Women's Health and the Environment 2nd Annual Conference

Installment 1:

I attended the Women's Health Conference last Thursday at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. As you may know this conference is sponsored by Teresa Heinz, the Heinz Endowments and Magee-Womens Hospital. Subtitle for this year's conference was: New Science; New Solutions. Moderated by Bev Smith of American Urban Radio Networks, the conference was lively and informative. There were 2,000 attendees who came to hear such speakers such as Devra Davis of The Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, and Diane MacEachern author of the book Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World. (A copy has been ordered for the library). I have my own copy and I think it will turn out to be an essential home reference.

Devra Davis has written two books that many Pittsburghers should know about: When smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and and the Battle Against Pollution and The Secret History of the WarAgainst Cancer (for more information see our Green Reads link) . Most of us are aware that we are exposed to toxic pollutants every day due to the burning of fossil fuels, but did you know that we are also exposed to countless chemicals in the household products, furniture and cosmetics that we buy? Since, the FDA, does not require companies to perform product safety tests, it is critical we adopt a "buyer beware" attitude when doing our shopping. To help with this, I have provided a few links to websites I learned about at the conference that will aid you in finding green products, as well as learning what chemicals are in the products you buy, check these web sites: www.womenforahealthyenvironment.org,
www.biggreenpurse.com
http://www.cosmeticdatabase.com/

I will be adding more sites to the delicious link roles as I find them.