Beautiful night here in Amsterdam that I managed to get out and enjoy, spending some time with a new friend and catching jazz at ye old bimhuis. As I set out on my bike in the direction of centrum, On Point (one of my favorite podcasts) was on, doing an episode on a topic I often come back to that is highly under-reported, the toxicity of regular things all around us. Plastics, personal care products, even the finish they use on your ikea desk… once you start digging below the surface you’ll find that we’ve been lied to and in many ways slowly poisoned for decades.
Most importantly today I recommend you listen to this episode, especially to the first guest that talks about the inequality between the standards and testing of consumer products in the European Union versus those same products in the US. The fact is the EU has higher standards, to the point that many items that appear on the shelves in the US are not allowed to be sold here due to their links to all sorts of health problems.
I don’t mention this to gloat or even praise the work of EU officials, to me they are doing what should be the standard job and should probably be even more strict as more and more items are manufactured in places where standards are almost non-existant. It should be unacceptable what is going on with things like children’s toys and makeup in the US.. the entire FDA should be investigated, fire whomever is corrupt and unwilling to do their job, and get people in there who can enforce some real standards comparable if not MORE STRICT than the EU.
With all the useless garbage discussed at the so-called presidential debates in the US, how often has this issue come up? It should be right there in the top ten list of issues to grill candidates about and if they have no plans to improve things, boot them out of the running right now.
Lastly here is an excellent website for anyone concerned about consumer products, including my personal pet-peave: children’s toys. It is an excellent resource, bookmark it; use it. Don’t sit back and accept the poison they’re trying to sell you just because it looks nice or the price is right!