December 2017 Newsletter – Great Gifts that Came Early

Trailer for Brains in Danger

I trust you have had a good autumn. I’m just back from Thanksgiving in Kauai and hope to travel to Bali with my daughter Annalise for the December holidays (if the local volcano is quiet!). Annalise received her PhD from Tufts in August, writing her thesis on predicting floods and droughts based on stream flows. She is now a Post Doctoral Fellow at John Hopkins and living happily in Washington DC.

Our Institute’s work on flame retardants is featured in the French documentary “Demain, tous cretins?” or in English “Brains in Danger” which dramatically details how endocrine disrupting chemicals such as flame retardants are causing long-term health problems for us and for future generations.

Sylvie Gilman, who made the film, wrote enthusiastically:
“The film has already had 10 millions views. For a scientific film, this is fantastic. A Paris taxi driver told his passenger, who is my friend, that he had seen an amazing film and showed her the video on his mobile phone while driving!”

This film brings our message about protecting health from toxic chemicals to an international audience. Indeed the film’s website includes our Six Classes videos translated into French  — a gift to broader understanding of reducing toxics!

Other important gifts helping to protect our health are:
  • The CPSC landmark decision to implement our “Big Idea” petition and ban products containing the entire class of harmful organohalogen flame retardants.
  • The City of San Francisco passed an ordinance banning the sale of upholstered furniture and children’s products containing any flame retardant.
  • Publication of our scientist’s letter asking for study of impacts of highly fluorinated chemicals on communities with contaminated drinking water and funding for such studies included in the 2018 Defense Budget.
To learn the latest about reducing the use of chemical classes of concern, please register here for this year’s Flame Retardant Dilemma and Beyond on February 9, 2018 at UC Berkeley.

And if you want to join our Institute in working towards a healthier world, check out our jobs page. We are always looking out for great people to join our Institute. Please share this link with your friends.

We wish you a happy holiday season,
Arlene and the Green Science Policy Team
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Rob Bilott at last year’s symposium at UC Berkeley Photo by Gary Marcos

Save the Date: February 9, 2018

The Flame Retardant Dilemma and Beyond

You are cordially invited to join contributors from academia, industry, government, and NGOs to learn about reducing the use of harmful chemicals in everyday products and building materials.
Our list of distinguished speakers includes:
  • Sharon Lerner, award-wining investigative journalist
  • Eve Gartner from Earth Justice who led the organoghalogen petition to the CPSC
  • Jay Fleming, fire safety expert from the Boston Fire Department
  • Johnsie Lang, EPA scientist specializing in highly fluorinated chemicals
This one day symposium will be held on Friday, February 9, 2018, at 150 University Hall, UC Berkeley (2199 Addison Street, Berkeley, California). Register now.
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Memorable moments from the CPSC hearing on organohalogen flame retardants

Flame-Retarded Products Banned Nationally and Locally!

In a landmark decision on September 19, 2017, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) granted our “Big Idea” petition to ban children’s products, furniture, mattresses, and electronics cases that contain any organohalogen flame retardants. This is a ground-breaking example of how government can use the chemical class concept for improved regulation of toxics.

Click the image above to watch our draft short video with memorable quotes on the harm of this entire class of chemicals and the government’s responsibility for safe and healthy products. The CPSC has published a Guidance Document in the Federal Register advising consumers, manufacturers, and importers to decrease the unnecessary use of organohalogen flame retardants in their products. This should help the movement to healthier products.
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The largest human chemical experiment is now. (English subtitles can be shown by clicking the settings icon)

Denmark Leads in Reducing Harm from PFASs

To help prevent global pollution, Malene Teller Blume from the Danish Coop, who spoke at our February 2017 meeting at UC Berkeley, is leading a campaign for a national ban in Denmark of highly fluorinated chemicals and harmful bisphenols in food contact materials and other consumer products. After watching the powerful video to the right, Danes are taking action to ask for chemicals bans in Denmark and across the EU.

Awareness about highly fluorinated chemicals has come a long way since we released the Madrid Statement in 2015.

Patrick Breysse, Director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, described highly fluorinated chemicals as “one of the most seminal public health challenges for the next decades” at a scientific meeting last month. As reported in Bloomberg News, Breysse said that soon, “we think that hundreds of millions of Americans will be drinking water with levels of these chemicals above levels of concern.”

LoadingAerial Fire Retardants: It’s Raining Red

2017 was one of the worst fire seasons on record in California and British Columbia with devastation from multiple wildfires. But what kinds of fire retardant chemicals are used to battle these blazes? And how do they impact people and wildlife? Rest assured the aerial flame retardants used to fight wildland fires are not the persistent, bioaccumulative and often toxic chemicals added to furniture foam and plastic. And that alarming bright red color is a dye added to mark areas where retardant has been dropped. Read more in our blog.

Highly Fluorinated Hush Puppies?

Groundwater near a former leather tannery was recently found to have the highest levels of highly fluorinated chemicals ever measured in Michigan drinking water.

Wolverine Worldwide Inc. used 3M’s PFOS-based Scotchguard to waterproof its iconic Hush Puppies shoes on the banks of the Rogue River for decades until PFOS was phased out in 2002 due to its persistence, toxicity, and tendency to bioaccumulate. Recent tests of a household well near the tannery site found 540 times more PFOS and PFOA than the EPA’s recommended safe level — a staggering 37,800 ppt!

Wolverine’s manufacturing sludge and leather scraps continue to pollute water more than fifty years after their disposal! Once again we learn that such persistent chemicals need to be used with extreme caution and only when necessary. For more about this class of long-lasting pollutants, watch our short video here and check out our website here.

On a more positive note, our scientist’s letter on the need for a coordinated national response to the growing number of these contamination incidents was picked up by dozens of outlets in the US and Canada. At the same time, we are continuing to advise House and Senate staff from both sides of the aisle who have communities in their districts whose drinking water is contaminated with highly fluorinated chemicals. In fact, some of the provisions we suggest in the letter are included in the 2018 U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Calendar

January 26, 2018: Tackling Toxics: The Chemical Class Approach towards Healthier Products and Materials
Arlene Blum will speak in the Environmental Engineering Department

12pm-1pm, 534 Davis Hall, UC Berkeley

This series brings together scientists, business, government, and citizens groups to share information on flame retardants, fluorinated chemicals, and other chemicals of concern.
8:30am-4pm, 150 University Hall, UC Berkeley (2199 Addison Street, Berkeley CA)