The Environmental Working Group
http://www.ewg.org/
The Basics
The mission of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is to use the power of public information to protect public health and the environment. EWG is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles.
In 2002, we founded the EWG Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization that advocates on Capitol Hill for health-protective and subsidy-shifting policies. EWG specializes in providing useful resources (like Skin Deep and the Shoppers' Guide to Pesticides in Produce) to consumers while simultaneously pushing for national policy change.
Organizational Goals
1. To protect the most vulnerable segments of the human population—children, babies, and infants in the womb—from health problems attributed to a wide array of toxic contaminants.
2. To replace federal policies, including government subsidies that damage the environment and natural resources, with policies that invest in conservation and sustainable development.
How EWG Does It
Our research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know. It shames and shakes up polluters and their lobbyists. It rattles politicians and shapes policy. It persuades bureaucracies to rethink science and strengthen regulation. It provides practical information you can use to protect your family and community.
And because our investigations and interactive websites tend to make news, you've probably heard about them. Even if you've never heard of us. Which is fine. We'd rather you remember our work than our name.
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Here is the most recent eNewsletter see for your self if this information is important to you and your family.
Toxics & Children's Health
We don't think babies should be gulping down a rocket fuel ingredient - do you? But in some areas of your state, when you mix infant formula contaminated with perchlorate - a rocket fuel ingredient than can interfere with infant brain development - with water that's also contaminated with perchlorate, you put rocket fuel on baby's menu. Twice.
We have long said that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates the nation's water quality, should set a permanent and stringent limit on perchlorate pollution in drinking water.
We need your help in asking newly-appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to set a safe drinking water standard for perchlorate that's actually safe.
click this link to help
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1144/t/1875/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26980
Why now?
1. New risk for babies
A new report by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found perchlorate contamination in 15 brands of powdered infant formula.
The CDC team warned that mixing perchlorate-tainted formula powder with tap water containing "even minimal amounts" of the chemical could boost the resulting mixture's toxin content above the "safe" level set by the EPA.
Click here to read EWG's analysis.
http://www.ewg.org/report/CDC-Scientists-Find-Rocket-Fuel-Chemical-In-Infant-Formula
2. Rocket fuel in your state's drinking water
Perchlorate pollution has also been found in the drinking water of 28 states and territories - and areas of your state are contaminated.
3. This is the moment
During her Senate confirmation hearing, EPA head Lisa Jackson promised to act "immediately" to reduce perchlorate contamination in drinking water to protect children and pregnant women.
Add your voice to ours, and call on EPA Administrator Jackson to make good on her pledge. Click here to send her an email asking to keep perchlorate at safe levels in our drinking water. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1144/t/1875/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26980
If you don't act, millions of U.S. parents and caregivers will be left with no option other than to feed their babies infant formula with rocket fuel contamination - which could cause health problems later in life.
Thank you for working with us to protect infant health and promote safe drinking water.
We are stronger together.
Sincerely,
Lisa Frack
EWG Online Parent Organizer
P.S. You can do more to reduce rocket fuel contamination in infant formula on our Take Action page. http://www.ewg.org/Rocket-Fuel-In-Infant-Formula/TakeAction
At higher doses perchlorate and iodide SHARE immunotoxic effects because they are chaotropic (see iododerma, bromoderma, bromism), so increasing the dose of iodide in the infant formula is not likely to be the solution. Chaotropic anions keep proteins from coagulating and water from freezing -- thus the liquid water on Mars stays liquid at very cold temperatures because it contains large amounts of perchlorate. I personally think industrial exposures to perchlorate keep important parts of the innate immune system (pentraxin 3, defensins) from coagulating with pathogens, and thereby increase the incidence of CD34+ tumors (thyroid, connective tissue) due to mutation-promoting viruses (e.g. high incidence of malignant nerve sheath tumors around the Whittaker Bermite rocket plant in Santa Clarita CA.) If pendrin is the primary means of excreting perchlorate through the urine, then premature infants and babies with diarrhea will retain perchlorate.
ReplyDeletePerchlorate in drinking water, and perchlorate-rich items like opuntia cactus (nopales) and chew tobacco, need to be regulated. http://www.perchlorate.org
Larry Ladd is a medical geographer concerned about potential health effects of environmental perchlorate. Since 1997, his town of Rancho Cordova CA has lost 20 municipal water wells to rocket fuel contamination.
ReplyDeleteIn 1997-1999 Larry served as a volunteer community representative on the California Dept. of Health Services's Aerojet Superfund Site Health Assessment Team in Rancho Cordova, California. Currently he performs a similar function for the US EPA-sponsored Community Advisory Group for Aerojet Superfund Site Issues.
Thank you for your informative comment Larry.
I would love for you to please sign on as a follower.
This is no joke people... www.perchlorate.org