| | |  Health & Beauty 
In Case You Missed CNN's Shocker, 'Toxic America' - Part 2
 Suzy Chaffee - PVNN
July 13, 2010
| | (L-R) Former U.S. Olympic skier, Suzy "Chapstick" Chaffee skidancing in Aspen with the bold new Champion of a Toxic-Free America, 86 year old Senator Frank Lautenberg, after he skied up and told her on Christmas Day, "From the gondola my friends thought you were an angel." A medicine woman just sent Suzy a photo of her tree double to likely remind everyone that plants/trees can be wise witty saviours of our families from household toxins. | |
How the E.U., U.S., Canada and Mexico Rank in Protecting Citizens
While researching toxins on the Internet, I ran into this Question of the Millennium: "Don't democratic governments owe a duty to keep their citizens out of harm's way? Is it acceptable for governments to allow toxins/poisons be spread to kill its citizens? Isn't this why America invades countries (albeit illegally) to ostensibly stop this from happening?"
Using Dr Gupte's comparisons and some more Googling, herein is how the U.S., European Union (E.U.), Canada, and Mexico score in protecting the citizens they are sworn to serve. Those who have been the most informed, awake, outraged and active at all levels of the product and food chain, especially the moms telling the government what we want to protect our children, are enjoying the best health and free health care, with the French in the lead.
European Union Leads World in Banning Toxic Chemicals
Dr. Gupte's heroes are the 27 Europeans Nations of the E.U. who have REACH labs where the governments retest the safety research of the companies wanting to introduce new products or chemicals, not after it sickens people, like the U.S.
The E.U. has since banned over 1,200 chemicals, and their countries provide free health care (with paid required vacations), which is not bankrupting them thanks to healthier populations, despite a 10 year higher life expectancy than Americans. While Europeans first figured that it was easier to change a few ingredients than planets, Green business is now booming in Europe, and off and running in the Americas!
Maine Leads the States
Concerned with how the EPA has not been protecting the healthy development of American children, including some eight year old girls in the U.S. developing breasts and having babies because of hormone build up in foods and products, last year Maine brilliantly led America in becoming the first state to put into law regulations similar to the E.U.
Senator Lautenberg Spearheads 2010 Safe Chemical Law For U.S.
Besides Maine, CNN sited the big hope for the U.S. is New Jersey Senator Lautenberg (D), who proved that skiing in pristine mountain air, along with a little detoxing sweat, helps keep the mind cutting edge. Thanks to my "angel" ski ballet, we shared some ski runs and eco talks on the chair lift in Aspen around 2003. He was already a hero for banning smoking on airplanes, along with his colleague, my late relative/supporter, Senator John Chafee(R), for authoring the Clean Air, Water and Endangered Species Acts.
The U.S. Has Banned 9 Toxins
Following Senator Lautenberg's brush with Lymphoma cancer, (likely also from toxic products in his enclosed home), and as a bold leader on the Senate Committee on the Environment, he is now spearheading the 2010 Safe Chemical Law that is an adaptation of the cost-effective E.U. model, to make up for our "broken system." That solution is critical given the EPA has tested only 200 out of the 80,000 chemicals they have allowed on the market, of which ethical scientists say only 45 are non-toxic. Yet the EPA has banned only 9. Wal-Mart has higher standards!
Senator Lautenberg wants to protect his eleven grandchildren and generations of Americans at this pivotal moment so they can also have a sustainable health care system. Despite a Chemical Industry spokesperson saying on CNN that, "Chemicals have never made anyone sick," even EPA's Lisa Jackson, Obama's new EPA Administrator, admitted that "chemicals and products should be tested before going to market, and formulators need to give people what they want."
CNN also featured Ken Cook, founder of the dynamic Environmental Working Group (EWG.org), one of the many valiant non-profits educating the public and Washington about toxic ingredients with its easy to check Safe Shoppers Guide. EWG's Active Fund is helping Congress develop and push through this critical legislative policy.
Canada Bans Over 500 Toxins
Alarmed by increased allergies and diseases, Canada has been more responsive to its citizens than its southern neighbours by banning 500 toxins in personal care and household products! Additionally, on Earth Day 2009, Ontario led Canada in banning 250+ pesticides, which are DNA-altering dioxins similar to Agent Orange that our Viet Nam vets have not recovered from, used in landscaping.
Dr. Gupte suggests that people use green alternatives to all spraying and take shoes off at home to prevent tracking in these toxic sprays from lawns or golf courses not yet converted green by Audubon International, especially if they have crawling babies to protect their developing brains. As a result of their bans, Canadian politicians have approx 50 toxins in their blood streams, half that of the average American, and enjoy a similar guaranteed health care program like Europeans.
Instead of Running for the Cure for research funds, although running to detox and support groups are important, Canada's more effective counterpart, Breast Cancer Action Montreal, works tirelessly on prevention. Since the fatty tissue in women's breasts is a site where many of these chemicals accumulate, Canadian women focus on awareness and banning the most toxic of the 10,500 chemicals used in household products. Breast cancer survivor, Australia's Olivia Newton John, has been helping wake up women of the Americas and Down Under, that cancer is no longer a mystery, it is toxin-related and therefore preventable.
Health Canada also pioneered in 2000, banning Monsanto's synthetic bovine growth hormone rBGH from dairy products, which artificially increased milk production. The European nations and UN Food & Safety Agency representing 101 countries also banned it for being related to breast, gastrointestinal, colon and prostate cancers and sexual and developmental challenges, also in cows.
Synthetic human growth hormones used to fatten up livestock... also fatten up people. American schools now serve hormone-free organic milk if parents demand it, which helped lead to only 15% of U.S. dairies still using hormones in milk. To be sensitive to consumers, now Dannon, Yoplait and Walmart have taken the pledge to be hormone-free in 2010 in the U.S. Having starred in the first Dannon yogurt commercial in the U.S. in the 70's, I am proud they delivered...
To ensure your family also gets hormone-free dairy products in Mexico, enlighten store managers, schools, dairies and contact Danone Mexico at (toll free) 01-800-50469-00. Meanwhile "Orgasmic Organics" at the Vallarta Old Town Farmers Market has yummy hormone-free yogurt, and Organic Superfoods, next to the tunnel entrance into Old Town Vallarta, and Costco, also offer hormone-free ice cream and organic milk. |
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