a substance in the package liner that can produce an uncharacteristic waxy-like off-taste and smell. The off-tastes and smells are caused by a slightly elevated level of a substance commonly present at very low levels in the waxy resins used to make packaging materials that are approved by the FDA.

Of course, nowhere on the Kellogg’s site is there any mention of what this substance was, or what the effects of ingesting the substance might be.  But luckily for us, the folks at the Environmental Working group are pretty tenacious and gotten the information from Kellogg’s

This compound, methylnaphthalene (methyl-NAP-tha-lene), has been the subject of major, on-going government and oil industry testing and information-gathering initiatives to identify potential safety issues and fill basic data gaps, according to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of the scientific literature. Kellogg’s has not publicly identified the chemical but provided the information to EWG in response to our inquiries. Methylnaphthalene, which has two forms, is a component of crude oil and coal tar and may also be formed “as a pyrolytic byproduct from the combustion of tobacco, wood, petroleum-based fuels and coal” (EPA 2003). The petroleum-based compound is produced in enormous quantities in the United States, and health agencies know very little about its safety, EWG research shows.

Unfortunately very little is known about the effects of low dose exposure to methylnaphthalene.

In 1998, EPA identified the compound as a high production volume (HPV) chemical that lacked basic safety data in the public literature. The agency sought a corporate sponsor to submit such data to EPA’s “HPV Challenge” program. In 1999, a consortium of large petrochemical interests volunteered, including BP, Chevron, Condea Vista, Exxon, Fina Oil, Koch, Marathon Ashland, Mobil Oil, PDV Midwest Refining, Phillips Petroleum, Shell and Sunoco. Eleven years later, however, EPA’s HPV Challenge program website shows no data whatsoever submitted by these companies (EPA 2010).

This incident demonstrates once again, how many safety gaps there are in  our food safety system.  As Philpott points out

..the FDA has not demanded that the company release the name of the substance that caused the off-smell. These are products marketed specifically to children, complete with cartoon-laden boxes and, despite the recall, there are likely millions of them on countertops across the country, being consumed daily by kids before school. (According to a recent GAO report, companies recover only about 36 percent of targeted products in a typical recall.) Yet the FDA has released no additional information on the dodgy cereal since the June 25 recall.

But at the root of the entire problem is that there are 10′s of thousands of chemicals in use in our daily life, in packaging, in cleansers, in cosmetics, that have simply never been tested for safety.   We flat out don’t know if we should be scared, and that is a scary thought.

May 2010 was the warmest May on record,  and the periods January through May and March through May, 2010 were the warmest comparable periods on record.

Bottom line

Each of the 10 warmest average global temperatures recorded since 1880 have occurred in the last fifteen years. The warmest year-to-date on record, through May, was 1998, and 2010 is warmer so far (note: although 1998 was the warmest year through May, a late-year warm surge in 2005 made that year the warmest total year).

• Plastic bags are bad news on numerous levels:
• They are made from petrochemicals,  oil – you know that stuff that’s been gushing into the gulf
• Less then 1% are recycled
• They can last 1000 years in landfill, but most never actually make it into landfill, instead they wind up in rivers, lake, and oceans, where they degrade into smaller and smaller pieces, and end up in the food stream.

Anything we can do to reduce the amount of plastic, particularly single use plastic,  such as shopping bags and water bottles, is a positive development.  We would love to see people getting rid of plastic on their own, but  we know that isn’t going to happen.  So we are pleased to see developments like this

Legislation passed today by the state Assembly would prohibit grocery stores, pharmacies, liquor stores and convenience stores from giving out plastic bags. It would also charge customers for using store-issued paper bags.

If signed into law, California would be the first state to impose a statewide ban.

The ban’s goal is to get rid of unsightly plastic bags that often wind up in urban rivers and the ocean, as well as reduce the number of bags heading for landfills.

A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the Republican governor supports a plastic bag ban. The bill, AB 1998, still needs Senate approval.

The text of the bill can be found here

Let’s hope this makes it all the way through

A recent nationwide study published in the journal Pediatrics found that children with higher exposure to a class of pesticides called Organophosphates are more likely to have ADHD.

Researchers measured the levels of pesticide byproducts in the urine of 1,139 children from across the United States. Children with above-average levels of one common byproduct had roughly twice the odds of getting a diagnosis of ADHD

The study controlled for demographic and health factors.  While the study can not prove that pesticide exposure causes ADHD, there does appear to be a strong correlation.

Eat a varied diet.  By organic or local farmers market when you can.  If you have to make choices,  get the biggest bang for your buck by avoiding conventionally grown food from the dirty dozen

But times are tough, food budgets are strained, and organic food can be more expensive.  So it makes sense to spend your organic dollars where they will have the greatest impact.  To help us do that, the Environmental Working Group has released rankings of the 49 most commonly consumed fruits and vegetables.

The rankings are based on 96,000 tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Food and Drug Administration. The tests measured for contamination in the following ways.

• Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides
• Percent of samples with two or more pesticides
• Average number of pesticides found on a single sample
• Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found
• Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
• Total number of pesticides found on the commodity

EWG rated the following 12 foods (the Dirty Dozen) the most contaminated

And – the clean 15 (the fruits and vegetables least contamination

• Onions
• Avocado
• Sweet Corn
• Pineapple
• Mangos
• Sweet Peas
• Asparagus
• Kiwi
• Cabbage
• Eggplant
• Cantaloupe
• Watermelon
• Grapefruit
• Sweet Potato
• Honeydew
• Melon

Find the guide here. So if you have to make choices, go organic for the foods on the first list.

When we try to control mother nature, mother nature adapts.  And yet it seems as though we learn nothing.  Our latest case in point: Roundup resistant superweeds.

Roundup — originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate — has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers. It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.

Sales took off in the late 1990s, after Monsanto created its brand of Roundup Ready crops that were genetically modified to tolerate the chemical, allowing farmers to spray their fields to kill the weeds while leaving the crop unharmed. Today, Roundup Ready crops account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States.

But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. “What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,” Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.

Now, Roundup-resistant weeds like horseweed and giant ragweed are forcing farmers to go back to more expensive techniques that they had long ago abandoned.

While mainstream media, such as The NY Times, may just be awakening to the issue of Roundup Resistant weeds, it is a problem that has been growing for 10 years.  Even Monsanto acknowledges that there have been herbicide resistant plants since the 1950s.   On the Monsanto blog,  Mica suggests that we go to the International Survey of Herbicide-Resistant Weeds,  so I did, and I found this graph

Now, maybe some of you find this graph reassuring, but it makes me say HOLY SH*T this problem is exploding!  Worse, the way our industrial farms have responded to the increasing resistance of weeds has been to use ever increasing amounts of herbicides.

“The basic finding is that compared to pesticide use in the absence of GE crops, farmers applied 318 million more pounds of pesticides over the last 13 years as a result of planting GE seeds. This difference represents an average increase of about 0.25 pound for each acre planted to a GE trait. GE crops are pushing pesticide use upward at a rapidly accelerating pace. In 2008, GE crop acres required over 26% more pounds of pesticides per acre than acres planted to conventional varieties. The report projects that this trend will continue as a result of the rapid spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds” ^[1]. “‘This report confirms what we’ve been saying for years,’ said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. ‘The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it’s bad news for farmers, human health and the environment’

It is doubly bad news because of the way Roundup Ready Genetically Engineered crops have changed the way that glyphosate (Roundup) is used.  Originally, Roundup and other herbicides were applied to soil before the planting of crops.  Now, glyphosate is applied directly TO the crops, where it can be absorbed and become part of the food we eat.

To date, almost no study has been done of the effect of low level, continuous exposure of glyphosate to human health.

Soleo Organics Sunscreen is top rated for safety and effectiveness by the Environmental Working Group.

Soléo is a major advancement in sun care technology for it is water resistant, neutrally scented, has a low skin irritation factor. This sunscreen is a lotion with a base of organic and all natural ingredients, fortified with organic botanical extracts to nourish and moisturize your skin.

50% of forests have been cleared and 50% of that is for paper. 9 million trees a year, just for paper. It takes approximately 15 trees to produce a single ton of paper. Receipt paper demands in the US are 640,000 tons per year. This equates to 9,600,000 millions trees cut down each year just to produce paper receipts.

We’ve been singing the praises of going organic for years.   We sell organic snacks,  (especially organic chocolate) and have recently  added more organic body care. So, it was gratifying to see this new report from The President’s Cancer Panel titled their 2008-2009 annual report “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risks – What we can do now”  (PDF – 7.2MB) The report was based on the testimony of 45 experts gathered during 4 meetings held between 2008  and 2009.   As Nicholas Kristof noted in his NY Times op-ed “it’s an extraordinary document.” What makes this document so remarkable is that it calls for a fundamental rethinking in the way we approach reducing cancer risks.   Historically, our approach to cancer has been “reactionary”.  The focus has been on early detection and treatment of cancers.  While there has been some success reducing the cancer mortality rate,  cancer still extracts an enormous toll on society.

In 2009, nearly 1.5 million new cases of cancer are expected to be diagnosed in the United States, and an estimated 562,000 Americans will die from this disease.1 Approximately 41 percent of people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent of Americans will die from cancer.

The incidence of some cancers, including some common among children  is increasing for “unexplained reasons”

The report is over 200 pages,  and there are recommendations for individuals, for government policy, and for the scientific community.  But what it boils down to is that we need to stop poisoning ourselves, and especially we need to stop poisoning our children.

The key recommendations

• Switch from a “reactive”   approach to a preventive approach
• Reduce the toxins in our life
• Replace our current chemistry to a “green” chemistry
• Shift the burden of proof from regulators, who must prove a chemical harmful before cleanup can begin to industry being required to prove a chemical is safe before it can be put into use.

Switch from a “reactive”  approach to a preventive approach

.. our current reactionary approach to cancer prevention, in which human harm must be proven before action is taken to reduce or eliminate exposure,  be replaced by a precautionary, prevention driven approach.

There are over 80,000 chemicals in use in the U.S. today.  Only a few hundred have been tested for safety.  Even in those cases, the testing really doesn’t emulate the type of exposure most common in the environment.  The way chemicals are typically tested for safety, is by giving a test animal a lethal dose of the chemical.  Doses are reduced on subsequent animal tests until negative effects are no longer detectable.

This dose, called the “no observed adverse effect level” (NOAEL), is considered the highest dose that poses an acceptable risk. The NOAEL is then adjusted for a series of safety factors to determine the final reference dose. Once the NOAEL is established for a substance, testing at lower doses is seldom conducted, and very low-dose effects are unlikely to be detected.

There are several problems with this method. 1st) It assumes that exposure happens in isolation, and that is rarely the case.  Almost always we are exposed to a stew of different chemicals on a daily basis.  2)It assumes that exposure happens at one time, when most chemical exposures happen over long periods of time, such as in the daily use of a shampoo or other chemicals at work. 3)The animals tested are mostly mature, and there is little testing young animals, or prenatal.  Yet the effect on children, newborns, or prenatals is dramatically different.

The panel makes the point repeatedly that children and prenatals are espeically at risk.

(children).. are at special risk due to their smaller body mass and rapid physical development, both of which magnify their vulnerability to known or suspected carcinogens, including radiation. Numerous environmental contaminants can cross the placental barrier; to a disturbing extent, babies are born “pre-polluted.”  

Reduce the Toxins in Our Lives

Our modern industrial life style surrounds us with toxins.  From solvents used as cleaners, to pesticides used in agriculture, to chemicals used in the found in common consumer products, we are constantly exposed to toxins.

The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals, some of which also are used in residential and commercial landscaping. Many of these chemicals have known or suspected carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting properties. Pesticides (insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contain nearly 900 active ingredients, many of which are toxic. Many of the solvents, fillers, and other chemicals listed as inert ingredients on pesticide labels also are toxic, but are not required to be tested for their potential to cause chronic diseases such as cancer. In addition to pesticides, agricultural fertilizers and veterinary pharmaceuticals are major contributors to water pollution, both directly and as a result of chemical processes that form toxic by-products when these substances enter the water supply.

These toxins build up in our food supply, and ultimately our bodies.  One example is bisphenol A (BPA), used to harden plastics and line food cans.  BPA has been linked to a variety of health problems, including cancer.  It is estimated that biologically active volume of BPA can be found in the urine of 93% of Americans.

Recommendations to reduce exposure to toxins include:

Storing and carrying water in stainless steel, glass, or BPA- and phthalate-free containers  will reduce exposure to endocrine-disrupting and other chemicals that may leach into water from plastics.  This action also will decrease the need for plastic bottles, the manufacture of which produces toxic by-products, and reduce the need to dispose of and recycle plastic bottles.  Similarly, microwaving food and beverages in ceramic or glass instead of plastic containers will reduce exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that may leach into food when containers are heated.

Exposure to pesticides can be decreased by choosing, to the extent possible, food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers and washing conventionally grown produce to remove residues.  Similarly, exposure to antibiotics, growth hormones, and toxic run-off from livestock feed lots can be minimized by eating free-range  meat raised without these medications if it is available.

Replace our current chemistry with a green chemistry

The panel discusses the need for a “green chemistry” the principles of which were defined more than a decade ago.  Here are a few of the principles 

• Prevent waste that requires • treatment or clean-up.
• Design chemicals and products to be fully effective but have little or no toxicity.
• Develop less hazardous ways to  synthesize chemicals.
• Use renewable raw materials.

Shift the burden of proof from regulators, who must prove a chemical harmful before cleanup can begin to industry being required to prove a chemical is safe before it can be put into use.

Weak laws and regulations, inefficient enforcement, regulatory complexity, and fragmented authority allow avoidable exposures to known or suspected cancer-causing and cancer-promoting agents to continue and proliferate in the workplace and the community. Existing regulations, and the exposure assessments on which they are based, are outdated in most cases, and many known or suspected carcinogens are completely unregulated. Enforcement of most existing regulations is poor. In virtually all cases, regulations fail to take multiple exposures and exposure interactions into account. In addition, regulations for workplace environments are focused more on safety than on health. Industry has exploited regulatory weaknesses, such as government’s reactionary (rather than precautionary) approach to regulation. Likewise, industry has exploited government’s use of the flawed and grossly outdated Doll and Peto methodology for assessing “attributable fractions” of the cancer burden due to specific environmental exposures. This methodology has been used effectively by industry to justify introducing untested chemicals into the environment.

While this report is only (at best) a first step, it is still encouraging to see a main stream medical panel call so strongly for a prevention oriented, sustainable approach. 

Let us hope that this report provides a foundation we can build on.