We've been talking about TSCA a lot around here -- it's the reform of Toxic Substances Control Act that will soon begin wending its way through the congressional process in Washington DC. It's important because it will update a 1976 law that oversees what chemicals can legally be used by manufacturers -- and what chemicals we encounter in our everyday lives.

One family of chemicals under consideration is PBTs -- Persistent, Bioaccumulative Toxins. These chemicals include lead, mercury, the compound used to make Teflon and some flame retardants.

PBTs are uniquely dangerous because they pose a triple threat. They persist in the environment for long periods of time and can be transported long distances; they accumulate in living organisms and increase in concentration as they move up the food chain; and, they are highly toxic, often at very low levels of exposure.

We are deeply concerned about PBTs, and believe strongly that the phaseout of nonessential PBTs must be a critical piece of TSCA reform.

This week, 156 signatories representing 22 states and including seven state coalitions signed a letter to congress underlining the importance of phasing out nonessential PBTs.

From the letter:

"We have experienced first hand in our communities the devastating impacts PBTs can have on wildlife and people. For example:

• In the Northwest, Puget Sound’s declining orca whales have become one of the most contaminated populations of marine mammals in the world, in part because of PCBs found in the Puget Sound food chain. PCBs are known endocrine disruptors and probable carcinogens that become highly concentrated in the fatty tissues of top predators. PCBs are the only chemical banned under the original TSCA, yet more than 30 years later they continue to pollute the environment.

• In the Great Lakes, the levels of PBDEs in walleye and lake trout rose exponentially from 1980 to 2000, doubling every 3-4 years. Similarly, PBDEs in Great Lakes region herring gull eggs increased 60-fold between 1981 and 2000.

• In Maine, which is downwind from all the other states, common loons have the highest levels of mercury in the country and the eggs of peregrine falcons have among the highest levels of the decaBDE flame retardant ever recorded.

A growing body of scientific evidence links PBT chemicals to a wide range of serious human health problems, including early onset of puberty, infertility, endocrine disruption, learning disabilities, behavioral disorders and certain cancers."

Please join these signatories by writing to your member of congress and asking them to remove nonessential PBTs from our lives.

Related:

Letter to Congress by 156 signatories (PDF)
America's most wanted toxic chemicals: PBTs.
Washington mom testifies before congress.
The health case for TSCA reform.
13 states dictate principles for toxics reform.

As you are celebrating with your families, please remember to keep them happy by following a few simple tips for gift buying and setting your dinner table this holiday.

1. Use the Healthy Stuff website to check for toxic chemical levels in the toys that you buy. The folks at healthy stuff have researched over 5,000 children’s products to see if they are contaminated with potentially harmful chemicals.

2. Choose fresh, local and organic foods for your Christmas dinner. Avoid as many pesticides as possible in your Christmas dinner by choosing organic foods. Pesticides often contain neurotoxins which, in high concentrations have been known to affect nervous system development, cognition and behavior.

Can’t afford to buy all organic? Concentrate on avoiding the Dirty Dozen —foods with the most pesticides, and use your budget to purchase those with the organic seal. The Environmental Working Group has identified the “dirty dozen” to be: peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots and pears.

By choosing fresh and local foods, you will be avoiding canned and packaged foods as much as possible. Cans contain bisphenol-A which has been linked to cancer, heart disease, obesity, and reproductive failure and causes problems with healthy development of children.

3. Washington Toxics sends along a reminder to dress up your table in a toxic free way. They say:

“Create all the frills without the fuss by choosing natural and homemade decorations. Avoid place mats and table settings that include vinyl. Vinyl has been found to contain lead and phthalates, unwelcome guests at any table! Many alternatives are safer for our health. Use natural materials, such as pine cones or multi-colored corn cobs, or check out Green Living for more ideas about how to decorate with in an eco-friendly way.”

4. Check out the Moms Rising Healthy Holiday Guide. Among many terrific tips, they remind us to assess our cleaning supplies, and make sure that lipsticks we buy as gifts don’t have lead.

Best wishes to you and your families!

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a synthetic estrogen widely used in hard plastics and the epoxy resins that line many food cans, although some manufacturers have stopped using it, and some retailers have stopped selling products that contain it. But BPA persists in many of the products we use every day.

Now Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that would ban this toxic additive from all food and beverage containers. Learn more about the Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009.

The bill needs the support of your legislators, so reach out to let them know this issue is important to you!

Ask your members of Congress to co-sponsor the Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009. The Washington Toxics Coalition has a terrific e-mail alert you can send to your members of Congress.

Like many other hormonally active chemicals, BPA has been shown to increase breast cancer risk and has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and neurological problems, lowered sperm counts and early puberty.

According to the National Institutes of Health, a primary source of this synthetic estrogen is no further than your dinner plate: food and drink that has been contaminated by the cans or hard plastic containers in which it was packaged, stored or heated. Tell the people who represent you in Washington D.C. that it's time to get BPA out of packaging and off the dinner table.

Dear fellow parents and other concerned citizens:

I am the mother of two wonderful girls, a 2 year-old and a 3 1/2 year-old. The girls love playing in the play kitchen and preparing recipes for me. One dish that has been served many times is corn on the cob. I would order a corn on the cob and the girls would get it for me. They would of course try some themselves first.  Being young children their mouths were always on the play corn even though I urged them to "just pretend."

Imagine my absolute horror when after taking the corn along with some of their other toys to a toy testing done by the Ecology Center, the play corn tested many times the legal limit of lead. It also had significant levels of barium, chromium, arsenic, and mercury! It was such a bizarre reading that the testers retested it twice to make sure the machine was calibrated correctly. As a mother I am frightened to know that there are so many hazards to my children's health and outraged that many of them are products like toys that are marketed directly for children.

As a citizen and a parent, I am motivated to get the word out and raise the consciousness of our community. We need to help all of our children grow up in a safe and healthy environment. In the next few weeks, our state legislators will have the chance to vote on a bill that would protect children from the threat of toxic toys by giving parents the information we need to make responsible choices as to which toys are safe for their children.

As parents, we have a responsibility to speak out regarding threats to the health of our children. Please join me in taking the following two simple actions to help protect children from toxic toys.

Sincerely,

Sarah Barba
Harper Woods, MI

Here are two simple things you can do to help.

• Ask your state representatives and state senators to support the Safe Children's Products Act. Click here to take action.
• Share your personal stories and photos: An image is worth a thousand words.

The Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health (MNCEH) is creating a photo collage of photos of parents, children and their toys asking the important question "Is this toy toxic?" and demanding a "right to know." We will use these photos in a collage at public events in support of this bill and in electronic communications.  Only with your help, can we make sure parents have a right to know what dangers lurk in their child's toys!

Here's how:

• Compose an email to rob@ecocenter.org with the subject line: "Am I Toxic?
• In the body of the e-mail, please include the following: First name, last name, and zip code. Also, please add a personalized comment/caption for the photo expressing why this issue is of concern for you and your family
• Attach the image of your children, yourself, your family, or your friends with toys, "Are these toys toxic?" signs, etc. - and send!

Bring a polycarbonate baby bottle or water bottle and put a message inside to the governor. Together we will deliver these messages in a bottle and the thousands of signatures that we have collected thus far requesting a ban of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in children's products.

Bring your friends and your neighbors to this event at the Massachusetts Statehouse, Room 222, on Thursday, March 19 at 10:30 a.m.

It is about time that action is taken on BPA!

There is enough science out there for the Department of Public Health to issue a regulation banning BPA in products for children under the age of three.

Even if you can’t make it to the event, please sign the BPA petition and pass it along to everyone in your neighborhood.

Come demand that our children's health be protected from BPA!

If you plan to come to this event, please RSVP to Namasha Schelling at the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow: via e-mail or by calling (617) 338-8131 x204.

The bill, Intro 1017, was introduced by Legislator Steve Stern (Huntington) in January. It was referred to the Health and Human Services Committee at the February meeting of the Suffolk County Legislature, which advanced it back to the full Legislature for a final vote.

JustGreen Partners, including Huntington Breast Cancer Coalition, Clean New York, Great Neck Breast Cancer Coalition, NYPIRG, and the Learning Disabilities Association of NYS have testified in support.

BPA has been known since the 1930s to mimic the hormone estrogen. In recent decades, scientists have documented health problems when their subjects - animals ranging from mice and rats to primates - were exposed to BPA at levels similar or lower than those already in more than 90 percent of Americans.

The health effects identified through this research include infertility, obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, damage to the brain (from fetal development through adulthood), ADHD and behavioral changes, and prostate cancer. Over 335 peer-reviewed, published studies on low-level BPA exposures were published through April 2008. Of them, 81 percent found health changes. In a recent expose on industry interference with regulation of BPA, it was revealed that 91 percent of independently funded studies found health impacts, while none of the 14 industry-funded studies did.

We need your help to make this happen. Our legislators in Olympia hear excuses from chemical and industry lobbyists every week about why Washington can't protect children from BPA in baby bottles.

So, it's up to us, their neighbors and constituents, to remind them we can and should get BPA out of bottles.

Join us for the Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition's Lobby Day at the Capitol in Olympia on March 5, 2009, to talk to your legislators and show your support for the Safe Baby Bottle Act of 2009.

Bring your kids and their toys. There will be a free toxic toy testing in the morning, a kid's rally on the steps of the Capitol at noon (featuring a 20-foot tall inflatable baby bottle), and fun activities for the kids throughout the day.

During Lobby Day, you will be trained on how to lobby, learn about the issues, attend a rally on the steps of the Capitol, and meet in-person with your state legislators to urge them to support legislation to phase out BPA.

Please join us on March 5, 2009. Registration and breakfast will begin in Olympia at 9 a.m. The end time of the event will depend on when your meetings with your legislators are scheduled.

Sign up for Lobby Day by clicking here.

But you can still put lindane on children's heads or whole bodies as part of a treatment for head lice or scabies.

Even with proper use, this pesticide can be absorbed through the skin and misuse can result in serious side effects. Lindane has been labeled a "Bioaccumulative Chemical of Concern" in the Great Lakes.

A bill is about to be introduced that would establish commonsense measures in Michigan to require use of lindane only under a doctor's direct supervision. Health professional organizations like Michigan's Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics support the legislation, noting the availability of safer, effective alternatives.

Of course, the opposition has hired high-powered lobbyists in Lansing to fight the legislation. Please help today by sending an e-mail to your state Representative asking them to show early support for this bill by signing on as a co-sponsor.

Please act today. The bill is only open for co-sponsorship until Thursday, Feb. 19.

In 2008 the bill passed the Senate but not the House and so this session we need your help to start out with a strong show of force even greater than last year!

Make sure that your Representative and Senator take the first step this session and sign on as a co-sponsors of the Safer Alternatives Bill.

Here's what you can do:

• Call your legislators. You can reach your Representative or Senator by calling these general lines: Representatives: (617) 722-2000. Senators: (617) 722-1455.
• Or find their direct office numbers by clicking on these links: Representatives, Senators
• Find out who your legislators are here

If your Representative is newly elected, contact Elizabeth Saunders at esaunders@cleanwater.org for help figuring out how to contact them.

When you reach your Representative, Senator, or a legislative aide

• Tell them your name and where you live
• Say "Please co-sponsor The Safer Alternatives Bill (newly renamed An Act for a Competitive Economy Through Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals), sponsored by Representative Jay Kaufman and Senator Steven Tolman.  This is a critically important bill to protect our health from toxic chemicals and keep Massachusetts businesses competitive on the global economy so please make it a priority to see that it passes in the coming session."
• Ask them to call you back and tell you whether the legisaltor will co-sponsor or not.

Here are a few Legislators who have co-sponsored already (be sure to thank them for taking initiative early):

• Representatives: Kaufman (lead sponsor), Brownsberger, Fresolo, Kafka, Provost
• Senators: Tolman (lead sponsor), Brown, Hart, Joyce, Tucker

More information on the Safer Alternatives Bill

The Safer Alternatives Bill, which has been newly renamed An Act for a Competitive Economy Through Safer Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals, will again be sponsored by Representative Jay Kaufman and Senator Steven Tolman. This bill will create a program to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives wherever a feasible, safer alternative exists.

In this economy, this bill is needed more than ever. The Safer Alternatives program will help Massachusetts businesses stay competitive on the global market which is rapidly moving towards a demand for safer products and services. The program will is funded by a fee on toxic chemicals brought into the state primarily by out-of-state firms. We can act now to begin a positive pragmatic program that will create healthy residents and a healthy economy.

As you may remember, the Safer Alternatives Bill passed the Senate unanimously on Jan. 29, 2008 but was not brought up for a vote in the House before the 2007-2008 legisalative session ended, despite widespread support. Eighty five Representatives signed a letter last spring requesting that the bill come up for a vote and others showed their support in other ways. As we are now entering a new legislative session (2009-2010) the bill must again start over at the beginning of the legislative process. We are hopeful that the support gained last year will make a big difference as we move forward this year.

That’s what the headlines could read if we don’t take action now to urge our state legislators to eliminate BPA in baby bottles and other food containers.

Washington Toxics Coalition is working hard to mail out 9,000 postcards to supporters. So far, there has been a tremendous response and coalition has mailed out 6,855 postcards to people across the state. That means there are 2,144 more postcards left to distribute!

Can you ask 10 friends to sign a postcard in support of eliminating BPA from baby bottles? You can personalize your message by coloring in your postcard. It’s a fun project for kids and a great way for them to learn about civic engagement. Need a little inspiration? Click here to check out staff postcard art

The postcards you collect will help remind our legislators that protecting children’s health is more important than protecting industry pocket books. To make this campaign successful, we need you to get involved. Please click here sign up to receive a postcard packet today.