Month: March 2015
Public Health is…Fragrance Free.
Is it a Saturday night hot date, or Monday morning interview? Do you feel that a spritz of perfume or hint of scented lotion will give you the extra oomph to make a lasting first impression? Or could you actually be exposing yourself to harmful phthalates?
What are phthalates? Phthalates are endocrine disrupting compounds that mimic your bodies’ natural hormones producing unintended responses. Phthalates increase the plasticity or fluidity of products. In beauty products such as hair sprays, phthalates help the spray to be a light flexible coating on the hair, and in nail polish it reduces its tendency to crack.
These are the same phthalates, which California banned in toys and baby products as of 2009, but persist in products you may be using on your body daily. Lab tests have shown neurological and reproductive effects from phthalate exposure, these effects are particularly detrimental to pregnant mothers whose…
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Your Favorite Personal Care and Cleaning Products Went to the Lab, and They Came Back With This
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Take a deep breath (or maybe not)
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“This study found 156 different VOCs emitted from the 37 products, with an average of 15 VOCs per product. Of these 156 VOCs, 42 VOCs are classified as toxic or hazardous under US federal laws, and each product emitted at least one of these chemicals. Emissions of carcinogenic hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from green fragranced products were not significantly different from regular fragranced products.”
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Most homes are full of these products!!!
Indeed, most indoor environments (and everything in them) are now polluted with these VOCs due to the pervasive nature of these products and chemical compounds.
From the research article:
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Bay Area Day of Mourning: Alice Wong
On Sunday, March 1, 2015, the Bay Area disability community gathered at the Ed Roberts Campus to remember and mourn the deaths of disabled people at the hands of their parents, caregivers or care providers or by law enforcement and other authorities.
This event, the Day of Mourning, is in its fifth year with similar local events taking place in cities across the US and internationally.
For more information about the Bay Area Day of Mourning including the program, action steps and complete list of names recited, go here:
Below is the full-text of the speech by one of the speakers at the event, Alice Wong.
Hi, my name is Alice Wong and I am the founder and project coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project. One of the aims of our project is to record the stories of people with disabilities by people with disabilities…in their…
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What If an Industry was Allowed to Disable Us and Keep Us Housebound?
Something Is Really Wrong With This Picture
There’s a global proliferation of artificial fragrance and methods of dispersing it. Fragrance concoctions are added to almost everything imaginable (with more ridiculous ideas emerging all the time). They are sold and used everywhere at the same time as more people are developing adverse health effects from them, effects like serious allergies, disabling “sensitivities”, migraines, asthma, neurological disorders, lowered IQ, birth defects, etc. (the list keeps growing).
These health problems are due to unregulated and secret ingredients, ingredients which pollute our bodies, our air, and the waterways they get washed into from our sinks, tubs, and showers, ingredients that are impossible to avoid now, even when we don’t want them in our lives.
If you or your child had celiac disease or a severe peanut allergy, it would be the same as the peanut and gluten industries adding peanuts and gluten or peanut…
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Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Are Costly to ALL of Society
(not just those of us who are adversely affected before others)
“Global experts in this field concluded that infertility and male reproductive dysfunctions, birth defects, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurobehavioral and learning disorders were among the conditions than can be attributed in part to exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).”
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New research estimates the cost in Europe alone to be in the billions of dollars. As these endocrine disrupting chemicals have been inflicted on the global population, and are found in countless everyday products and materials, the costs to society are huge (and the profits to the chemical and pharmaceutical companies are equally huge).
“The overwhelming majority of the reported costs were from “lost cognitive potential”
Dr Leonardo Trasande
I’ve posted about EDCs a few times, including here:
Endocrine Disruption… Huh? Why Should We Care?
Many of us have no idea what “those people” are talking about when they mention…
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36 million #migraine sufferers in US
“The World Health Organization recently reported that among the over 290 medical illnesses that they evaluated, #migraine happens to be the third most common medical disorder on the planet; among women it is the fourth most disabling; and among all people it is the seventh most disabling among all medical illnesses. In fact, if you took all the disability from all neurological diseases and put it in a bucket, migraine accounts for more than 50% of the disability in that bucket. So, it is a major public health problem.” – Dr. David Dodick, MD, Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix AZ and Director of the Headache Program
freeandclear1 