Crossposted from our toxic-fighting parent organization, the Center for Environmental Health. 

Yesterday, for the first time since 1996, no players were chosen for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Many first-time nominees, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and several others were considered reputation-damaged, steroid-tainted players. In the run-up to the vote, the New York Times noted that this years’ scurrilous Hall of Shame nominees would hardly be exceptional additions in Cooperstown, which is already stocked with racists, gamblers, and drug users, among other miscreants.

But another Hall of Shame deserves some new (and some returning) inductees this year. Below, our choices (some current and some lifetime achievement nominees) for the corporate Hall of Shame.

Flame retardant chemical companies: The flame retardant industry deserves a lifetime achievement spot, based on their decades-long campaign (in concert with the tobacco industry, as the Chicago Tribune exposed in 2012) to mislead the public about their harmful products. The industry’s now defunct front group Citizens for Fire Safety and their lead “expert” witness Dr. David Heimbach deserve special mention for their dirty tricks campaigns and lying to public officials.

Alpha Natural Resources: The largest mountaintop removal mining company, Alpha took over the notorious Massey Energy company, after that corporate criminal’s deadly Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster nearly sunk the company. According to the Appalachian Community Health Emergency, mountaintop removal mining sites are responsible for “shockingly disproportionate levels of cancer, heart disease, pulmonary disease, birth defects and other physical and mental illnesses. More than four thousand people die in West Virginia communities every year because they live near such sites.” Local residents and environmental groups have sued Alpha repeatedly for its polluting operations, but the company remains unabashed. After another mining company recently acknowledged the damage from mountaintop removal and reached a legal agreement to phase-out such operations, Alpha told reporters, “(T)his does not affect our mining plans.”

Monsanto: A shoe-in for lifetime achievement in creating polluting products (among other crimes and lies), Monsanto makes it this year for serving as the chief funder of the lie-filled campaign against California’s GMO labeling ballot initiative. With upcoming GMO labeling votes in New Mexico, Washington and other states, expect Monsanto to be a perennial Hall of Shame inductee.

Apple: Apple appeared to dodge the shameful bullet early last year, when reports on the company’s labor practices focused on the embellishments in a one-man show about the company and not on the documented abuses. In the fall, further reports of misdeeds by the company’s Foxxconn i-Phone contractor showed it was business as usual at Apple. Also in 2012, Apple quietly withdrew from the environmental standards group EPEAT, then returned to the group and won questionable approval for their environmentally-questionable MacBook Pro.

Bayer: Bayer makes the list this year for their neonicotinoid pesticides, chemicals that scientists have linked to bee colony collapse. The EPA gets an assist for this nomination: in 2003 the agency granted a “conditional” approval for clothianidin, the company’s widely sold neonicotinoid. Despite failing to meet the registration’s conditions, and despite the latest science about potentially devastating loss of bee populations, EPA ten years later still allows the company to sell the nasty pesticide. The problem is so bad that even the financial journal Forbes posted a plea last year for signatures on a petition to Bayer to stop production of the product.

Dennis Paustenbach: A Hall of Shame award for worst individual in service to dirty industries goes to Paustenbach, who has a long track record of shameful behavior. CEH first exposed Paustenbach in 2003, when he served on a state science panel convened to investigate massive water pollution by PG&E (including the revelations uncovered by Erin Brockovich in Hinckley, CA). Turns out Paustenbach had received large payments during his career for work with PG&E, but he claimed he had not worked for the company in years. In fact, at the time the panel was convened Paustembach’s company had a contract to work for PG&E on hexchrome. Given this history, we were not surprised when the Chicago Tribune outed Paustenbach for his contributions to the flame retardant industry’s dirty public relations campaign (see above).

Shell Oil: According to a UN report, the gas company (known formally as Royal Dutch Shell) holds primary responsibility for 50 years of oil pollution that devastated the Ogoniland region of Nigeria, part of the Niger Delta, home to 31 million people and one of the world’s most important wetland and coastal marine ecosystems. Yet the company has evaded responsibility for the damage caused by its hugely profitable oil operations. Last year, four Nigerian villagers again took Shell to court, this time to Dutch civil court in The Hague, the first such suit in the company’s home country. Shell denied responsibility, blaming Nigerian saboteurs for decades of the company’s pollution.

Aqua Bounty: The GMO salmon company is bemoaning the lengthy government review of their Frankenfish, which if approved would be the first lab-created animal food species allowed, unlabeled, into the food supply. This may not sound like something you’d want to rush to the dinner table, but if you complain, company CEO Ron Stotish thinks you’re just being “disingenuous.” This from a company that claims that releases of its GMO fish into the wild would be virtually impossible – unless you count the previous accidental release of their entire 2008 commercial-sized batch. Surely we should trust a company that’s always been open to the public – except when it came to light last year that in 2009 Aqua Bounty’s GMO fish were hit with a new form of a common salmon disease, a problem the company failed to report to the FDA in its lengthy approval documents.

The nuclear power industry: The industry gets a lifetime achievement nod for their hilarious yet tragic “too cheap to meter” promises, given the failure of virtually all nuclear plants to be financially (let alone environmentally) sustainable without massive taxpayer subsidies (as outlined in this brief list of nuclear boondoggles). Fukushima was mostly reported as a “natural disaster,” but was actually the result of decades of mismanagement, lies, and “missed” inspections by Tepco. Similar problems at U.S. nuclear plants at San Onofre, Indian Point, and other plants came to light in 2012. (Looking for a fun party game? Everyone picks the name of a nuclear plant and googles it with the word “mismanagement.” Whoever gets the most results wins!)

The nuclear weapons complex: Another lifetime achievement shoe-in, for 2012 the nukers win a special award for the industry most likely to be toppled by your grandmother. Last year, one of our nation’s most guarded nuclear facilities was breached by an 82-year-old nun, Sister Megan Rice, who with her colleagues passed through four fences and walked around for two hours inside the Oak Ridge, Tennessee nuclear weapons facility. As Sister Megan told the New York Times, the group breached the plant to demonstrate against “(T)he criminality of this 70-year industry. We spend more on nuclear arms than on the departments of education, health, transportation, disaster relief and a number of other government agencies that I can’t remember.” This is hardly the first successful action by an octogenarian against the nuke weapons industry, and not even the first at Oak Ridge: in 2011, Father Bill Bichsel, an 86 year-old priest from Tacoma, Washington and 12 others were arrested for breaching the fences at Oak Ridge

Paul Hawken spoke at the Center for Environmental Health’s gala last month. For readers who haven’t heard of him before, I’ll just say that Paul’s many environmentally-focused businesses, writings, and countless other forms of activism have changed the courses of multiple industries and many people’s lives. On September 10th, he told us how it all started with the smallest possible arena for activism: one person’s body. Paul described how he was born with asthma, medicated every day of his life for twenty years because of it, and then suddenly found a way to make it disappear: Read the rest of this entry →

My younger sister Olivia is 13 years old, nearly six years younger than me. She’s kind, hilarious, bold, hyper, silly, and wonderful. She loves rap music (2 Chainz, anyone?), dying her hair a different color every week (it’s magenta right now), our black lab Jasper, dancing with me in the street, and spending all the time she can with her friends.

For longer than I can remember, Olivia has had asthma. Asthma, for the very small number of readers who aren’t familiar with the disorder, is a chronic airway disorder. People with asthma suffer from periods of irreversible airflow obstruction caused when their airway is inflamed and the small muscles surrounding it contract. My mom Audrey is very active, and always encouraged me and Olivia to get into sports when we were growing up. I played soccer, but Olivia didn’t find a sport she liked. As things turned out, due to her asthma, sports weren’t really her thing. She tried basketball for a season, and despite being the tallest girl on the court (a trait that runs in the family), she would find herself out of breath before the second quarter had even begun. While Olivia’s asthma has been manageable, she has, and will, struggle with it all of her life. Just like millions of others with the disease.

Asthma rates in the US are at an all-time high. In 2010, an estimated 18.7 million adults and 7 million children had the disease. That makes 1 in every 12 Americans with asthma. Asthma’s symptoms can be controlled with various drugs, but the disorder is currently incurable. Read the rest of this entry →

June 5, 2012 marked the day I had been waiting for since I first saw my mother proudly sporting the “I just voted” sticker on her shirt.  The opportunity had finally arrived for me to speak out as a citizen to make a difference in this country where the power is fully invested in the people.

As I carefully reviewed the ballot to determine my position on the various candidates and propositions proposed, my eyes were quickly drawn to California’s Proposition 29, a proposition intended to add an additional $1.00 tax on cigarettes. As a public health student, I saw this proposition not only as a way to lower smoking rates consequently resulting in enhanced air quality, but also an opportunity to raise much needed revenue for state programs.
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From a tender age I can recall pinning that bright red ribbon to my chest, my five-year-old ears yearning to catch every word of Officer Gill’s explanation of the dangers associated with smoking and tobacco use. I remember years of assemblies, programs, and demonstrations illustrating black gunk build-up and balloons never to be inflated again. These instances, along with countless words of warning from my mother, were quickly absorbed into my childhood mind leading me to conclude at a very young age: I would never smoke.

I was fortunate enough to be raised in a home where those around me also made the same decision that life was short enough already to have the urge to light up. With this cigarette-free environment, I believed I grew up far from the dangers and adverse health effects that result from cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, I could not have been more mistaken.

Recently, journalist Andrew M. Seaman highlighted a study conducted at University of California, San Francisco. A study that exposes an issue affecting the children in the Bay Area’s very own backyard: secondhand smoke. Using samples originally collected to determine lead levels in the blood of 496 children (ages one to four), researchers decided to use the remaining blood to test for cotinine- a chemical our bodies produce when exposed to nicotine. Over half (55%) of the samples tested had a detectable amount of cotinine found in the blood.
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Smoking during pregnancy heightens the risk for a lower birth weight at delivery, we’ve known that for a long time, but astonishing studies conducted recently confirm links between smoking while pregnant and long-term problems lasting into adulthood for kids whose mothers smoked.

Two of the most damaging effects of smoking have wide-ranging outcomes for the developing fetus. Smoking constricts blood vessels, including those that are in the uterus. This cuts off the vital supply of nutrients and oxygen to the baby. In addition, carbon monoxide levels rise in the blood of moms who smoke. This gas is the same one that causes asphyxiation from leaks in car exhaust and faulty gas heaters. It acts to further cut off the oxygen supply to the developing baby. Mothers who are exposed to second hand smoke at home or in the workplace are endangering their unborn child, and should insist that they live and work in a smoke-free environment during pregnancy.

So, what are some of the results of depriving the fetus of vital nutrients and oxygen? Lower birth weight, premature birth and an elevated risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) are just a few of the problems that have been linked to mothers who smoke. Infant mortality rates in general are higher for babies who experienced the dangers of a smoking mother. The lack of adequate nutrients and oxygen causes delays and disruptions in the development of the fetus, most importantly in brain development. Recent studies show that there is a significant risk for behavioral problems in teens and young adults if their mothers smoked. There is even an elevated risk for psychotic behaviors including hallucinations and delusional thinking in pre-teens. And if this isn’t bad enough, even criminal behavior and substance abuse are more common among teens and young adults who had mothers who smoked during their pregnancy.
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Let me get the disclosures out of the way up front. I’m not a scientist, nor am I an expert in nuclear power. For the record, all I know about environmental health was gleaned through independent research, not bestowed upon me in some ivy-covered building on an ivy-league campus. The letters Ph.D do not follow my name.

So what qualifies me to write about the bone-headed decision made by the NRC on Thursday to approve not one, but two new nuclear power plants in Georgia? Based on the above, you might say, “Not a whole lot.” And you would be wrong. I may not be a scientist, but I am a mother. I’ve created two of the most beautiful creatures on the planet inside my own body. Don’t tell me I don’t have a right to speak out about events that might put those products of my mama lab in jeopardy.

I would venture a guess that few of those who promote nuclear power as a “clean” power source have any idea that current EPA regulations for determining how much  nuclear radiation you can be zapped with before your lifetime cancer risk exceeds permissible levels is based on a white, 154-pound “Reference Man.” Recent 15-lb baby deliveries aside, it’s impossible that a fully grown male would ever emerge from the womb. Meaning that any individual—male or female— that’s smaller (or otherwise more at risk) than the Reference Man is more vulnerable to the effects of radiation exposure. Pound for pound, babies are more vulnerable than adults to a host of environmental pollutants. Imagine then, how much more vulnerable a fetus in the womb might be. Read the rest of this entry →

When we think about air pollution, we most likely visualize exhaust fumes, power plant and industrial emissions, and that brown haze of smog that hangs over major cities. But, studies readily show that our greatest exposure to polluted air comes when we are indoors, usually in our own homes! Levels of certain pollutants can be up to 5 times higher indoors than outdoors. So, what can we do to protect our families and ourselves from what studies show is a major risk to our health?

Indoor air pollution is composed of gasses and particles that come from a wide variety of sources, many of them rarely thought of as health hazards. Tobacco smoke is an obvious one that is well recognized as harmful. Members of the family that smoke should always smoke outside, most families already follow this simple line of attack on indoor air pollution. But what about those air fresheners that smell so nice? Most people do not consider them pollutants, but they definitely are. Unless you are using pure essential oils in a water base and spritzing your home with that, you are contributing to the burden of pollutants in your home’s air with scented candles, solid air fresheners and sprays (and depending on the oils used, you may even be adding allergens to the air with those). Each of these contains an abundance of petrochemicals, some even known to cause cancer! Cleaning and personal care products are some of the least expected but potentially most dangerous products. It is well worth the few extra dollars to switch to “green” cleaning products and natural personal care products. The chemicals found in conventional cleaners, adhesives, pesticides, air fresheners, paints and other products can lead to a host of health problems. These include liver, kidney and brain damage, as well as headaches, nose and eye irritation and cancers. Read the rest of this entry →

Here’s the latest place you’re likely to be exposed to toxic pesticides: inside an ambulance.

Yes, the next time you’re lying flat on your back en route to the hospital, try not to think about the Nano-sized particles of disinfectant pesticides that were misted on every interior surface of the ambulance before you arrived.  Pesticides meant for use on hard, non-porous surfaces, not skin, not blankets used to keep you warm, not the bandages used to dress your wounds.

After receiving complaints of health problems suffered by paramedics working inside these “micro-misted” ambulances, the EPA has asked New Jersey-based Mammoth-Ocean Hospital Services Corporation (MONOC) to stop administering the misted pesticides until it can determine whether they are safe and if they are being used according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Read the rest of this entry →

The next time you tighten your safety belt en route to see your in-laws, you might want to hold your breath. The National Geographic recently reported that you’re ten times more likely to die from pollution caused by airplanes than you are to die in an actual airplane crash. According to the article, airplane exhaust kills 10,000 people per year, compared with airplane crashes, which kill an estimated 1,000 people. While I’m sure these statistics are comforting to some, as a mom of two living a few miles from a major airport, in a major metropolitan area, I find them deeply disturbing.

And it’s that deep disturbance that is the issue here. The culprit is the particulate matter found in the fuel exhaust—super small particles of pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides—which can become trapped deep in the lungs when inhaled, and could, potentially, enter the bloodstream and contribute to cancer and a host of other health problems. [Recent studies also found lead in aviation fuel to be a health problem]

Eight years ago, when my husband and I were looking for a home, I don’t recall “proximity to deadly carcinogens” on our list of house-hunting criteria. Maybe it should have been.

After having lost out on our 10th straight bid to a buyer willing to pay $100K over the asking price for a house that needed a new roof, a new foundation, and which was located across the street from a known crack house, we were feeling a bit dejected. Our landlord was selling our rental home and we had less than two months to find a new place to live, so things were looking desperate. Read the rest of this entry →