Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

Chances are you are exposed to at least a dozen products that contain fragrance on a daily basis. Unfortunately we are unknowingly being exposed to potentially hundreds of chemicals as a result, some of which are toxic to our health.

In May of 2015, the Minnesota Legislature quietly passed the nation’s most comprehensive flame retardant product ban to date. However, a current Senate proposal to reform regulation of chemicals at the federal level puts future state laws like this at risk.

We’d like to call your attention to a new Huffington Post article from our coalition partners at the Union of Concerned Scientists. This shows how the chemical industry — with the American Chemistry Council leading the way — is spending millions of dollars to push weak policies that allow our families to be exposed to dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde in our homes despite evidence of profound health effects.

The Value of Knowing and Caring about What’s Actually in Legislation

It looks as though the Senate is likely to vote on TSCA reform this week and the propaganda machine is in full swing. Yesterday, I took a call from New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, thinking he was writing about the legislation and what the issues were. I didn’t realize he was actually writing a column about us, instigated, as he admits, by his “old friend” at the Environmental Defense Fund’s affiliate. The column is flat wrong, but it also provides an opportunity to talk about where we are and what’s at stake.

With rumors swirling that the Senate could call a vote very soon on S.697, the Vitter-Udall chemical bill, four governors are raising fresh concerns about the bill, even as they encourage Congress to pass reform.

Recently, Target quietly posted a rather important update to its sustainable products standard addressing toxic chemicals.

TSCA has been untouched and unchanged – until now. While an updated TSCA could yield incredibly beneficial health and safety advantages, the proposed legislation as written is actually an irreversible rollback – not reform.

Eating one meal of sport fish or game will likely not make people sick. However, consuming game and fish not sold in markets may have long-term health effects. So should those who enjoy sport fishing worry about toxic chemicals?

It’s been a banner year for the Mind the Store campaign. We have been challenging the nation’s biggest retailers to tackle the most toxic chemicals in the everyday products they carry.
And guess what—thanks to your help and support— they are listening up!