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Evidence builds on pesticide risks Since 1994, GreenCAP, the Committee for Alternatives to Pesticides of the Green Decade Coalition/Newton, has been working to alert our neighbors and city officials about the hazards of pesticides. Now, new reports from the Centers for Disease Control and the Environmental Working Group document our toxic chemical "body burden" from the industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides that we all encounter in our daily lives. In a Mount Sinai School
of Medicine study, New York researchers tested for 210
chemicals in the blood and urine of eight environmental
and health activists and journalist Bill Moyers. They
found an average of 91 The CDC gathered data by
taking blood and urine samples from 10,000 Americans
across the nation to detect the presence of 116 environmental
chemicals including lead, mercury, arsenic, uranium,
pesticides and PCBs. "The good news is that when protective measures are put in place, for example, with lead and DDT, over time contamination levels fall...," comments J. P. Myers, co-author of Our Stolen Future. "The bad news is that we all contain many contaminants, most of which are poorly understood even one-by-one, and none of which are known to be safe in the mixtures in which they always occur." REDUCING EXPOSURE March 2003 is Newton´s Seventh Annual Alternatives to Pesticides Month. The theme of GreenCAP´s ongoing Alternative to Pesticides campaign is "Say No to Pesticides: Every child deserves a healthy start, a healthy school and a healthy tomorrow." The GreenCAP Web site http://www.greendecade.org/greencap.html has been updated to provide resources and references on safe ecological landscaping and pest control. On Monday, March 24, at 7 p.m. GreenCAP presents "Growing Green" at the Newton Free Library. The program includes GreenCAP´s new 30-minute how-to video, "Naturally Great Gardens & Landscapes, A Guide To Organic Land Care," and a panel of organic gardening and landscaping professionals, Mike Talbot, Don Bishop and Ann Barker. The program is designed
to eliminate pesticides by raising awareness about safe
and ecological solutions to landscaping and pest problems
in our homes, schools and community. GreenCAP also hopes
to involve more |