Cascadia Scorecard News
October 2004 

Evidence suggests that exposure to toxic chemicals is not a choice made by individuals. The best protection may be to encourage your government and industry to act, and to "prove safety first" before new chemicals are introduced. Click here to go to Sightline's study on toxics in northwesterners; and click here for information on what's happening in the Northwest to address PBDEs and how you can help.

However, parents and consumers concerned about the risks from persistent toxic chemicals may be able to reduce the risks posed by these compounds. Sightline recommends these steps for protecting yourself and your community:

• Breastfeed your child. Breastfeeding offers significant health benefits to both mother and infant. Suspending breastfeeding would not address the core problem-community contamination. Check our benefits of breastfeeding page for health information, resources for nursing mothers, and other information.

• Avoid degraded or crumbling foam that may contain fire retardants. Replace or cover couches, stuffed chairs, and automobile seats that have exposed foam. Consider reupholstering padded furniture in homes where children or pregnant women live. Find out about safe alternatives to toxics.

• Be careful when removing and replacing foam padding beneath your carpet. Remove old carpet padding from your home and clean up carefully when you are finished.

• Eat less animal fat and reduce consumption of certain types of fish. While exposure pathways for PBDEs remain unclear, the chemicals have been found in everything from orcas to food in the grocery store. Animal fat, such as meat and dairy, and fish are pathways for other known persistent bioaccumulative toxics. Guidelines for fish consumption can be found here.
• Take action in your community. Legislation has been proposed around the Northwest to phase out PBDEs and other harmful toxics. Keep up to date on what different organizations are doing here.
• Support Sightline Institute. Without monitoring the levels of persistent chemicals in our environment and our bodies, we don't know where our health stands. Make a donation to Sightline; it will enable us to track important trends of social and environmental well-being including the levels of toxic body burdens in northwesterners through monitoring like this report.