“I want to do all I can to ensure my child grows up healthy. But I can’t vacuum my way out of this toxic mess.”—Ivy Sager-Rosenthal, environmental health activist
May 2005 | Evergreen News
When the Dust Settles
Chemicals bring new and functional products into our lives. They allow food to stay fresh longer, carpets to be stain-resistant, cookware to be nonstick and raingear to repel water.
All this convenience comes with a hidden price.
A new study, “Sick of Dust: Chemicals in Common Products a Needless Health Threat in our Homes,” uncovers the dangers and health costs in our own households. Watchdog organization Clean Production Action, along with local partners such as Washington Toxics Coalition, analyzed dust samples in 70 homes across the country.
The results: Every single sample contained every single chemical class analyzed in the study, including phthalates, pesticides, alkylphenols, brominated flame retardants, organotins and perfluorinated chemicals.
These chemicals are linked to hormone disruption leading to reproductive and developmental problems. Plus, research links them to allergies, cancer and immune-system damage.
“As a mother of a four-month-old boy, I want to do all I can to ensure my child grows up healthy,” says Ivy Sager-Rosenthal, an environmental health advocate at Washington Toxics Coalition. “But I can’t vacuum my way out of this toxic mess.”
Lisa Brown is majority leader of the Washington State Senate. Her household dust was one of the 70 samples.
“Protecting babies and breast milk by phasing out toxic flame retardants is an urgent matter and one of my priorities,” says Brown. “I feel even more concerned now that I know these chemicals are contaminating our homes, and I am going to continue to fight for the bill [proposed to regulate flame retardants].”
Other local participants in the study with household dust samples included the Bullitt Foundation’s Denis Hayes, Swedish Medical Center breast surgeon Dr. Patricia Dawson, State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36th District), St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral faith formation director Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding and Evergreen Monthly editor Bob Condor.
How did these chemicals end up contaminating common household dust? For those who live near a refinery or a chemical production facility, there is direct exposure from emissions. The government’s annual Toxic Release Inventory report confirms this.
For most others, exposure comes from the ingredients used to make common household products. This information is disturbing, not least because studies show we spend up to 90 percent of our time indoors, most of that at home. Children may take in five times as much dust as adults since they play and crawl on the floor, making them more vulnerable while their organs and immune systems are developing.
Brominated flame retardants, for example, commonly used on carpets, sofas and in electronic consumer goods, are toxic to developing nervous systems. They can disrupt the thyroid, which regulates growth and development in newborns. It has long been known that small decreases in thyroid hormone levels can impair learning abilities in children. Yet we now find these chemicals in dryer lint, on the inside film of windows, and, as the study shows, in common household dust.
The "Sick of Dust" report found toxic plasticizers used to make vinyl soft, stabilizers used in rigid PVC products, emulsifiers used in detergents and cosmetics, and stain-resistant chemicals used in Teflon pans and Gore-Tex. All the chemical classes tested for are internationally recognized as Chemicals for Priority Action, yet to date government regulators have passed no laws to phase out their use.
Forward-thinking companies and retailers have not waited for government action. They are restricting the list of chemicals their product suppliers can use and are actively seeking sustainable materials and design ideas for their products.
Clean Production Action sent a questionnaire to 35 leading companies and retailers to see if they have a chemicals policy or if they were even aware of the types of chemicals in their product lines. It found furniture manufacturers such as Herman Miller and IKEA had progressive policies to research and use safe chemicals, and carpet manufacturer Shaw Carpets is working closely with green chemists to design chemically safe and recyclable carpets.
Likewise, leading TV and computer brand names such as Dell and Samsung are aggressively researching safer chemicals and replacements for all brominated flame retardants and PVC uses. Aveda and Unilever are working to eliminate the use of any materials known to persist in the environment or damage the hormone system. Unfortunately, such chemicals policies are not standard practice in the retail trade, and most companies have no chemicals policy at all.
"This report is a wakeup call that we need action now to get toxic flame retardants and other dangerous chemicals out of our homes," said Barry Lawson, M.D., president of the Washington chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "The legislature should move to phase out all forms of toxic flame retardants, and fund [the department of] Ecology’s PBT program to phase out other persistent toxic chemicals."
—Beverley Thorpe
A Book Club for the Soul
Ever wonder about the books that changed the lives of souls like Deepak Chopra, Louise Hay or Neale Donald Walsch?
Author Gay Hendricks did.
“I was at Jack Canfield’s house and there happened to be a bunch of transformational leaders at the gathering. The subject of ‘books that had changed our lives’ came up. Everyone had one. One after another, their eyes would light up as they relived the experience,” Hendricks told Dragonfly Review of Books. “I hadn’t heard of most of these books. I quickly went out and bought most of them. And I started collecting stories.”
Hendricks is now organizing a book club dedicated to republishing these unique titles. Beginning this June, the Transformational Book Circle will forward a new book each month, along with stories from leading spiritual authors whose lives were transformed by the book. An accompanying audio CD will include exercises intended to further illuminate the text.
Neale Donald Walsch, for example, credits the James Allen classic “As a Man Thinketh” for opening his heart and preparing his soul for his best-selling “Conversations With God.”
Some of the older texts will be revised into modern language. Hay House will republish many of the selected works as special editions for the book circle.
“Many years ago I read an author who opened my eyes and my heart,” says publisher and best-selling author Louise Hay. “Her work is not easy to find today.”
“I’m interested in creating communities of people who believe that personal and global transformation is possible,” said Hendricks, who is also a cofounder of a home-delivery DVD club called the Spiritual Cinema Circle.
For more information, see www.tranformationalbookcircle.com.
—Monte Paulsen
Seattle Storm Scores for Hungry Kids
This year, the Seattle Storm is the official sports team sponsor for Hopelink’s "Hoops for Hope." Hopelink’s annual drive is a grass-roots campaign that helps provide low-income families with food for kids who receive free and reduced-fee breakfasts and lunches during the school year. The "Hoops for Hope" fundraising drive runs from March through June, and food purchased with the funds raised is distributed June through September at Hopelink’s six food banks in east and north King County.
The Seattle Storm is helping to increase awareness of the growing need to supplement school meals over the summer for children in need. Storm star Lauren Jackson has volunteered to do public service announcements for "Hoops for Hope" on local radio stations, and the Storm will make a visit to the school that raised the most money. It’s also hosting "Hoops for Hope" night during their game with the San Antonio Silver Stars on Friday, July 15 at 7:00 p.m. "Hoops for Hope" participants from corporations, organizations and schools will get $5 off their game tickets.
—Miryam Gordon
Women on the Web: Less Is Not More
Bloggers know that women are underrepresented among their ranks. Chris Nolan, writing for the Politics from Left to Right website (www.chrisnolan.com), recently posted these top 10 reasons why females are fewer:
1. This medium was first taken up by techies. Most of them are men.
2. Those men prefer to link to and read men like them. As it was in the beginning so shall it ever be. When they wonder where the women bloggers are, what they’re really saying is "I don’t read any women bloggers."
3. Even though the "blogosphere" has gotten much larger, most of these men are still reading the guys they started out with three years ago, linking to them and talking among themselves. There’s talk of broader horizons, but it’s pretty much that: talk.
4. Anna Maria Cox. She’s prettier, younger and more entertaining than most other writers—male or female—on the web. And she spends most of her time writing about sex. Her male readers—and that’s her audience, trust me on this—think that’s really cool. It’s a cheap trick, but it builds an audience. Since she has an audience, Big Media think of Cox as "the" girl blogger. Since they have one girl blogger in their Rolodex, they don’t think they need any more, particularly since she’s pretty and she talks about sex, which makes them all feel better about how bloggers aren’t really a serious threat to Big Media.
5. For the most part, blogging is covered in Big Media by either political or tech writers. Most tech writers are men. So are the overwhelming majority of political writers. And most political writers have no idea what Feedster, Technorati or PubSub do. They’ve never heard of RSS. They’re still bookmarking.
6. Big Media reporters prefer to deal with the "top-tier" bloggers and folks in their own part of the world: the East Coast. That’s who they call for TV: Sullivan, Jarvis, Reynolds, Marshall. That’s who makes it onto dial-a-quote lists.
7. It is much harder to make a name for yourself and find an audience on the Web via blogging than it used to be. A crowded field means there’s less to go around (although that’s changing as the audience grows) and what is out there is more widely dispersed. It’s hard for anyone to break into the big leagues immediately.
8. Big Media is behind the curve, as anyone reading this knows well, but it confers success on the "top-tier" bloggers by sending them new links. It’s a virtuous circle; if you’re one of the guys at the top of the list, it’s great. You’ll probably stay there. For everyone else, it’s a struggle to get noticed.
9. The sorting-out process—online, without Big Media’s supervision—hasn’t solidified.
10. Silly self-satisfied columns like Maureen Dowd’s recent syndicated newspaper contribution to this debate. Here’s what she said: Write like me, get accused of being "mean" and you won’t ever, ever, ever get married or have a boyfriend, even if you have a fetching head shot on the paper’s website. This—and I think she thinks she’s being encouraging—from a woman who’s said to have dated Michael Kinsley, Aaron Sorkin and Michael Douglas.
(Note: Chris Nolan is not a man)
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