Activism | The Canary Report

ANTI-TOXIC MANIFESTO: We know they are lying to us

Posted on May 04, 2010 by Susie Collins in Blog, Eva Caballé, Guest Bloggers, MCS, Social Justice

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Although they want to make us invisible, lock us up in an illness and throw away the key, poison us and shut our mouths, kill us and then plant fake flowers on our tombs, they will not be able to lock us up, shut us up, nor make us disappear.

By guestbloggers Clara Valverde and Eva Caballé, Spain.

WE KNOW THEY ARE LYING TO US

(ANTI-TOXIC MANIFESTO)

International Day of Fibromyalgia, ME/CFS and MCS

May 12, 2010

They are lying to us. We know they are lying.

For the politicians, we are the black sheep in their controlled herd.

For the doctors who lie to us, we are the misbehaved guinea-pigs.

For the industry that lies to us, we are the non-profitable broken machines.

For the pharmaceutical companies, we are the pebble in their shoe.

The disease mongers lie to us.

Those who talk of progress with one hand on their wallet, lie to us.

But we do not believe their toxic lies.

Although they want to make us invisible, lock us up in an illness and throw away the key, poison us and shut our mouths, kill us and then plant fake flowers on our tombs, they will not be able to lock us up, shut us up, nor make us disappear.

We are out of patience and we are not good patients. We do not justify ourselves nor do we explain ourselves.

If you suffer with Fibromyalgia, survive with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, if you are agonizing with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, you should know that you are at war. Their lies do not scare us, they are the ammunition in this war that has merely started.

Eva Caballé

If you believe that you are healthy, choose your side: get sick with them or live with us.

Now is our moment: we name, we decide, we define.

We do not believe their toxic lies.

We know they are lying.

Clara Valverde & Eva Caballé

~~~

Click here for pdf of manifesto: Sabemos Que Mienten

Eva Caballé blogs about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity at NO FUN. English section here.

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Tags: Activism, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Policy

Able To Choose disability campaign

Posted on Apr 27, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Disability Rights, Media/Videos, Susie Collins

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The ABLE TO CHOOSE campaign demonstrates that people with disabilities of all types can and do live successfully in communities of their own choice when individually appropriate services and supports are available to them. Take action now, register your support at http://www.abletochoose.org .

Link

I just sent ABLE TO CHOOSE an email through their Contact page:

Aloha!

Have you included Multiple Chemical Sensitivity in your campaign? I’d like to encourage you to do so. Those of us with MCS need safe and accessible work places, housing, health care and more. All we are asking for is a safe, nontoxic environment in which to live and thrive. Without it, most of normal life becomes inaccessible to us.

MCS is recognized by HUD, the ADA and Social Security Admin. Please consider adding our inaccessibility issues to your campaign.

Thank you for your consideration. And thank you for all your hard work on behalf of the disabled.

Aloha,

Susie Collins
Founder and Editor
The Canary Report

http://www.thecanaryreport.org/

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Tags: Activism, Law, Policy, Rights, Support, Video

Honey bees need your help

Posted on Mar 14, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment

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Join the Pesticide Action Network and the Natural Resources Defense Council in urging the EPA to act decisively and quickly to protect honey bees and other pollinators from high-risk uses of the pesticide imidacloprid.

Every third bite of food we take is produced with honey bee help. They pollinate a third of our food, but bee colonies are collapsing, and their populations are plummeting because of parasites and pesticide exposures.

Take Action Now! Tell EPA to protect honey bees from a toxic pesticide.

The pesticide imidacloprid is highly toxic to honey bees. Despite EPA’s recognition of this fact, the agency approved imidacloprid’s use in 1994. France banned several uses of imidacloprid in 1999 over concerns about its effects on bees, but here in the United States imidacloprid is still used heavily on many crops pollinated by honey bees, including broccoli, blueberries, carrots, grapefruit, cucumbers and avocados.

EPA is currently undergoing a mandatory review of its approval of imidacloprid, but the agency’s work plan lacks crucial details on how it will assess risks to bees, and this review isn’t scheduled to be complete until 2014. In the meantime, high-risk uses of imidacloprid will continue to threaten honey bees.

EPA is accepting public comments on this phase of the project through March 17th.

Please email now! Tell EPA to protect honey bees that feed us all.

Join PAN and NRDC in urging EPA to act decisively and quickly to protect honey bees and other pollinators from high-risk uses of imidacloprid.

Link to submit your comment to the EPA.

Thanks, Jasmine!

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Tags: Activism, Chemicals, Children's Health, EPA, Garden, Law, Nontoxic, Organic, Pesticides, Policy

The call to community service

Posted on Jan 20, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Media/Videos, Social Justice, Susie Collins

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President Obama asks us to be the change agents

President Obama has called all Americans to community service through the initiative Organizing for America. Many who are part of the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity community have already written President Obama asking for changes in health care policy, specifically, for full recognition of MCS under the law, including full health care coverage, full disability rights, and full social services as are available for other disabled people.

Many readers of The Canary Report are already doing their part: starting blogs, attending hearings, confronting landlords and employers, fighting city hall. Canaries are a far flung flock, doing good work in Canada, Australia, Europe and elsewhere across the globe where chemicals have done their damage. Hats off for your hard work!

Let’s all step up to the plate, no matter what country, and do our share to work for CHANGE on public health policy. It could be something as simple as leaving a comment on a blog or news site, to giving testimony at a local hearing about air quality, to petitioning the European Union for stricter regulations. There is much to be done!

What are you doing to help bring about change in this world?

Organizing for America will continue the work of the largest grassroots movement in history. Volunteers, grassroots leaders, and ordinary citizens will drive this organization and help bring about the changes we proposed during the presidential campaign.

For more information visit: http://www.barackobama.com/

Link

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Tags: Activism, Environment, Environmental Illness, Health, MCS, Policy, Video

Signs of hope and change

Posted on Jan 20, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Media/Videos

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Operative word of the day: CHANGE.

Look out greedy chemical corporations, dirty industry, and manufacturers of toxic consumer goods: Change is here.

Millions of Americans from every corner of this country have taken part in the political process and built an unprecedented movement for change. This video, featuring footage and photos from Obama supporters across the country, documents this grassroots movement and the supporters.

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Tags: Activism, Environment, Environmental Illness, Health, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Policy, Video

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, still relevant in 2008

Posted on Oct 18, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Environment, Susie Collins

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It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

It’s nice to see Rachel Carson‘s book Silent Spring (1962) still being reviewed and heralded as an important work, “a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.”

It’s bittersweet reading a review given in the context of 2008, and the reviewer’s assertion, “If Rachel Carson’s book has a central message today, it is that every action has its consequences, for in poisoning the world, we poisoned ourselves.”

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist who was only reluctantly drawn into researching [the impact of pesticides being aerially sprayed across North America], and at the time she penned her epic work, she was already suffering from the cancer that would, just two years later, take her life.

She begins Silent Spring with these words: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.”

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

Carson’s ability to make science understandable was formidable.

I have never read as simple or elegant an explanation of chemical composition as she provides for the organochlorides, the group to which the 200-odd chemicals that were then destroying her country belonged.

It was not just nature that was suffering.

Carson carefully details many instances of fatal human poisonings. A farmer’s wife was poisoned after her husband sprayed. A baby and a small dog died after returning to a house where endrin had been used to kill cockroaches.

In some programs, half the men who sprayed DDT for the World Health Organization suffered convulsions and death.

Link to full book review

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Tags: Activism, Air, Chemicals, Environment, Law, Pesticides, Policy, Pollution, Research, Stink, Toxic

Meet Jessica, she won over the governator

Posted on Oct 15, 2008 by Susie Collins in Blog, Healthy Living, Media/Videos, Products

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In 2005, Jessica Assaf built a campaign to lobby senators and the California governor’s office to pass SB484, a bill that requires cosmetics manufacturers to inform the Department of Health Services if their products contain carcinogens or other toxic substances.

Jessica was shocked to learn that many personal care products contain chemicals that have been linked to cancer and reproductive ailments. Working with the Teens for Safe Cosmetics Campaign, Jessica created “Operation Beauty Drop” during which large bins were placed in public malls for teenagers to drop off their toxic beauty products. The collected products were sent back to the manufacturers with a petition signed by the teens demanding the reformulation of products without toxic chemicals.

As support for Jessica’s program grew, so did her belief that she could institute change on a larger scale and in individuals’ lives. With four of her friends, Jessica lobbied senators and the California governor’s office to pass SB484, a bill that requires cosmetics manufacturers to inform the Department of Health Services if their products contain carcinogens or other toxic substances. After the successful and unexpected passage of SB484 on October 7, 2005, she organized a Teens for Safe Cosmetics Summit educating teens from around the country on how to conduct their own safe cosmetic campaigns. Over thirty students took part in the workshops and began their own projects in their communities.

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