Safer Product Resources

IN THIS SECTION

Products for the Home

Children's Toys and Products

Toxicity of Chemicals

Contaminants in Your Neighborhood

Pesticides: Health Effects & Safer Alternatives

Toxic Chemical Exposure and Your Health

Toxic Chemical Exposure and Your Children's Health

Biomonitoring

Product Recalls

PRODUCTS FOR THE HOME

Breast Cancer Action
A resource for information on safer home, lawn, and body care products. Also contains a guide to organic food.
www.bcaction.org/Pages/GetInformed/NonToxicHome.html

Campaign for Safe Cosmetics
Consumer information and actions on toxics in personal care products.
www.safecosmetics.org

Computer Take Back Campaign
Could your computer be creating toxic dust in your home?
www.computertakeback.com

Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia
Contains a guide to safer products, as well as the latest news on toxic chemicals.
www.environmentalhealth.ca

Environmental Working Group
These consumer tools will clue you in on safer household cleaning products, the safest brands of kids' sunscreen, how much tuna is safe for pregnant women, which fruits and vegetables are lowest in pesticides, and more. Also check out the site's information on the threat of arsenic in lumber.
www.ewg.org/ourfood
www.ewg.org/tap-water/welcome
www.ewg.org/tunacalculator
www.ewg.org/schoolcleaningsupplies/cleaningsuppliesoverview
www.ewg.org/reports/poisonwoodrivals/orderform.php

GoodGuide
Provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home.
www.goodguide.com

Green Guide: The Eco-Nomical Bedroom
A guide to safer alternatives in your bedroom including mattresses and bedding.
www.thegreenguide.com/doc/118/ecobedroom

Guide to Less Toxic Products
This online guide provides information about potential health risks of commonly used products. It will also help you identify less toxic alternatives for personal care, household cleaning, baby care, household pest control, and provides information to help you evaluate products not in this guide in order to choose the safest ones for your needs.
www.lesstoxicguide.ca

Healthy Building Network
A guide to less toxic home building materials.
www.healthybuilding.net

HealthyStuff.org
HealthyStuff.org's database includes nearly 6,000 products. Find information on children's and pet's products, cars, apparel and accessories, and toys. www.healthystuff.org

Learning Disabilities Association's "Clean and Green: Your Healthy Home and Family"
A guide to avoiding exposure to toxic chemicals in your home.
www.ldaofmichigan.org/healthychild.htm

Pollution Issues
From toxics in products to factory contamination to noise pollution to waste hazards, Pollution Issues is an accessible resource on environmental health issues in everyday life.
www.pollutionissues.co.uk

Safer Products
This website gives you a room by room collection of household products and ranks them in order of safety.
www.cleanproduction.org/safer.about.php

Skin Deep - Cosmetic Safety Database
Are your makeup, lotion, and shampoo safe? Use this website to look up which body care products contain the most and least toxic ingredients.
www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/splash.php

Smart Plastics Guide: Healthier Food Uses of Plastics
A guide to the ingredients in different plastic containers, some of which have harmful health effects.
www.iatp.org/iatp/search.php

Toxic Matters
Five ways to avoid exposure to toxic substances: in the home, at work, in the community, at the market and through influencing government policy.
www.prhe.ucsf.edu/prhe/toxicmatters.html

Washington Toxics Coalition
A guide to safer household cleaners, art and hobby supplies, and home repair/building materials.
www.watoxics.org/healthy-homes-gardens-1

Women's Voices for the Earth's Safe Cleaning Products Initiative
Gives information on ways women can protect their health through safer products.
womenandenvironment.org

CHILDREN'S TOYS AND PRODUCTS

American Academy of Pediatrics Toy Safety Resources
Pediatricians outline ways you can make your children's toy bin safer. It includes links on toy recalls, health effects from lead exposure, and protecting your child from lead.
www.aap.org/new/toyrecall.htm

Cars
HealthyStuff.org’s Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Cars.
www.healthystuff.org/departments/cars/

Childproofing our Communities Campaign
Read about ways to make homes and schools environmentally safer for children.
www.childproofing.org

Children’s Car Seats, Toys, and other Children’s Products
HealthyStuff.org’s Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products.
www.healthystuff.org/departments/childrens-products/

Toxic Baby Bottles
This research study by Environment California addresses a toxic chemical, Bisphenol-A, that is being found in popular brands of baby-bottles (pdf format).
www.environmentcalifornia.org/uploads/Ve/AQ/VeAQsr6MMu4xA3-2ibnr_g/
Toxic-Baby-Bottles.pdf

U.S. PIRG's Trouble in Toyland Report
24th annual Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) survey of toy safety. Also includes a shopping guide.
www.uspirg.org/issues/toy-safety

Washington Toxics Coalition
Easy tips and information on choosing safer products and creating healthy environments for children.
www.watoxics.org/healthy-families/safe-start-for-kids-1/

TOXICITY OF CHEMICALS

Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow
This website contains fact sheets on a number of the most toxic chemicals.
www.healthytomorrow.org/

Public Health Statements - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
This website provides more thorough, but still accessible, information on known and suspected health effects of many chemicals.
www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phshome.html

Tox FAQs - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
This website provides a brief summary of known and suspected health effects of many chemicals.
www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaq.html

Toxnet - National Institutes of Health, Toxicology Data Network
Use this search engine to look up study findings on toxic chemicals.
toxnet.nlm.nih.gov

CONTAMINANTS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

MDEQ Environmental Mapper
View the sites of contamination and underground storage tank sites in Michigan.
www.mcgi.state.mi.us/environmentalmapper

Right to Know Network
This site provides free access to numreous databases and resources on the environment. With the information available on RTK NET, you can identify specific factories and their environmental effects; find permits issued under environmental statutes; and identify civil cases filed
www.rtknet.org

Scorecard
Enter your zip code to find out who's polluting in your neighborhood.
www.scorecard.org

PESTICIDES: HEALTH EFFECTS AND SAFER ALTERNATIVES

Beyond Pesticides
They have a broad array of pesticide and pesticide alternatives information. Find more information from Beyond Pesticides for this site.
www.beyondpesticides.org

Environmental Working Group: Food News
The 5th edition of the Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce features the 12 fruits and veggies with the most and least pesticides.
www.foodnews.org

Pesticide Action Network of North America
An extensive resource on pesticides and their harm in relation to the body and global food supply.
www.panna.org

TOXIC CHEMICAL EXPOSURE AND YOUR HEALTH

CHE: Autism: Do Environmental Factors Play a Role in Causation?
By Ted Schettler MD, MPH - An analysis of autism and the factors that cause it. Schettler analyzes the possibilites of environmental agents causing autism.
www.healthandenvironment.org/autism/peer_reviewed

CHE Toxicant and Disease Database
An impressive, searchable database that summarizes links between chemical contaminants and approximately 180 human diseases or conditions.
www.database.healthandenvironment.org

CHE Portal to Science
Find environmental health resources based on different subsets including health issue, environmental/toxic issue, and target audience.
www.healthandenvironment.org/cgi-bin/portal.cgi?medium=database

Cornell University's Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors
This site has a number of fact sheets on the link between breast cancer and environmental risk factors.
envirocancer.cornell.edu/factsheet/Factsheetalpha.cfm

Environmental and Occupational Causes of Cancer
A scientific report on the links between environmental toxicants and cancer.
www.healthandenvironment.org

TOXIC CHEMICAL EXPOSURE AND YOUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH

Center for Children's Health and the Environment at Mount Sinai
Information on how health problems like ADD, autism, asthma and Parkinson's are being linked to environmental toxicants.
www.childenvironment.org

Children's Environmental Health Network
A national multi-disciplinary organization whose mission is to protect the fetus and the child from environmental health hazards and promote a healthy environment.
www.cehn.org

Institute for Children's Environmental Health
ICEH's primary mission is to foster collaborative initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate environmental exposures that can undermine the health of current and future generations.
www.iceh.org

Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health
Information on how toxic chemical exposure can affect developing infants and children, as well as related campaigns in Michigan.
www.mnceh.org/resources.out.php

Natural Resources Defense Council
Read about toxic chemicals and children's health conditions such as asthma.
www.nrdc.org/health/default.asp

BIOMONITORING

Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns
Read the Environmental Working Group's study on toxic chemicals found in human umbilical cord blood.
www.ewg.org/node/17687

Center for Disease Control: National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals
The CDC's third analysis on the U.S. population's exposure to harmful chemicals in the environment.
www.cdc.gov/exposurereport

Coming Clean's Body Burden Project
Read about how toxic chemicals accumulate in your body and what this means in terms of your health.
www.chemicalbodyburden.org

Hazardous Chemicals in Health Care (PSR)
This report details the first investigation ever of chemicals found in the bodies of health care professionals. The inquiry found that all of the 20 participants had toxic chemicals associated with health care in their bodies. Each participant had at least 24 individual chemicals present, four of which are on the recently released Environmental Protection Agency list of priority chemicals for regulation. These chemicals are all associated with chronic illness and physical disorders.
www.psr.org/resources/hazardous-chemicals-in-health.html

Is It In Us?
A group of 35 Americans across the social spectrum volunteered to have their bodies tested for contaminants they had no idea were in their environment.
www.isitinus.org

Pollution in People
Read the results of a study of 10 Washingtonians whose bodies were tested for the presence of toxic chemicals.
www.pollutioninpeople.org

The Pollution Within
Reporter David Duncan chronicles his personal experience with finding out his body is full of chemicals, many of which have been shown to be toxic and harmful.
www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0610/feature4/index.html