Endocrine Disrupters

If you missed this event, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgEmqi44ExI

Endocrine disruptors in plastics are associated with a 50% decline in adult male sperm counts over the past five decades and are implicated in the enormous leap in rates of autism and ADHD among children.

Please join Beyond Plastics, the Westchester League of Women Voters, and Bedford 2030 on Tuesday, October 3, 2023, at 7 p.m. ET U.S. for a Zoom conversation about the endocrine-disrupting chemicals in plastics. Our own Dr. Megan Wolff, Ph. D, MPH, will moderate a conversation between John Peterson “Pete” Myers, Ph.D., CEO and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences and co-author of the landmark book “Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story” and New York State Senator Pete Harckham, chair of the New York Environmental Conservation Committee and sponsor of a landmark packaging and plastic reduction bill in New York State. The bill would reduce plastic packaging by 50% over the next 12 years.

Register now for this free educational webinar. >>

Endocrine Disruptors In Plastics: State Policy Options

In 1991, Dr. Pete Myers coined the term “endocrine-disrupting chemicals” (EDCs) to describe chemicals capable of hacking the human body’s hormonal systems. From the start, it’s been clear that these chemicals that are common additives in plastics can cause harm even at extraordinarily low doses

More than 30 years later, plastic pollution has become so widespread that microscopic flecks of plastic can be found in snow, soil, drinking water, and even human blood — and what Dr. Myers and others have learned about EDCs has grown even grimmer.

Endocrine disruptors in plastics are associated with a 50% decline in adult male sperm counts over the past five decades and are implicated in the enormous leap in rates of autism and ADHD among children.

Moreover, it is clear that a great quantity of the plastic in our lives was never necessary in the first place. Approximately 42% of plastic currently under production is used for packaging, much of which is discarded as soon as it is used. It is critical that plastic reduction and safer, healthier alternatives become law.

Many of our elected representatives are coming to recognize this reality. This past spring, New York State Senator Pete Harckham, chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, introduced bold new legislation capable of reducing plastic packaging, strengthening recycling infrastructure, and banning several toxic plastic additives. The bill, the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (S.4246-a/A.5322-a), will be considered by the New York State Legislature when it reconvenes in January, and is one of several promising state policy options to reduce the negative impacts of EDCs on human health.

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023, please join us and our good friends at the Westchester, NY League of Women Voters and Bedford 2030 for a webinar discussion between Dr. Pete Myers and Sen. Pete Harckham that will cover what we know about EDCs in plastic, what they are doing to our health, and the most effective, politically feasible ways to reduce these toxicants (and plastic pollution) from our lives.

Register now for this free webinar on Tuesday, October 3, 2023, at 7 p.m. ET.

I hope you can join us. Please extend this invitation to your friends, family, neighbors, and elected representatives.

Pesticides, bees, butterflies and all of us!

A bumblebee on wild geranium in N. Wisconsin
A bumblebee on wild geranium in N. Wisconsin

In the past two weeks I have spent 5 days in Iowa, and then a week in Northern Wisconsin away from the agricultural belt.  As I biked and walked in Iowa the lack of butterflies was disheartening.  I even saw and smelled the Iowa DOT spraying along the highway.  In contrast northern Wisconsin is more grass/hay country, lower pesticide use, and the butterflies aren’t like what I would like to see, but they are flitting around when you look for them.  The bee population up north is still  questionable, but better than what I saw in Iowa.

I agree with this excellent letter to the editor in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Thank you for “Bees at the brink” (June 29). Our rural surroundings have changed since we moved to south-central Minnesota in 1960. Our small farms have mostly disappeared, and our once-vibrant town struggles to stay alive. There was much more variety in the landscape: I remember picking strawberries along Hwy. 169 with my children; we heard and saw meadow larks and pheasants, and clouds of monarch butterflies were a part of every spring and summer. Now what do we have? Corn and soybeans from horizon to horizon; hedgerows with their diversity of plants and animal life gouged out; wetlands drained, and herbicides ensuring that few bee-friendly flowers grow on roadsides and lawns. Our state and federal supports, with their continuing crop insurance programs — even for marginal land — and cutbacks on set-aside acreage such as CRP and CREP help to perpetuate the increasing sterility of our natural environment.

Economic success should not be the only determinant of wealth. We lose too much if it is.

Maria Lindberg, Blue Earth, Minn.

http://www.startribune.com/local/264929101.html?site=full&c=n&stfeature=    This is the link to the Bee article she is referring to.

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/265857781.html  Autism Risk is Linked to Pesticides