The Environmental Working Group (EWG) recently celebrated their 20th anniversary! In this time they have accomplished groundbreaking, critical work that has empowered consumers and influenced legislation. While much has been accomplished in the past 20 years, toxins polluting our most vulnerable, children and babies, is still a major issue. EWG provides the best resources towards protecting yourself and your family. As a board member I had the privilege of speaking at the celebration and I have shared my speech below about this critical issue.
As a board member of the Environmental Working Group, it takes a lot to shock me.
We’re the first to hear about EWG’s new research studies like formaldehyde in Brazilian blowout hair treatments, lead in lipstick, mercury in mascara and the list goes on.
But when Ken Cook told me almost 10 years ago that children were being born pre-polluted with toxic chemicals, I was not just shocked. I was angry and I knew I needed to do something.
It started with one study called “10 Americans.” On one day, EWG tested 10 samples of blood from 10 Americans and they found almost 300 chemicals – ranging from known carcinogens to chemicals associated with birth defects or abnormal development.
We don’t know much about these 10 Americans, but what we do know is how they were polluted.
And it wasn’t from the air they were breathing.
And it wasn’t from the water they were drinking.
And it wasn’t from the food they were eating.
These 10 Americans were unborn babies. Born pre-polluted. Polluted from the chemicals they were exposed to in the womb.
What is going on?
It was alarming to think that myself and my loved ones were born with almost 300 industrial chemicals already in our bodies, and exposing ourselves to more daily.
I needed answers so I turned to Ken’s team at EWG.
EWG discovered dangerous toxics in many of the cosmetics, sunscreens and household cleaners I was using.
On average people use 10 personal care produces every day, and are exposed to an average of 126 different cosmetic ingredients.
The government doesn’t require companies to test their products for safety before they’re sold, and, remarkably, the government can’t even recall products known to be harmful – recalls are voluntary.
Did you know that in a recent study 100% of the lipstick brands tested contained traces of lead?
There is no safe level of lead.
And did you that know that fewer than half of the thousands of ingredients in products have been assessed for safety in cosmetics by the federal government, the cosmetic industry’s own safety panel, or any other publicly accountable institution.
Cosmetic ingredients can soak through the skin, we can inhale them as powders or vapors, or swallow them from our lips and hands.
Thank goodness EWG did this truly game-changing work.
I’ve come to rely on EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetics Database, Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, and the brand-new Guide to Healthy Cleaning to help keep my family safe.
Take it from me—I know just how important EWG’s work is to our health and well-being.
My dad, Ted Turner, my son and I were all part of EWG’s first generational toxics study, which tested our blood for about 80 chemicals.
The results were alarming.
There was a clear distinction between the levels of toxic chemicals within just three generations.
My father showed traces of lead.
I had high levels of chemicals associated with synthetic musks and parabens, like those found in fragrances and personal care products.
And my son showed high exposure to chemicals like flame-retardants, mercury, phthalates, and even rocket fuel.
Even worse, some chemicals they found were banned more than 30 years ago – but they still persist in our bodies.
These chemicals are linked to growing rates of illnesses, particularly in children, including learning disabilities, thyroid disease, cancer and other diseases.
If this isn’t a clear reason to support EWG’s work on toxics, I don’t know what is.
No one else out there is doing the kind of work that EWG is doing—no one else is telling us exactly what’s contained in all these products, foods, and even in our tap water.
EWG reaches people. And we’ve reached millions of them. We can reach tens of millions more. And when we do, they will shift enormous consumer markets in the direction of environmental and human health.
We know that people think of the “environment” on a bad air day.
We want them to think of the environment on a bad hair day, as well.
Because in EWG’s view, an environmentalist is someone whose health concerns legitimately extend from the chemicals in smog to the chemicals in shampoo.
We are here tonight because for two-decades the Environmental Working Group has been at the forefront of the pollution debate in the United States.
EWG has spent much of the last decade working to reframe the very notion of pollution.
The breakthrough was EWG’s decision to test pollution in people, and the profound impact that work has had on the global debate about toxic chemicals.
We found persistent and toxic flame retardants in human breast milk, toxic cosmetic ingredients in the blood of teenage girls, a disturbing plethora of heavy metals, neurotoxins, carcinogens and other chronic disease agents circulating through human umbilical cords to babies in their mothers’ wombs.
All in all, EWG has tested the blood of 15,000 people. This landmark biomonitoring research has allowed us to connect with people in ways immediately relevant to people’s daily lives.
Not all of us can do much about the chemicals that billow out of a refinery or dump into our streams.
And few of us live in sight of coal-burning power plants, but all of us apply a half-dozen or more personal care products with dozens of chemical ingredients to our skin each day.
All of us use cleaners that may emit dozens of chemicals into the air directly in front of our face.
All of us ingest pesticides, packaging chemicals and other substances as we eat and drink each day.
We can all do something about those exposures.
I challenge you tonight to go home and look up your products in EWG’s Skin Deep, an online database that contains information and online safety assessments for: over 70,000 products and almost 3,000 brands and has been searched over 300 million times since its launch.
EWG’s Skin Deep fills in where industry and government leave off.
But, EWG doesn’t stop at giving you the tools you need to make better decisions for your family.
They are on Capitol Hill every day fighting for reform of our broken toxics law and working to make sure that the chemicals we bring into our home are safe. They are trying to change the game for everyone.
We all need EWG to keep us safe and healthy.
My father taught me that taking care of our environment is the best way to take care of ourselves.
It’s a lesson I’m teaching my children too.
With EWG’s research and advocacy I know we’ll all be equipped to do just that.
To learn more please visit EWG.org