Tag: bisphenol-A

WERU News Report 7/31/13

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Segment 1: A coalition of environmental, health and civic groups called the Alliance for a Clean & Healthy Maine, are calling on Governor LePage to ask 10 major food manufacturers to disclose which of their products contain the toxic chemical bisphenol-A (also known as BPA). At a press conference in Bangor this morning, they expressed disappointment with the governor’s veto of legislation regulating the chemical. Governor LePage has dismissed the dangers of BPA, with his infamous statement about it only maybe causing women to grow “little beards”, but scientists & researchers that study the issue, confirm the concerns expressed at this morning’s rally. We spoke with some of them in 2010, when they were in Maine giving expert testimony at a public hearing on BPA. Today we take you to the rally in Bangor, and listen to what the scientists we interviewed in 2010 had to say.

Segment 2: Peacetime, produced in cooperation with the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine. This week we speak with Doug Allen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maine, and Education Coordinator at the Peace and Justice Center, about their upcoming annual commemoration of the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

WERU News Report 4/10/13

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

In Augusta today, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee held public hearings this afternoon on 3 separate bills designed to increase regulatation of the chemical Bisphenol A, also known as BPA. BPA is a chemical that is used in plastic toys and in food packaging, including can linings. It has been linked with a wide range of health problems in children and adults. As we went to air this afternoon, the committee was discussing LD 844 : a Resolve, To Require a Study of the Availability of Food Packaging without Bisphenol A, introduced by Rep. Sara Gideon of Freeport

RadioActive 8/30/12

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Issue: Environmental and Social Justice

Program Topic: EPA fuel efficiencies increase; Maine looks at regulating Bisphenol-A (BPA in toddler and baby food packaging; Texans engage in direct action blockade of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline construction

Key Discussion Points:

a) We looks towards next week’s public hearing on a Maine rule that would phase the chemical additive Bispenol-A out of baby and toddler food packaging.

b) We examine the EPA’s new rules to improve the fuel economy in cars and light trucks and reduce green house gas emissions

c) Activists blockade the construction of the southern stretch of Keystone XL Pipeline Tar Sands pipeline in Texas. Four hand lock down on trailer truck. Seven total are arrested in the direct action. This action marks the begins a campaign of direct action.

Guests:

A) Roland Hwang, Natural Resources Defense Council, Director, Transportation Program, Energy and Transportation Program www.nrdc.org

B) Emma Halas- O’Conner, Environmental Health Strategy Center, grassroots organizer www.preventharm.org

C)Ron Seifert, Tar Sands Blockade, Texas http://tarsandsblockade.org

RadioActive 5/17/12

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Issue: Environmental and Social Justice

Program Topic: Reform of national toxics protections

Key Discussion Points:
a) While Maine residents and law makers try to pass stronger measures to protect public health against toxic chemicals, like Bisphenol-A, they also look towards reform at the federal level.
b) There are reportedly 84,000 chemicals used in commerce. Since the Toxic Substances Control Act was passed in 1976, only 200 have been tested, and only 5 restricted. The requirement is that the government prove that chemicals are harmful, not that the manufactures, like Dow and Dupont, prove that they’re safe,
c) Numerous health, medical and other organizations in Maine are pushing for the passage of the federal Safe Chemicals Act. In April, Maine’s legislature passed a unanimous resolution to call on the US Congress to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. On May 22nd, a Maine delegation will join the stroller brigade in Washington DC to call on Congress to pass the Safe Chemicals Act.

Guest: Mike Belliveau, exc. director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, www.preventharm.org, founding organizational member of Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine, www.cleanandhealthyme.org

Call In Program: no

RadioActive 3/31/11

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Segment 1: We talk with labor historian Charles Scontras, in the wake of the labor history mural removal from the Me. Dept of Labor, on Caesar Chavez Day.

In Maine, Governor Paul LePage’s active purging of labor history observations from the Maine Dept of labor building, includes not only taking down the mural depicting scenes from Maine’s labor history, but also orders the renaming of the rooms of the rooms in the Department of labor, one of which is named after Caesar Chavez. Another is named after Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a US Cabinet post and the longest serving of any member. Among the many scenes of labor history depicted on the mural painted by the artist Judy Taylor is a panel of Frances Perkins.

Dr. Charles Scontras, the labor historian that worked with Judy Taylor on what history to represent in the mural. Scontras is a retired professor from the University of Maine at Orono’s department of political science, history and modern society. He now works as a historical and research associate with the Bureau of Labor Education. Maine is currently embroiled in another such “right to work” effort, which would undermine the capacity of unions.

For more information on the Bureau of Labor education’s publications, you can go to their website dll.umaine.edu/ble or call 581-4123.

A rally and press conference to demand the return of the Maine labor history mural to the Maine Dept of Labor has been rescheduled due to expected weather. It will take place Monday, April 4th at the hall of Flags at the Augusta State House at noon.

Segment 2: We spoke earlier with Mike Belliveau, the executive director of the statewide public health organization, the Environmental Health Strategy Center.

He spoke with us about the recent unanimous vote by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to support a ban on Bisphenol-A in products used by children in Maine, LD 412. he also discusses a proposed bill, whose intention is to essentially gut the Kids Safe Products Act.

For more information:
The Environmental and Health Strategy Center : www.preventharm.org
Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine : www.cleanandhealthyme.org.

You can listen to testimony by Rep. Jim Hamper, in support of his bill to weaken the Kids Safe Products Act, LD 1129 , in WERU’s archives from the Tuesday, March 29th WERU News Report. In his testimony he admits industry wrote his bill.

Weekend Voices 8/21/10

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Segment 1:

Maine’s Board of Environmental Protection held a public hearing regarding the designation of  bisphenol A as a priority chemical and it’s regulation in children’s products on Thursday.

Guests:

Mike Belliveau, Executive Director, Environmental Health Strategy Center
John Peterson Myers is founder, CEO and Chief Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, co-author of Our Stolen Future (1996) and the website OurStolenFuture.org (synthesizing hundreds of scientific articles about endocrine disruption to make them accessible to the media and the lay public)

http://ourstolenfuture.org/ and

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/

Laura Vandenberg, PhD, Post Doctoral Fellow, Tufts University. Her major research focus is on understanding human exposure to the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A.
Jennifer Sass is a senior scientist in Natural Resources Defense Council’s health and environment program, Jennifer received her doctorate degree from the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and a postdoctoral fellowship in toxicology from the University of Maryland. http://www.nrdc.org/
Segment 2:
WERU is kicking off a new partnership with the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, in which we hope to bring some of their in-depth reporting to the WERU airwaves.

Award-winning journalist Naomi Schalit, formerly of MPBN, the Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel is Executive Director and Senior Reporter for the Center. She joined us here at the WERU studios to tell us more about the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, and their recent series of reports on the Wind Energy Act of 2008—which fast tracked industrial wind power development in Maine.  http://pinetreewatchdog.org/