Since March, we’ve been focusing on products and chemicals that negatively affect women’s reproductive health. 

This week, we want to focus on one company that’s actually doing something right—and has been for years—Seventh Generation.

Seventh Generation is the leading brand of green cleaners, laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, diapers, baby wipes, tampons, recycled toilet paper, tissues, and paper towels. They believe in creating products that are not only effective, but are safe. Go figure.

Currently, Seventh Generation is in the middle of a very important campaign for chemical reform. It’s called the Million Baby Crawl and it is a virtual baby crawl to Washington, D.C. to say “no” to toxic chemicals found in our homes. Seventh Generation has teamed up with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families to demand toxic chemical policy reform. They hope for a bill that will:  
•Take quick action on the most dangerous chemicals.
•Require full information on the health and environmental hazards associated with all chemicals.
•Protect all people and vulnerable groups - including children and pregnant women – using the best science.

Last night, as part of the Million Baby Crawl, Seventh Generation held “A Crawl to Action,” at the ECHO Center in Burlington, VT.  Participants had the chance to learn more about the crawl, snatch up some Seventh Generation giveaways, and even get up on their “soapbox” to talk about toxicants. We had a great time.  

 How can you join the fight against toxic chemicals?  Help Seventh Generation reach a million names for their petition by Creating a Crawler today.  While you’re on the site, forward some info to a friend or family member via Twitter, Facebook or email.  Sign up for the next Crawl to Action Event. Want to do more?  Contact Congress to let them know you think it’s time to update laws governing toxic chemicals.

Why do we wear seatbelts? Why do we bring a surplus of diapers and multiple changes of clothes when we take our babies on a single outing?  Why do we wear helmets while biking and skiing? Why – because by golly, we’re smart kids and we have learned to intrinsically employ the precautionary principle…now if only our law and policy makers could do the same.

According to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, “there are 82,000 chemicals available for use in the U.S. yet only about 200 chemicals have been assessed for safety.  Only 5 chemicals have been removed from use based on health and safety concerns.”  Currently, in the United Sates, law makers require strong, and in many cases, conclusive evidence that a contaminant has adverse human health effects before preventative actions are taken.  In other words, the burden is on people to prove a chemical is unsafe before lawmakers will take action. The problem with this policy, however, is “serous, evident effects such as endocrine disruption, climate change, [and] cancer…can seldom be linked to a single cause.  Scientific standards of certainty may be impossible to attain when causes and outcomes are multiple; latent periods are long; timing of exposure is crucial; unexposed, “control” populations do not exist; or cofounding factors are unidentified (www.sehn.org ). 

So, if definitively linking specific contaminants to specific adverse health outcomes is sometimes a nearly impossible task, how could our government better protect us?  The U.S. should borrow a page from the European Union’s playbook and begin to adopt the Precautionary Principle – that’s how.  (more…)