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Child laborers poisoned — in the US?!
Monthly Archives: September 2015
In the Library: 51 day War
The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza
Book by Max Blumenthal
Published: June 30, 2015
On July 8, 2014, Israel launched air strikes on Hamas-controlled Gaza, followed by a ground invasion. The ensuing fifty-one days of war left more than 2,200 people dead, the vast majority of whom were Palestinian civilians, including over 500 children. During the assault, at least 10,000 homes were destroyed and, according to the United Nations, nearly 300,000 Palestinians were displaced. Max Blumenthal was in Gaza and throughout Israel–Palestine during what he argues was an entirely avoidable catastrophe. In this explosive work of intimate reportage, Blumenthal reveals the harrowing conditions and cynical deceptions that led to the ruinous war—and tells the human stories.
Blumenthal brings the battles in Gaza to life, detailing the ferocious clashes that took place when Israel’s military invaded the besieged strip. He radically shifts the discussion around a number of highly contentious issues: the use of civilians as human shields by Israeli forces, the arbitrary targeting of Palestinian civilians, and the radicalization of Israeli public officials and top military personnel. Amid the rubble of Gaza’s border regions, Blumenthal recorded the testimonies from scores of residents, documenting potential war crimes committed by the Israeli armed forces while carefully examining the military doctrine that led to them.
More than a chronicle of war and devastation, The 51 Day War is an urgent warning that the aftermath of the conflict has made another military assault on Gaza almost inevitable. And while the people of Gaza will once again prove their resilience, the world can no longer just stand aside and watch.
Resource: Amazon.org
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Washington State House: Ban Microbeads In Washington
https://shar.es/1vkYrj via @visually #Visually #infographicIn most of your house hold products, there is a certain ingredient that could potentially destroy marine wildlife. That ingredient is called polyethylene, a type of plastic. This plastic isn’t biodegradable, and found in a lot of products such as soaps, acne washes, body washes, etc. When you wash them down your drains, that’s where it gets tricky.
These tiny microbeads go down into waterways, where marine wildlife lives. These beads are small enough for the fish to eat, causing harm, and even declining of the species. Not only do the fish eat these beads, but we do when we eat the fish. These tiny microbeads are getting into our food chain. We are eating plastic!
We can’t clean these tiny plastic beads up from our waterways without scooping up healthy plankton and other bacteria that the fish and other marine wildlife need to live and thrive off of.
There is no way to stop this, other than to stop the use of products that have micro beads in them. We won’t be the only ones to take action. Illinois has already banned this product, and New York is taking action as well.
Help The Bead Ban Project keep our marine wildlife safe, and ourselves from harmful plastic beads. Ban microbeads from Washington.
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The Iran Nuclear Deal … Whitehouse.gov
The Iran Deal
Learn about the historic plan developed by the U.S. and the international community that will block all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon.
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Cancer-Causing Chemical Found in 98 Shampoos and Soaps
a repost
By Shawn Radcliffe
Sat, Aug 31, 2013Tests ordered by an environmental watchdog group revealed the presence of a cancer-causing chemical in dozens of personal care products that lack a warning label required by California law.
The compound, a chemically modified form of coconut oil—cocamide diethanolamine (cocamide DEA)—is used as a foaming agent or thickener in soaps, shampoos, conditioners, and similar products.
Carcinogenic Ingredients in Your Personal Care Products?
No Warning Labels
An independent laboratory commissioned by the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) tested the products to determine how much cocamide DEA was present. CEH purchased these products after June 2013 from online and local California retailers, such as Trader Joe’s, Walmart, Kohl’s, and Babies R Us.
Many of the products tested contained more than 10,000 parts per million (ppm) of cocamide DEA. In all, CEH identified 98 products with cocamide DEA among the ingredients, none of which carried the warning required by state law.
“The state has not set a [safety] level specific to cocamide DEA,” says Charles Margulis, Communications Director and Food Program Director of CEH, “but the levels we found exceed levels typical for carcinogens.”
What’s in Your Beauty Products?
To comply with California’s Proposition 65, companies are still required to provide a “clear and reasonable” warning to consumers when products they sell or produce contain chemicals listed by the state as harmful. This includes compounds known to cause cancer or birth defects.
Cocamide DEA was added to the California list of harmful chemicals in 2012 after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published its review of the chemical’s safety, which was based upon skin exposure tests in animals. “There is sufficient evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of coconut oil diethanolamine condensate,” the agency writes.
Environmental Group Files Lawsuit
In response to the laboratory results, the CEH filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against four companies—Walgreens, Lake Consumer Products, Ultimark Products, and Todd Christopher International.
“Our demand is that companies reformulate their products, without cocamide DEA,” says Margulis. “There are many similar shampoos and soaps on the market made without the chemical, so it is obviously possible to make the products safer.”
The CEH also sent legal letters advising more than 100 other companies producing or selling products containing the chemical that their products violate Proposition 65.
In the lawsuit, which was filed in California Superior Court in Alameda County, the CEH accuses the companies of “knowingly and intentionally exposing individuals to cocamide DEA without first giving clear and reasonable warnings to such individuals regarding the carcinogenicity of cocamide DEA.”
Dangerous Ingredients to Watch Out For in Cosmetics
The lawsuit asks the court to fine the companies $2,500 a day for each violation and prevent them from selling products containing cocamide DEA in California without a clear warning label.
The CEH hopes these short-term actions, along with their continuing efforts, will have an even wider effect.
“Under the law, companies can simply label,” says Margulis, “but we’ve had hundreds of Prop 65 cases over 17 years of doing this work, and in over 95 percent of these cases, we have won legally binding agreements that require companies to reformulate their products. We expect the same in these cases.”
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