wildcardenvironmentalist

Author: wildcardenvironmentalist

Helen Lynn has worked on issues linking women, gender, health and the environment since 1995, initially at the Women’s Environmental Network where she was health co-ordinator for 12 years, then as a freelance consultant. She has worked internationally and at EU level with Women in Europe for a Common Future and is on their International Advisory Board. Her campaign work began with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map, which encouraged women to map local sources of pollution alongside incidence of breast cancer and she was one of the founders of the No More Breast Cancer Campaign. She is on the Soil Associations Health Products Standards Committee which develops and keeps under review standards for organic health and beauty care products. While at WEN she and the health team initiated the Getting Lippy campaign on harmful ingredients in cosmetics, the campaign covered all aspects of the issue including information on toxic ingredients, making your own cosmetics, misleading labelling and advertising of the products and which alternatives are available. Other campaigns Helen worked on included the Ban Lindane (a toxic pesticide used on crops) Campaign, Healthy Flooring, Enviromenstrual, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She currently facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention which works with occupational and environmental health specialists and activists to challenge the existing emphasis on control and treatment of cancer as the only way forward and to get equal recognition for primary prevention, particularly in relation to environmental and occupational risk factors. In 2014 along with fellow breast cancer activists she began the From Pink to Prevention campaign which aims to move the agenda towards Stopping Breast Cancer before it Starts.

A letter signed by a group of leading scientists urges action from the the WHO/UNEP/OECD through SAICM (Startegic Approach to International Chemcial Management) on endocrine Disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

Why should you worry about EDCs? Currently they are not adequately controlled, in fact many remain unidentified yet they can affect life itself and our ability to live it in a healthy state. They affect our hormones such as oestrogen and testosterone, and can interfere with how hormones regulate every system in the body, via our endocrine system, even while we are developing in the womb.

We are at risk of exposure through everyday life lived in our homes, workplaces, schools and in the wider environment, through the manufacturing, use and disposal of products and the delivery of services. In fact we cannot escape exposure! And these chemicals have the ability to build up in our bodies and be passed on to the next generation.

So what can we do?
Support all calls for regulation of these chemicals and substances, especially now while legislation is under preparation in the EU.

Write, ring or email your MEPs and ask them as your elected representatives if they are voting to protect you health and the health of future generations, while you are at work, at home or in school.

Ask them if they really want to protect our environment and all the wildlife we share this planet with? Ask if products are EDC free? Lobby trade unions to support the call for an EDC free workplace.

The letter can be found here: http://ipen.org/pdfs/letter_edcs_in_saicim_20_april_2013.pdf

For more information on EDCs visit www.edc-free-europe.org

Author: wildcardenvironmentalist

International Workers' Memorial Day

Leading scientists call for urgent action on EDCs

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