There is no system in place that ensures products on our store shelves are safe. Toxic flame retardants in our couches, BPA in our baby bottles, and phthalates in our beauty products -- we see new studies every week linking these and other toxic chemicals to serious health concerns. Childhood cancers have increased 20% since 1975, and now, 1 in 88 U.S. children have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. These statistics cannot be explained by genetics alone. We’ve all been forced to live with the fact that we carry a cocktail of toxic and untested chemicals in our bodies, knowing that the federal government is powerless to act due to weak and outdated chemical laws. Workers, low income communities and communities of color have been forced to bear an unequal burden of toxic chemical exposure.
Right now we have a unique opportunity in California to finally get safer, toxic-free products! In 2008, California passed a law creating a new approach to regulating toxic chemicals in consumer products: the Safer Consumer Products program. We need your support to make sure this program gets underway! The chemical industry and their lobbyists are using their usual tactics of delay delay delay. They've been asking for extensions on comment periods, even though they're the ones with deep pockets and have had four years to analyze and provide their opinion.
Let's tell Governor Brown to support the Safer Consumer Products program -- we want safer products now! Learn more at www.changecalifornia.org, or contact Kathryn Alcantar, CHANGE Campaign Director, to get more involved, firstname.lastname@example.org.