Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

A national effort to protect families from toxic chemicals.

Liz Hitchcock

Liz Hitchcock

Director

Liz Hitchcock is Director of Safer Chemicals Healthy Families. She coordinates work with partner organizations and leads advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill and at EPA and other federal agencies. She joined the team in 2011 after four years as the public health advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. In that capacity, she led U.S. PIRG’s campaigns on environmental health issues including product safety, chemical policy reform, chemical facility security, and food safety. She coordinated PIRG’s successful campaign to win landmark federal standards for toxic lead and phthalates in children’s products in the 2008 reform of Consumer Product Safety Commission and was PIRG’s lead lobbyist on the food safety campaign that resulted in the 2010 passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act. She has a B.A. in Politics from Mount Holyoke College and is a native of Schenectady, NY.

Posts by Liz Hitchcock

New study: More workers than consumers die from methylene chloride; EPA should ban these paint strippers in the workplace

Today’s publication of a peer-reviewed study—Fatalities from methylene chloride exposure in the United States, 1980-2018: A comprehensive case series and policy implications—adds to the strong case for EPA to fully ban the use of paint strippers containing methylene chloride from use in the United States.

It’s 2021 and we still face danger from asbestos: EPA must act now

Asbestos is one of the most studied and dangerous toxic substances in the world. Hundreds of tons of raw asbestos are imported into the U.S. each year. Most of it is used in the chlor-alkali industry to make chlorine, but asbestos has been found in children’s crayons, talc, automobile brakes, makeup, and other products.

Asbestos is still found in older homes, schools, and other buildings across the country. This leads to significant ongoing exposure and risk to workers and the rest of us. There are tens of thousands of deaths from asbestos-related illnesses in the U.S. each year.