911 - Dangerous Chemicals

In April, the Department of Homeland Security finalized temporary regulations intended to protect Americans from more than 15,000 chemical plants storing dangerous quantities of acutely toxic chemicals like hydrochloric acid or chlorine gas. A single accident or deliberate release of these toxics could kill or seriously injure thousands.

Unfortunately, these regulations are far too weak and were adopted at a stiff price - they headed off stronger, comprehensive chemical security legislation aimed at protecting communities in the danger zones around these plants.

For more than five years, the chemical industry and its allies have derailed chemical security bills, winning weak regulations after backroom negotiations that preserve a dangerous status quo.

Above all, the new regulations ignore the most effective way to make chemical plants safer and more secure, which is to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives where feasible. Fortunately, Congress already has a blueprint to establish a more protective program.

U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Groups) are looking for firefighters, medical personnel, law enforcement and health professionals to sign our coalition letter. You can also help by forwarding this message to any first responders you know.

Take Action (U.S. PIRG)

Industrial chemicals in mothers and daughters: The pollution we share and inherit

The unique bond between a mother and daughter starts in the womb and evolves over a lifetime, as each adapts and grows with the other in an elaborate interplay of nature and nurture. Shared bonds of common genetics and a common environment - their home, the air they breathe, and the food they eat - inextricably link daughters and mothers. Now, new laboratory tests of mothers and their daughters show that these same two facets of nature and nurture - genetics and environment - combine to create another, unwanted aspect of the ties that bind: a common body burden of industrial chemicals.

Tests commissioned by the Environmental Working Group of four mothers and their daughters found that each of the eight women's blood or urine was contaminated with an average of 35 consumer product ingredients, including flame retardants, plasticizers, and stain-proof coatings. These mixtures of compounds found in furniture, cosmetics, fabrics, and other consumer goods, have never been tested for safety.

read more (Environmental Working Group)

Chemicals linked to autism, ADHD and brain disorders in children

A study published in a leading medical journal has identified 202 potentially harmful industrial chemicals that may be contributing to increases of autism, attention deficit disorder and other mental development conditions among children.

The study, published online in the journal The Lancet, warns of the potential "silent pandemic" that may be a result of the exposure to an array of toxic chemicals in the environment.

Lead author of the study, Philippe Grandjean, of the Harvard School of Public Health, warned that there would be an enormous cost to society if childhood exposure to the many developmental disrupting chemicals was not regulated.

Grandjean warned that once the damage had been done to children's developing brains, which were much more susceptible to the effects of small doses of chemicals, it was irreversible.

read more....(Green Clippings)