Wishing You a
Happy & Healthy Earth Day

In This Issue

• Happy Earth Day
• Earth Day Celebration Idea
  
• What We Know About Pharmaceuticals in Tap Water
• Spotlight on a CEH Board Member:  Katie Silberman
  
• The Poop on Dog Toys

Interest in our work spikes every year around this time.  Government agencies, civic institutions, private citizens, and corporations all begin calling us to find out what they can, should, might, and in some unfortunate cases, must do to acknowledge Earth Day. 

This year has been no exception:  we've found ourselves disbursing resources for people at street fairs and public events, sharing our widely-sought expertise with the media, answering a rising tide of telephone and email questions, and even making presentations on the environmental and public health impact of electronics purchases at a financial firm with offices nationwide.

But along the way, we've recognized that these efforts were bound to miss many Center for Environmental Health supporters.    

So this Earth Day, we thought we'd call your attention to a new on-line resource we've created:  "Protect Your Home and Family."  This simple, easy-to-navigate website gives parents and families practical tips that will equip them to protect themselves and their children from many of the everyday health threats commonly found in our homes. 

Want to avoid chemicals linked with reproductive problems, genetic damage, eye injuries, respiratory and other serious illnesses?  Please check it out:  http://www.cehca.org/protect-your-home-and-family/

Celebrating Earth Day?  Support an Organization that Does the Work for the Other 364 Days of the Year

As you prepare to deposit your $600 Economic Stimulus Check, here are two predictions you can take along with you to the bank.

• First, the current recession will hit the Center for Environmental Health and other non-profits hard.  Trouble in the economy always takes a strong and lasting toll on the non-profit sector. 
• Second, the recession won't stop powerful companies from adding lead, phthalates, brominated flame retardants and countless other toxic chemicals to products that children and families rely on.

We rely on contributions from supporters like you.  Your generosity supports the cutting-edge work that, in the last few years alone, has removed lead from baby bibs, lunchboxes, jewelry and other children's products.

No matter what uncertain turns the economy takes, the need for the Center for Environmental Health's far-reaching work will continue.  Your tax-deductible donation will help ensure that our capacity to do it continues as well.

To make a secure, on-line donation, please visit: http://www.cehca.org/donate/   
 

Fish, Drugs, Hormones, and You:  What We Know About Pharmaceuticals in Tap Water

Fish in Lake Mead (near Las Vegas) currently exhibit what once were considered unusual hormonal problems:  endangered sucker fish with low sperm counts; male carp that produce the proteins found in eggs; bass that develop cells to produce both eggs and sperm.

The culprit?  Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey believe the fishes' abnormalities come from medications that end up in Las Vegas' sewer system and later in the lake's water.  And this could be a problem for more than fish:  Lake Mead supplies drinking water for millions of people.

Medications in water first made headlines because of a nationwide survey of streams begun in 1999.  In that study, the U.S. Geological Survey found that about a third of the streams the agency tested were contaminated with prescription drugs and about 80 percent were contaminated with over-the-counter medications.

Last month, the Associated Press asked 62 major drinking water providers for information about medications in drinking water.  Only 35 of the water providers had tested for medications.  Of these, 28 providers found at least one medication in their water.  And most troubling:  the majority of these water providers did not regularly give their customers information about what they found.

Like the water providers, the federal government has also been slow to address the issue.  True to form, a White House task force charged with considering the problem has missed its deadlines.

Many of the Center for Environmental Health's pioneering victories for public health were built on people's right to know which chemicals they are exposed to.  While it is too early to hit the panic button about pharmaceuticals in drinking water, we believe this is a concern that deserves further study. 

Information is the cornerstone of a functional democracy. 

What You Can Do

• Ask your drinking water provider for results of any testing for medications in your water.  Ask them to post the results on their web site, or otherwise make them easy to access.  If they do not test for medications, urge them to do so. 
• Buy only the quantity of medicines that you need.  Avoid buying extra.
• Ask your pharmacist for options for safe disposal of unneeded medications.
• Don't buy the water bottling industry's line that this is a call for bottled water.  Bottled water is still less regulated than tap water. 

Spotlight on a CEH Board Member:  Katie Silberman, J.D.

Katie Silberman is the Associate Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, a nonprofit organization that works with communities and government agencies to implement local and state polices that protect our health and the environment. Katie grew up in St. Louis. She is a graduate of Brown University and received her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law with a concentration in public interest law. In addition to being a member of the California Bar, Katie worked with several San Francisco Bay Area non-profits, including Breast Cancer Action, Communities for a Better Environment and the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment before joining the Center for Environmental Health in 2000. After five years at CEH and transitioning to Associate Director, she and her husband moved to Santa Barbara, and then back home to St. Louis. Not wanting to let her stray, the Center for Environmental Health's Board of Directors invited Katie to join in 2005.

Q. How did you start working in the environmental health movement?

A. I've always been interested in women's health, and my first job after college was in breast cancer advocacy.  I was able to learn more about environmental causes of disease, and also social determinants of disease. So my interest in the environmental field has always been around environmental health (how pollution affects our bodies) and environmental justice, which asks why some communities bear an unfair burden of toxins.

Q. How has motherhood changed your perspective on environmental health?

A. Watching my son Lincoln's transformation from newborn to toddler these past 19 months, I feel like a witness to the miracle of life itself. Seeing him grow so quickly is a visual lesson: everything that goes into him -- food, breastmilk, air, water -- and everything around him -- toys, cleaning products, car exhaust, pesticides -- quite literally becomes part of him. As a mother, it's almost unbearable to me that a company's lead, mercury or phthalates could be a part of that.

Q. We keep discovering toxic chemicals in consumer products. How would you advise new parents to protect their children? 

A. I think it's important for parents to realize that no one can do everything; the important thing is to educate yourself enough to make the best choices you can for your family. But at the same time, toxic chemicals are not an individual problem. Even if I wrapped my own baby in a bubble, we would still face the societal problem of exposure to toxic chemicals without our consent. 

So the first step is to educate yourself about the potential risks to our kids, and what to do about them. For example, I buy BPA-free baby bottles for my son and avoid PVC products in our house. There are several organizations like CEH doing great work to help parents find information.  I recommend:

• Protect Your Home and Family:  http://www.cehca.org/protect-your-home-and-family
• Tiny Footprints:  http://www.oeconline.org/kidshealth/tinyfootprints
• Healthy Child, Healthy World:  http://healthychild.org/
• Skin Deep's Baby Products:  http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/browse.php?maincat=babycare

The second step is for parents to band together to demand change from our government, and from the companies whose products we buy. That's why it's so important for parents to join organizations like CEH -- when we gather and unite enough voices, industry and government will not be able to ignore us.   

Q. Which of CEH's achievements do you take particular pride in?

A. I'm very proud that CEH helped write and pass the first precautionary principle ordinance in the country (in San Francisco in 2003). This has redirected hundreds of millions of dollars toward healthier products for the City. For example, just switching parking enforcers' flashlight batteries from disposable to rechargeable saved the City a tremendous amount of money. It also kept the toxic chemicals inside those batteries, which number in the tens of thousands, from winding up in landfills.  The ordinance provides a real-life model for other city governments and large institutions that want to protect health.

Q. What are you working on at the Science and Environmental Health Network?

A. We're very interested in an idea we call Guardianship of Future Generations, which we developed collaboratively with the Indigenous Environmental Network based on their traditional concept of Seventh Generation Guardianship. That is: how would we make decisions now if we truly considered the interests of future generations?  What if there was someone at the table today whose job was to advocate for future generations, like a child now has a guardian in court?  What would you protect if you could be the guardian of anything or anyone on Earth? We consider this a meaningful way to put precaution into practice  We are developing a new website at www.guardiansofthefuture.org for others to join us.

Q. What do you think will be the key environmental struggle that we leave for your son Lincoln and the next generation of activists?

A. I think the next generation will shatter the frame that these issues are "environmental." We need a massive shift in cultural understanding (and it's beginning to happen) that issues like toxics, global warming, and polluted air and water are not "environmental" issues -- they are the very basis of our life on Earth. This is not an optional movement that you get to choose whether to participate in, like the Boy Scouts. We are, each of us, already in it.

(Silberman Family Photo:  Devon Hill) 
 

The Poop on Dog Toys

Center for Environmental Health supporters tell us time and time again:  they are inspired by our results.  When they learn, for example, that we’ve used California’s Proposition 65 law to eliminate arsenic from playground equipment and lead from children’s medications, jewelry, and other products, they often ask us to take on similar projects on behalf of the still-disenfranchised pet community.

Unfortunately Proposition 65 applies only to humans.  So while we continue to create a safer marketplace for people, the law won’t allow us to pursue similar health protections on behalf of the pets in our families.  Which is a shame because the very same chemicals that threaten our health (for example lead, phthalates, and brominated flame retardants) also threaten our pets – a story the media is finally beginning to tell. 

Since pet owners can’t count on the government to protect our pets, we decided to compile some information about a common source of exposure:  dog toys.

Many squeaky toys, especially those that are soft and easily chewed by puppies, are frequently made from vinyl – the Dirty Plastic.  Vinyl is cheap to make, toxic from production to use to disposal, and all-too-frequently tainted with lead and other heavy metals.  Vinyl products, whether they’re intended for our two-legged children or our hairier four-legged ones, can also be made with phthalates, which are often added to soften plastic and can cause reproductive harm in humans and animals.

What can you do? 

• When you purchase toys for Fido, look for products that are made from safer materials such as felted wool or rubber.
• If your dog chews on athletic shoes, consider replacing yours (yes, they have vinyl parts) with shoes made of canvas.  And real bones are a great alternative for compulsive chewers.
• Give your pet a rest on an organic cotton or hemp bed.
• Avoid feeding your pet on vinyl flooring, which exposes pets and children to all the toxic chemicals in the Dirty Plastic.