We believe all people have a right to safe food and drinking water, healthy homes and products that are toxic-free and climate friendly. We’ll stand up for this right wherever it is threatened.
For too long, too many people have suffered from exposure to toxic industrial chemicals, with low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately impacted. Children struggling in school as rates of learning disabilities and autism rise. Families being devastated by diagnoses such as cancer, autoimmune disease, and infertility. The climate under threat, endangering the health and livelihood of future generations.
It’s unacceptable, and we have a plan to change it—now. We’re building grassroots movements across our country to drive toxic chemicals out of food, water, and products. And we’re calling on you to join us.
We have the power of science and people on our side. Together, we will ensure everyone has equal access to toxic-free food, safe drinking water, and climate-friendly products. We will prevent disability, disease, and early deaths. We will improve our communities and the climate. We will Defend Our Health.
We work to create a world where all people are thriving, with equal access to safe food and drinking water, healthy homes, and products that are toxic-free and climate-friendly.
Every fight needs a hero, and these are ours. See the brave individuals and organizations that Defend Our Health.
Organizational Milestones
2021
2021-c
We helped several major brands make the switch to safer alternatives. From the work of national campaigns team, we successfully worked with and pushed several brand owners and corporations to commit to phasing out toxic chemicals from their products. Specifically, from our “Capped With Toxics” report – we were able to push beverage brand owners to commit to eliminating any phthalates and PVC/vinyl in their bottle caps.
2021
2021-a
We had a first in the world win. Defend played a critical role in pushing the Maine Legislature to pass a law to eliminate the use of toxic PFAS in products we use every day.
2021
2021-f
We organized 80 individuals from both Maine and across the nation to virtually testify in support of bills tackling PFAS. Advocates included business owners, community leaders, scientists, politicians, doctors, firefighters, farmers, racial and social justice activists, educators and supporters who have been directly impacted by the dangers of PFAS toxic chemicals.
2021
2021-b
We helped the Maine Legislature pass a suite of bills tackling cancer-causing chemicals: PFAS, arsenic, and lead. Including the state now having one of the strictest limits for PFAS in drinking water, requiring schools to test drinking water for lead and PFAS, and helping low-income residential well owners who can now get their water tested for arsenic, for free.
2021
2021-d
We’ve done our work to ensure clean water for all. Across the state of Maine this year, Defend distributed 124 well test kits including 37 PFAS testing kits and 87 basic water tests (testing for arsenic and other common contaminants such as lead, bacteria, and nitrates).
2021
2021-e
Our advocacy work has helped to push Maine to develop a testing program that will investigate over 500 sludge sites for contamination by PFAS forever chemicals.
2020
2020-d
We rebrand as Defend Our Health. While the name “Environmental Health Strategy Center” served us well for nearly 20 years, but we realized that now is the time to double-down on building the grassroots power needed to deliver environmental health and justice for all.
2020
2020-a
With doctors, health advocates, and leaders in the labor movement, we issued a public sign-on letter urging Maine’s Congressional delegation to protect frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020
2020-b
We won passage of the most competitive tax credit in the nation for the production of renewable chemicals, a critical strategy to combat plastic pollution and climate change.
2020
2020-c
Serving on Maine Governor Janet Mills’ PFAS Task Force, our executive director Mike Belliveau played a decisive role in finalizing critical recommendations to protect Mainers from toxic PFAS.
2019
2019-a
We won the strongest law in the nation for keeping harmful chemicals out of food packaging: Maine’s Safe Food Packaging Act.This first-in-the-nation law banned PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and phthalates from food packaging, and also cleared the way for restricting additional harmful chemicals from food packaging.
2019
2019-b
We prompted Maine agencies to investigate toxic sewage sludge.When a heartbroken Maine dairy farmer shared his family’s story of their 100-year-old farm destroyed by toxic chemicals, we launched national news investigations of his and other farms contaminated by dangerous, long-lasting chemicals known as PFAS.
2019
2019-c
With kids, parents, students, educators, and our national partners, our Toxic-Free Food Campaign rallied at the Kraft Heinz Company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, delivering over 100,000 petition signatures demanding Kraft take public action to keep phthalates out of food.
2018
2018
Our Toxic-Free Food campaign released a first-of-its-kind report that found some plastic and rubber farm equipment used to milk cows still contains hormone-disrupting phthalates that can migrate into milk and dairy products.
2017
2017-a
We overcame former Governor Paul LePage’s veto to win a first-in-the-nation law to ban toxic flame retardants from upholstered household furniture.
2017
2017-b
We also overcame vetoes from former Governor LePage to win two new laws for safe drinking water in Maine, expanding access to well water testing and treatment.
2017
2017-c
Biobased Maine launches a series of appearances at international conferences to promote Maine’s assets to biobased businesses and encourage them to locate to Maine, growing the state’s emerging bioeconomy.
2016
2016-a
We win progress, after a 10-year battle at the federal level for reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation’s main law regulating chemicals.
2016
2016-b
The Strategy Center and Biobased Maine win a $500,000 federal economic development grant to create a “roadmap” to attract investment to Maine, to use renewable forest resources to make a new generation of advanced biobased products.
2016
2016-c
We issue the report, “What Stinks? Toxic Chemicals in Your Home,” revealing, for the first time, the use of hormone-disrupting phthalates as an ingredient in certain paints and cleaning products.
2016
2016-d
Biobased Maine’s 2016 Plants to Products Forum draws national experts, fascinating exhibits, energetic conversation among business leaders, and kudos and remarks from Maine Senator Angus King.
2015
2015-a
We win reporting of phthalates in Maine. Starting in 2014, we led a campaign for Maine to require manufacturers to report uses of four phthalates in products sold in the state—and we won.
2015
2015-b
We focus major attention on the problem of arsenic in Maine well water. Our first attempt at legislation to improve testing of arsenic and other contaminants in Maine wells is nearly passed, falling two votes short in a veto override. We generate major media attention and win bipartisan support over the course of the campaign.
2015
2015-c
Executive Director Mike Belliveau leads campaign negotiations that convince the world’s largest home-improvement retail chain, The Home Depot, to stop selling vinyl flooring made with phthalates. Within days of Home Depot’s announcement, Lowe’s, Menards, and Lumber Liquidators announced that they, too, would replace phthalates in vinyl flooring with safer alternatives.
2014
2014-a
We lead a project to test 25 Maine people for exposure to seven phthalates. Our report, “Hormones Disrupted,” finds that all participants had detectable levels of phthalates in their bodies.
2014
2014-b
The Sustainable Bioplastics Council of Maine is rebranded as Biobased Maine, a member-based trade association working to help Maine profit in new ways from the renewable resources of forest, farm, and sea.
2013
2013
We win a ban on BPA in baby food and infant formula packaging, despite intense opposition from the chemical industry and the LePage Administration.
2012
2012
We phase out BPA in plastic containers. On January 1, thanks to our work to defend Maine’s Kid Safe Products Act, Maine bans BPA in baby bottles, sippy cups, and reusable food and beverage containers.
2011
2011-a
We stop Maine Governor Paul LePage’s attempted repeal of the BPA phase‐out rule, through an aggressive emergency response campaign—his first major political defeat in office.
2011
2011-b
We defeat a chemical industry attack on Maine’s Kids Safe Products Act, with unanimous agreement reached to clarify and strengthen the law, rather than gut it.
2010
2010-a
BPA (bisphenol-A) is named the first priority chemical to phase out under the Kid Safe Product Act.
2010
2010-b
We organize and staff the Sustainable Bioplastics Council of Maine, a business-led alliance, to promote the market opportunities of plant-based products.
2009
2009
Our work on the national precedent-setting Kids Safe Products Act leads to Maine’s adoption in of a list of 1,700 Chemicals of High Concern.
2008
2008-b
Along with numerous national partners, we form Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families to pass federal laws to ensure all products sold are safe for families.
2008
2008
We lead the campaign to pass the Kid Safe Products Act, a first-in-the-nation law to identify and remove dangerous chemicals in everyday products.
2007
2007-b
We launch a research project to develop sustainable plastics and find solutions to build the green economy through safe products.
2007
2007
We organize Maine’s first green economy and green chemistry conference.
2006
2006
We release “Body of Evidence: A Study of Pollution in Maine People”, which shows individuals have an average of 36 toxic chemicals present in their body.
2005
2005
We help pass legislation to create Maine’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Fund.
2003
2003-c
Following a national voluntary ban we negotiated, Maine becomes one of the first states to legally ban the sale of arsenic-treated wood.
2003
2003-b
The Alliance organizes the largest interdisciplinary environmental health conference ever held in Maine.
2003
2003
We create the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine with a diverse coalition of Maine-based public health organizations.
2002
2002
Mike Belliveau and Amanda Sears cofound the Maine-based Environmental Health Strategy Center, which will eventually become Defend Our Health.
