As part of its Culture of Alarmism project, the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) has recently launched a coalition letter – which includes CEI — to retailers to combat the greens so-called “Mind the Store“ campaign. We (IWF, CEI, and 21 other groups) advise retailers to ignore radical greens’ advice to remove certain products from store shelves, and instead honor consumer freedom.
The greens’ effort, led by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, calls on the nation’s top 10 retailers — Walmart, Kroger, Target, Walgreens, Costco, Home Depot, CVS Caremark, Lowe’s, Best Buy, and Safeway –to remove a wide range of useful products from store shelves because they contain one of 101 so-called hazardous chemicals.
Since we began in 2009 the evidence that unregulated chemicals are having profound health impacts has only grown. The Presidents Cancer Panel report and the recent United Nations report are just two examples. (Our own report summarizes the state of the science linking chemicals and various health impacts here.) And yet the government is too slow to respond in the face of chemical industry opposition.
In reality, there is no compelling evidence that trace chemicals in consumer products pose significant risks, particularly when used as directed. As I noted in a recent IWF paper on cancer, the President’s Cancer Panel report is a political document, not a scientific study and its claims have been rebuked by reputable cancer researchers….To Read More…..