My mother's mother passed away this week-end.

plastic contaminants

Many blogs ago, I shared my, well, hatred of the chemical industry and my anger at the huge number of chemicals out there which are untested even though we have reason to believe they are causing us and the rest of the planet much harm.

Women's eNews and Greenpeace provide us a follow-up to that story today - focused on reproductive health:

Greenpeace, the Netherlands-based environmental group, has surveyed 50 years of scientific studies indicating that tens of thousands of poorly-regulated chemicals used in household products may contribute to reproductive disorders in Europe, the Associated Press reported May 3. Timing its report to the European Union's debate over a new law that will regulate the chemical industry, Greenpeace warned that the European Parliament had watered down the proposed law in discussions. A decision on the law will be made by the end of 2007.

"Right now the burden is on the governments to do the research. This law would help shift the burden to industry," said Helen Perivier, who heads the Greenpeace campaign against toxic materials. Perivier also said that of the 70,000 to 100,000 human-made chemicals in use in Europe today, only 150 have been evaluated for health risks.

Chemicals believed to damage female hormones and alter their production are found in food wrappings, plastic goods and perfumes. Some can contaminate blood in the umbilical cord of a pregnant woman, and others, such as polycarbonate plastic--found in baby bottles and CDs--can decrease the amount of breast milk a woman produces. Insulation used in electronic devices can leak into household dust and has caused birth defects in rats in laboratory experiments.

See the full report at http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/fragile-our-reproductive-heal.pdf

servers on strike

Miscellaneous thoughts today:

Even the servers are not allowed to work for the vatican on Sundays: they go offline. Who doesn't think this is insane??

There's been too much going on, and too little time to report it if I want to pay attention on the motherhood front. I also don't know how much to include here - it could easily be the sole content of this blog, but it wasn't meant to be when I started this - time will tell what the right balance is. It's also my second week back at work (albeit remotely and part-time), which has somewhat brought me back to reality.

Our partner in Uzbekistan has closed shop as the government closed all NGO's. Jordan and Egypt are facing restrictions on NGO activities as well. Iran is no better. And on much sadder personal news, one of African partners was taken by the police and harassed for several hours. She miscarried two days later.

Closer to home, televangelist and political power broker Rev. Pat Robertson calls feminism a "socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." - that's a tall order... as mentioned in http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2663.

While on the topic of Women's eNews, I cannot recommend their Comentoon strongly enough. It is hilarious, always on point, never disappointing: http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/context/commentoon for the latest and all archives at http://www.womensenews.org/archive_results.cfm/dyn/cat/19. Enjoy!

... and that'll be all for this week as I start my work day. Be well.