Congrats to 15 Years of CEH Success!

On Monday, the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) toasted the first 15 years of our successful action to protect children and families from harmful chemicals at a gala…

CEH Executive Director Michael Green explained the “toxic shell game” that the chemical industry plays with our health: how, when they are faced with increasing pressure to eliminate a harmful chemical, the industry often simply substitutes a less well-studied chemical, or worse, one that is known to be harmful but has yet to be tightly regulated.

Michael Green, government regulations recently forced companies to stop selling a toxic strawberry pesticide called methyl bromide. How did the chemical companies respond? By replacing methyl bromide with methyl iodide, a pesticide linked to cancer and miscarriages.

Michael told the audience that CEH works to stop this shell game in five ways:

• CEH collaborates with national leaders in green business;
• CEH pressures corporations that are focused on profits at the expense of public health;
• CEH crafts and advocates for policy changes that create incentives for safer business practices and products;
• CEH organizes the public to pressure business and support policy changes, with regular advocacy alerts and our network of MOMS activists in all 50 states; and
• CEH uses cutting-edge science to push for action that protects children and families from harm.

Michael said that, from the outset, CEH had audacious goals, one of which was to end health threats to kids from high levels of lead in children’s products. When CEH was founded in 1996, this seemed an impossible goal – until CEH exposed and eliminated lead threats to children from diaper rash creams, and children’s medicines, and baby bibs, jewelry, candy and many other products. Our work brought national attention to the problem, and in 2008 CEH helped to write and pressured Congress to pass the first-ever federal law banning lead in all children’s products!

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