Breast Cancer Action was founded by a group of women seeking substantive information about the causes and treatment of breast cancer. Fed up with unresponsive agencies and inadequate, superficial answers to their questions, they decided to find their own information about their disease and to make that information available to others. Through education and advocacy, they are working to make eradication of breast cancer a national priority. They promote research into the causes, prevention, treatment, and cure of breast cancer, and work to empower women and men to participate fully in decisions relating to this disease.
The Center for Medical Consumers is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people make informed choices about medical care. Their New York City office has a library designed specifically for the lay public containing subject files, books, and periodicals on both mainstream and alternative treatments. They offer information ranging from options for breast cancer treatment, to drug side effects, to doctors' credentials. They also offer a newsletter, Health Facts, that brings this information to people's mailboxes every month.
CCHW has worked with over 8,000 community-based groups nationwide on toxic hazards, helping communities to understand, often for the first time, why their families are sick, or what type of cleanup is needed. CCHW provides organizing assistance and leadership training, and publishes self-help guides and fact packs to fill the needs of grassroots groups. CCHW publishes Everyone's Backyard, a quarterly magazine that features news on what's happening in the grassroots movement for environmental justice; and Environmental Health Monthly, a journal reprinting medical and scientific articles on health and chemical exposures.
COEJL is coordinated by the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (13 national organizations and 117 community relations councils), the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Annual campaigns reach thousands of communal bodies integrating environmental themes into traditional religious observances.
A national non-profit organization representing mothers and children exposed to DES. The organization provides education and support so that individuals can discover if they are exposed, and to educate medical professionals so they can provide knowledgeable servicesto DES exposed people. In the U.S., DES Action volunteers lead 24 affiliate groups nationwide -- both state affiliates, and the DES Sons Network and the DES Third Generation Network. They are politically active in garnering support and funds for DES research. There are also DES Action affiliates in Britain, Canada, throughout Europe, and Australia.
It is estimated that as many as 1 out of every 20 people in the United States is a DES exposed mother, daughter, or son. Half of those exposed are unaware of their risk. The DES Cancer Network works to educate and increase public awareness of DES related illness. They focus particularly on the special needs of women who have had clear cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina or cervix - a cancer linked to exposure to DES before birth. In addition to advocating research, they provide an international support system that gives members access to one another and to information about clear cell cancer.
The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) was initiated by World Vision and Evangelicals United for Social Action in 1993 as part of a growing movement among evangelical Christians to develop a biblical response to the disregard of God's creation. It was formed in response to recognition that environmental problems are at their roots spiritual problems, and require a response grounded in faith. The EEN has sent out more than 30,000 resource kits to evangelical churches across the U.S., collaborates on the publication of a quarterly magazine, Green Cross, and organizes conferences for pastors and leaders of Christian organizations.
ERF publishes "Rachel's Environment and Health Weekly," a newsletter that covers a wide range of issues for the public and activists concerned with toxic exposure and environmental justice. ERF can also provide information and fact packs for communities and activists on a wide variety of environmental and health issues.
Greenpeace is an international environmental organization committed to creating a green and peaceful planet using non-violent direct action to confront polluters. Greenpeace works to protect the world's oceans and forests and to eliminate the health and environmental threats posed by fossil fuels, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and toxic pollution. Greenpeace's toxic campaign is working across the globe for a phase-out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic since the life cycle of this poison plastic - from production and use to disposal - is linked with the generation of dioxin, the most toxic synthetic chemical known to humankind. Greenpeace works to prevent disease and make the world a safer place for our children by eliminating dioxin and other toxic chemicals that threaten public health.
Mothers & Others is a national consumer education and advocacy organization working to promote consumer choices which are safe and ecologically sustainable for current and future generations. They work to educate consumers regarding the dangers of pesticides on food, and to encourage sustainable choices in the marketplace.
The National Coalition Against Incineration is composed of grassroots citizen groups from around the United States who oppose the incineration of hazardous wastes. They are working to translate regional fights against local incinerators into a nationwide campaign to stop the construction and operation of dioxin emitting incinerators. They have called for an investigation into the relationship between the EPA and their contractors, and have challenged the EPA to acknowledge its own findings regarding dioxin exposure, and, based on those findings, to permanently suspend all Superfund and hazardous waste incinerator operations in the U.S.
The National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides represents a broad coalition of health, environmental, labor, farm, consumer and church groups, as well as concerned individuals, who share common concerns about the potential hazards associated with pesticides. They advocate for policies that better protect the public from dangerous pesticide exposure and work to focus public attention on the dangers of pesticide poisoning. They also provide information on alternative pest management strategies, including least toxic methods of controlling specific pests in and around the home as well as in public facilities and in agriculture.
The NRPE is a federation of major American faith communities -- the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, the National Council of Churches of Christ, and the Evangelical Environmental Network -- working to integrate commitment to global sustainability and environmental justice permanently into religious life. They provide information for organizing religious groups on environmental issues and for using religious community resources to encourage initiatives rising above self-interest toward the common good.
The National Women's Health Network is an advocacy organization giving women a greater voice in the health care system in the United States. They are the only such membership organization, directing people and policy toward solid health care. The Network educates people about health care to make them better informed health consumers, and monitors health-related legislation to protect women's health rights. The Clearinghouse staff give information over the phone and through the mail.
NYCOSH is a non-profit coalition of 200 local unions and more than 400 individual workers, physicians, lawyers and other health and safety activists - all dedicated to the right of every worker to a safe and healthy job. Part of a national network of 25 union-based safety and health organizations, NYCOSH helps workers learn how to protect themselves by teaching them about the hazards in their workplace, and by showing them ways to control and eliminate the dangers. NYCOSH also helps unions develop strategies for confronting management so workers don't have to choose between their jobs and their health.
With more than 20,000 U.S. members and over 90 local chapters, PSR works to protect people from environmental health hazards and to shift government spending priorities away from wasteful military expenditures and toward investments in public health and the environment. PSR's priorities include educating medical professionals about environmental health hazards, and advocating for environmental clean-up laws that mandate public health protection, a national program to assess the health hazards of abandoned hazardous-waste sites, and policies forcing the U.S. military to comply with federal environmental laws and regulations.
The Public Health Institute addresses the growing jobs versus environment conflict by building connections between unions and various elements of the environmental and public health communities. They work to demonstrate that the same groups who profit from weak toxics regulation also profit from the destruction of stable jobs. By bringing both concerns to the table in this context, the Public Health Institute facilitates the development of fair approaches to phasing out the use of toxics, and increases the strength of both movements by forging alliances between them.
US-PIRG is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to serving as a watchdog for the nation's citizens and environment. They work on a wide range of issues-from consumer safety to alternative energy sources-all with the central goal of protecting the public interest. US-PIRG combines the expertise of professionals with the power of citizens to fight wherever their campaigns take them: from Congress to the courts, to corporate board rooms, and to government agencies and the news media.
RESOLVE is a national non-profit organization that, for more than 20 years, has assisted people in resolving their infertility by providing information, support, and advocacy. RESOLVE is headed by a volunteer board which includes individuals who have experienced medical concerns regarding infertility, and who have adopted children. RESOLVE advocates on the national and local level for comprehensive insurance coverage for infertility treatment and other family-building issues of concern.
RTK NET is an online computer network providing free access to the latest national databases. You can identify valuable data about environmental and housing conditions in your community, as well as campaign finance information for your Congressperson. RTK NET also provides users with email, online conferences, and an electronic library of information on a host of issues.
TURI publishes a variety of technical and policy reports on toxics use reduction and pollution prevention, and houses the Technology Transfer Center, a research library and information clearinghouse. The Center responds to information requests by searching its library collection and computerized databases, a service accessible by telephone, mail or fax. The Center has a collection of more than 15,000 books, conference proceedings and technical papers and periodicals covering topics such as traditional and less toxic alternatives in industrial technology; chemical toxicity; pollution prevention case studies for industry; environmental management; and pollution prevention policy.
Work on Waste publishes "Waste Not," the weekly reporter for rational resource management. They also provide information and expertise on the dangers of incineration, risk assessment, and other issues facing communities with waste disposal issues.
The group coordinates the community right-to-know programs of more than 20 national environmental and public interest organizations and serves a nationwide network of state groups and activists. They publish a bi-monthly newsletter, Working Notes, covering news in right-to-know legislation and court decisions, as well as reviewing new resources for activists.
This report brings together information about the reproductive health effects of selected chemical exposures with use and emissions data from the state of Massachusetts. Its overall finding is that while human exposure to synthetic chemicals is extensive, the information on the effects of such exposure is often unknown or incompletely studied, even with strong indications of negative health effects. The authors use their research as an argument for greater regulation of industrial chemicals, and a "better safe than sorry" policy for allowing them into the commercial market.
Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer in her twenties, brings all three perspectives to bear on the growing body of evidence linking cancer to environmental contamination. Living Downstream is the first book to bring together toxics-release data-now finally made available under the right to know laws-and newly released cancer registry data. It traces the entire web of connections between our bodies and the ecological world in which we eat, drink, breathe, and work. Steingraber's outlook is hopeful throughout, for, while we can do little to alter our genetic inheritance, we can do a great deal to eliminate the environmental contributions to cancer, and she shows us where to begin.
Picking up where Silent Spring left off, the authors trace birth defects, sexual abnormalities, and reproductive failures in wildlife to their source-synthetic chemicals that mimic natural hormones, upsetting normal reproductive and developmental processes. By threatening the fundamental process that perpetuates survival - ability to reproduce - these chemicals may be invisibly undermining the human future as well. Includes a chapter on DES.
Many community and workplace activists have come into head-on collision with the scientific establishment over threats to people's health from toxic chemicals. This very readable monograph reviews some of the issues of control over scientific knowledge coming out of struggles in the southeastern U.S., and looks at alternative approaches to a `new' science which is responsive to people's needs and accountable to their oversight.
An indispensable workbook gleaned from a 1996 conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. No matter where you live, no matter what you do, no matter what else is going on your life, there are proposals for action in this book that you can organize. Includes chapters on "Dioxin 101" and Endocrine Disruptors 101" as well as action campaigns for the paper and pulp industry, manufacturing and cleaning, incineration, PVC, food, and valuable guidelines for working with the media.
This carefully balanced book studies the medical effects of DES, its psychological repercussions, and the factors that contributed to the DES disaster. The authors raise important questions about the explosion of modern medical technology, vividly delineating the factors contributing to experimentation with new techniques and drugs.
Since the introduction of thousands of new chemicals in the 1940s - pesticides, herbicides, radiation, artificial hormones, food additives, toxic waste, industrial chemicals, and toxic building materials - one inthree Americans contracts cancer. This book tallies the cost of unchecked technological development, and calls for re-examining our approach to progress.
The safety of some commonly used drugs is currently under debate, though your doctor may not be aware of it. This book attempts to provide people who aren't members of the medical community with information regarding the safety of some particularly controversial drugs, and possible safer alternatives.
Put together by Michael Warhurst, a biochemist and Industry and Pollution Campaigner for Friends of the Earth These, these pages provide an introduction to the effects of hormone disrupting chemicals on people and the environment. Includes further links and resources.
This site provides information on scientific research and governmental policy developments on issues concerning adverse (or beneficial) effects that various environmental agents, both synthetic and natural, may have on the endocrine functions of humans, wildlife, and ecology. Includes an updated list of further links and resources.
A comprehensive look at hormone disruptors, campaigns for action, and further resources. Includes audio clip of Theo Colborn (author of "Our Stolen Future") explaining endocrine disruption and its hazards.
This site records the on-going investigation into the connections between environmental toxic exposure, "superfund" sites, and abnormally high cancer rates in the town of Natick, Massachusetts. Includes a list of links to related information elsewhere on the Internet.
An in-depth, patient-friendly, guide to a colposcopic examination, an often suggested procedure for DES exposed daughters. Includes photos and further information. This site is put together by the University of Pennsylvania Cancer center.
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