Tag: Defend Our Health
2022 Legislative Victories
It was a busy second session of the 130th Maine legislature! Defend worked hard with our friends in the legislature to move policy that will help protect Mainers from exposure to toxic chemicals. We had an incredibly successful session, passing first-in-the-nation legislation banning sludge spreading, advocating for protections for our tribal neighbors, and working to… Read more »
Mark Hyland, Board Chair for Defend Our Health Speaks on PFAS in REI
I’ve been an REI member since 1973 and I still have some of my first favorite purchases, like this cotton anorak, I bought before I was even an REI member. It’s traveled around the world, including Antarctica, and doesn’t contain PFAS/PFOAS. I appreciate REI’s commitment to sustainability and their Opt Outside campaign. However, I’m surprised they… Read more »
2022 Priority Bills
PFAS Bills: LD 1911 “An Act To Prohibit the Contamination of Clean Soils with So-called Forever Chemicals.” This bill would ban the spreading of sludge and sludge-derived compost on farmland that contributes to PFAS contamination. It would also require that wastewater treatment facilities and other industry that discharge effluent into Maine’s waterways test that effluent for… Read more »
Maine Hearing: Experts & Impacted Residents Testify for Equity, Justice and Movement on Tackling PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’
On Monday, legislators, impacted citizens, scientists and health advocates urged the Environment and Natural Resources Committee to continue to move the state forward in the fight against toxic PFAS, a group of man-made chemicals that have been linked to negative health impacts, including several types of cancer and decreased immune response to vaccines. Defend has… Read more »
Our 2021 Victories
2021 has been an eventful year full of numerous victories and we couldn’t have done it without our amazing supporters! Our supporters helped make all of these victories possible through various means of support and by gifting us the funds to run these ambitious campaigns. We are very proud of the work Defend has done… Read more »
Toxic Chemicals and the Future of Environmental Health & Justice with Dr. Leo Trasande
For this year’s Giving Tuesday, Defend Our Health partnered with Dr. Leo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics at NYU’s School of Medicine, to offer a free copy of his book Sicker, Fatter, Poorer along with qualifying donations. Last week, Dr. Trasande appeared alongside Defend Our Health’s Communications Director, Taylor Moore, for a Facebook Live interview… Read more »
Back to School – What’s in your dairy?
Dairy products are ubiquitous in kids’ lunchboxes and school meals – milk, yogurt, string cheese, boxed or pre-made mac and cheese — the list goes on. Kids aged 2-11 make up the largest age demographic of dairy consumers, consuming an average of 1.4 cups of milk a day. But as many of us prepare to send our… Read more »
Here’s what we’ve won!
Maine’s leading the nation by dumping a cancer-linked toxic chemical. The Maine Legislature passed a law to eliminate toxic PFAS from products we use every day. We’re the first state to get this done! (LD 1503) Maine will also protect our firefighters, whose risk of cancer is elevated by exposure to toxic chemicals. No longer… Read more »
The cost of inaction: Arsenic in water
In the last blog post on lead in drinking water, we talked about how our drinking water isn’t as safe as it should be to protect children’s brains. The EPA says that 15 parts per billion (ppb) of lead in water is good enough; but science has long known that no amount of lead is… Read more »
Toxic Chemicals and How to Fight Back with Dr. Shanna H. Swan
This week, we interviewed Dr. Shanna H. Swan, professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. One of the world’s leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists, she’s the incredible scientist whose new book, Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering… Read more »