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While environmental toxins are a concern for all of us, babies, toddlers and children are especially vulnerable to the damaging effects. As parents, we don’t always know when things in our everyday environment may expose our kids to potential harm. Photo Credit: Prospectpark.org The Coop’s Environmental Committee has compiled the information below to help you protect your family’s health. Protecting kids from sunburn is really important but choose sunscreens without oxybenzone or retinyl palmitate. The first gets into the bloodstream and acts like estrogen in the body; the latter promotes skin tumors. Sunscreens with zinc oxide and/or titanium dioxide are considered safe. >> Sun Screen Guide The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that children are uniquely susceptibility to pesticides’ toxicity . If you cannot buy all-organic produce, consult the EWG’s “ dirty dozen ” and “ c lean 15 ” lists , which are revised every year, to make smart choices about which kinds of produce are ...

Nicholas Kristof's column in the 10/7/12 New York Times talked about The Cancer Lobby . He asks us to: Just consider formaldehyde, which is found in everything from nail polish to kitchen countertops, fabric softeners to carpets. Largely because of its use in building materials, we breathe formaldehyde fumes when we’re inside our homes. Just one other fact you should know: According to government scientists, it causes cancer. and then goes on to say: The [chemical] industry’s strategy is to lobby Congress to cut off money for the Report on Carcinogens, a 500-page consensus document published every two years by the National Institutes of Health, containing the best information about what agents cause cancer. If that sounds like shooting the messenger, well, it is. The article is well worth reading in it's entirety, but at this point we'll pause to look at which products do contain formaldehyde.,br. The Environmental Working Group provides a list of household cleaning p...

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is an estrogenic-like chemical used in many plastic products. BPA can can interfere with hormones and normal development in children and has been linked to everything from infertility to diabetes to heart disease. Some products—such as sippy cups for toddlers—advertise themselves as being "BPA-free". The presence of BPA in the linings of many canned products has been less publicized. Several manufacturers , such as Eden Organics , have voluntarily stopped lining their cans with BPA. Weruva is one of the few pet food companies to have canned food with BPA-free linings. Four Swedish reporters decided to do some informal research about BPA in canned foods. They ate nothing but canned food for two days and doctors found that their BPA levels rose between 2,800 and 4,600 percent. These levels are below what the Swedish government estimates to be safe, though what is a safe level of BPA is still being debated. Since April 2012, the Swedish government outla...

We've been hearing about the dangers of brominated flame retardants for awhile now, yet there was always the assumption that they served some purpose. Nicholas Kristoff's column in the 5/20/12 New York Times, " Are You Safe on that Sofa? " tells us the truth about these chemicals and how they became so widely used. In his words : It turns out that our furniture first became full of flame retardants because of the tobacco industry , according to internal cigarette company documents examined by The Tribune. A generation ago, tobacco companies were facing growing pressure to produce fire-safe cigarettes, because so many house fires started with smoldering cigarettes. So tobacco companies mounted a surreptitious campaign for flame retardant furniture, rather than safe cigarettes, as the best way to reduce house fires. The documents show that cigarette lobbyists secretly organized the National Association of State Fire Marshals and then guided its agenda so that it pushed...

Many environmentally-aware folks have been lured into believing that Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day is a healthy product. However, if you read the fine print (and the ingredients list) you will see the truth. If you use your nose, you will smell the truth. Mrs. Meyer's uses synthetic ingredients and fragrances . When you see the term " fragrance " or " parfum " in the ingredients list remember that the fragrance/perfume industry is protected by trade secret laws. This means they are not required to tell you what's in their formulations. The ingredients that are lumped into the listing fragrance or parfum could include up to 1000 different synthetic chemicals! Our current toxic chemicals law (the Toxic Substances Control Act ) is so outdated and weak that testing has been required on fewer than 2% of the 80,000 chemicals available for use in the United States. Many of these chemicals, especially when they interact, are linked to numerous health problems, like en...