Sanford Lewis, Counsel, Investor Environmental Health Network. He said, "As the Obama administration strengthens the Securities and Exchange Commission, it should ensure that all financial risks, including the risks associated with toxic products, are being disclosed to investors. This has not been the case under the prior administration."
"Toxic chemicals are one of the greatest threats to our health and environment," according to Dr. Arlene Blum, Executive Director of the Green Science Policy Institute. "However, this problem can be solved. With scientific information and political will, we can move to safer products and protect our health."
Posted by Rebecca on 11/21 at 02:04 PM
Thank you so much for speaking out for all families. This is such an important issue!!! I hope President Elect Obama really listens to the message and does something about this!