The Toxic Avengers

This is Part One of my interview with Dr. Mark Mitchell, founder of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice (CCEJ). A medical doctor, with a Masters in Public Health, he is a long-time toxics and public health advocate.  Dr. Mitchell is currently working at George Mason University's https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/ (Center for Climate Change Communication), serving as the Director of State Affairs for the https://medsocietiesforclimatehealth.org/ (Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health), and Director of the Climate and Health Equity Fellowship Program. He previously served as the Deputy Director of the Kansas City Missouri Health Department for six years, and Director of the Hartford Health Department in Hartford Connecticut for four years, before leaving to start the Hartford Environmental Justice Network, later renamed the https://ccejadmin.wixsite.com/ccej/history (Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice). In the first part of our interview, Mark discusses his current work on climate, health and environmental justice, including educating and organizing medical health professionals, and explains his pneumonic for the health effects of climate change. He then describes his childhood growing up in St. Louis Missouri, and how the racism he experienced from an early age formed the path he took to become a doctor with a focus on the preventative side of medical practice, and environmental stressors of health.   Mark then describes some of his experiences while getting his Masters in Public Health from John's Hopkins University in Baltimore, and his early work https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yjmj0143 (opposing the influence) of the tobacco industry. Mark is a great storyteller, with a million stories to tell, and it was both a pleasure and an honor to speak with him.    For more on Dr. Mitchell's life story, here is an essay he wrote in 2020 for the journal Daedalus: https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/Fa20_Daedalus_07_Mitchell.pdf (“Racism as a Motivator for Environmental Justice”) Here is his 1984 memo to the Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation re the CBCF's promotion of smoking: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yjmj0143 (https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yjmj0143)

For this episode, we have Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Anna Reade, scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).  We continue our discussion of her work focused on the large and highly persistent class of chemicals known as PFAS.  We talk about their widespread use in many products, and their potential impacts on vulnerable populations and https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/pfas-pollution-widespread-disadvantaged-communities (environmental justice).   Dr. Reade also describes her work developing a https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/big-reveal-hundreds-health-studies-next-gen-pfas (groundbreaking database) of scientific studies on the health effects of PFAS; and reflects on her role as a https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/scientific-basis-managing-pfas-chemical-class (scientist advocating for public health protections) from toxic chemicals. To learn more about PFAS, listen to our Episode 5 interview with Sharon Lerner, Investigative Reporter for The Intercept and read her series https://theintercept.com/series/the-teflon-toxin/ (The Teflon Toxin).

In this episode, I interview Dr. Anna Reade, PFAS scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In Part 1 of this two-part interview, we discuss her participation on a panel with several chemical industry representatives and the flawed and misleading arguments they made to oppose regulating PFAS chemicals as a class. Dr. Reade discusses her family and growing up in a small town near Death Valley, her educational path, including a long break before graduate school and a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the University of California, San Francisco. She explains how and why she was drawn to advocacy for environmental health and joining NRDC as a PFAS scientist. She then covers some of the basic issues and concerns with PFAS (more in Part 2). Some of Dr. Reade's work can be found here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/pfas-pollution-widespread-disadvantaged-communities and here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/big-reveal-hundreds-health-studies-next-gen-pfas and here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/scientific-basis-managing-pfas-chemical-class During the interview, we briefly discuss a chart which can be found on page 8 (page 11 of the pdf) of this report: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/pfas-textile-report-202105.pdf

For this episode, I spoke with Jacqueline Warren, who worked as an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1973 to 1991. She was one of the leading toxics advocates in Washington DC when most of the major federal toxics laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund and the Toxic Substances Control Act, were enacted. During her years at EDF and NRDC, Jackie was involved in the development, implementation and enforcement of laws related to drinking water, pesticides and toxic chemicals in products. She was a triple threat to the chemical industry, working to pass strong legislation, pressing EPA to adopt protective health standards, and litigating against EPA and the industry when they failed to follow the law.  Among her many accomplishments was a successful lawsuit overturning EPA's attempt to exempt most uses of toxic PCBs from a ban enacted by Congress, and halting the use of several widely used pesticides that were dangerous to public health. Our conversation traced the path which led to her starting a career in environmental law, looked at some of the key areas of her work, and discussed what it takes to win meaningful protections from toxic chemicals. One technical note, there were some connectivity problems during our interview that had an occasional minor effect on the audio quality of the recording. https://www.c-span.org/video/?4543-1/toxic-substance-control-act (Here is a clip) of Jackie testifying at a hearing on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1988, in which she discusses PCBs, asbestos, and the need for more toxicity testing of chemicals, and a more protective health standard in the law, starting at 21:53 on the recording. You can read a recent story by Pro Publica on the ongoing health risks posed by PCBs https://www.propublica.org/article/toxic-pcbs-festered-at-this-public-school-for-eight-years-as-students-and-teachers-grew-sicker (here). For ongoing issues with inadequate regulation of pesticides by the EPA, you can read an article by recent Toxic Avengers guest Sharon Lerner https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/ (here).

For this episode, I spoke with Sharon Lerner, investigative reporter for https://theintercept.com/environment/ (The Intercept), whose groundbreaking work has included in-depth writing on a host of chemical-related issues including https://theintercept.com/series/the-teflon-toxin/ (PFAS), https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/ (pesticides), https://theintercept.com/2020/04/19/africa-plastic-waste-kenya-ethiopia/ (plastic waste), and https://theintercept.com/2019/12/18/formosa-plastics-louisiana-slave-burial-ground/ (environmental justice). We began our conversation discussing her https://theintercept.com/2021/12/22/epa-whistleblowers-carcinogen-paint-solvent/ (recent stories) on systemic problems within the Environmental Protection Agency's  Toxics office, including career managers overriding the findings of agency scientists that chemicals under review pose a health risk to the public.  We then traced the path of her career, work methods, and areas of interest, that have led to becoming perhaps the most important environmental journalist in the country.

For the past three decades, Jose Bravo has spent his life working to improve the health and lives of communities across the country and around the world, using every available tool of advocacy including door-to-door education, building diverse coalitions, corporate-focused consumer campaigns, negotiation, litigation and direct action.  He currently serves as the Executive Director of the http://jtalliance.org/ (Just Transition Alliance), and National Coordinator of the https://comingcleaninc.org/projects/chs (Campaign for Healthier Solutions). I spoke with Jose in August. During our conversation, we discussed the work of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions to compel Dollar stores to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in their products and provide customers with healthier locally grown food options in intentionally food-deprived areas; as well as the genesis and early campaigns of the Just Transition Alliance.  Jose also talked about the lives of his parents as farmworkers, his childhood growing up in and around San Diego, and his early years of student activism and organizing including countering the anti-immigration forces in the 1980s. This work led to his joining the https://www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/ (Environmental Health Coalition) and working on their https://www.environmentalhealth.org/index.php/en/what-we-do/toxic-free-neighborhoods (Toxic Free Neighborhoods) project in Barrio Logan including the campaign to stop the pollution of surrounding areas with methyl bromide from the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.  Jose also attended the https://www.ucc.org/30th-anniversary-the-first-national-people-of-color-environmental-leadership-summit/ (First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit) in Washington DC in October 1991. Jose describes the life cycle of chemicals from production, to use and disposal – all of which contribute to pollution and health impacts in overburdened communities; and the ways that non-pollution factors including lack of health care, inadequate housing, and police brutality contribute to environmental injustice.  In the course of our conversation, Jose referenced two of his friends and colleagues, Lhttps://crpe-ej.org/donate-main/lukes-legacy (uke Cole), co-founder of the https://crpe-ej.org/ (Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment), and https://grist.org/fix/cecil-corbin-mark-legacy-we-act-environmental-justice/ (Cecil Corbin-Mark), Deputy Director of https://www.weact.org/ (WE ACT), both tremendously important environmental justice leaders.

Throughout his career of teaching, writing and organizing, Ken Geiser has been one of the most important theoreticians of the Toxics movement, as well as a Johnny Appleseed, having a hand in the creation, development and sustenance of more than two dozen organizations, while mentoring many other Toxic Avengers. Among many accomplishments, Ken was one of the authors of the landmark Toxics Use Reduction Act in Massachusetts. Ken served as the Director of the https://www.turi.org/ (Toxics Use Reduction Institute) from 1990 to 2003 and in 2001 published his first book, “https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/materials-matter (Materials Matter),” while teaching as a professor of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. I spoke with Ken from his farmhouse in Maine. In the interview, Ken offers a couple of stage-setting stories about his childhood in Scottsdale, Arizona and early experiences as an undergrad studying architecture at U.C. Berkeley. He describes the parallel paths of his graduate studies at MIT and his work organizing to protect neighborhoods from highway projects and waste dumps, to the creation of the National Toxics Campaign with John O'Connor. Key events discussed in Ken's evolution of understanding and engagement in the Toxics movement include the contaminated drinking water in Woburn, Massachusetts, the fight over a PCB dump in Warren County, North Carolina, and the death of thousands caused by the gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. Ken describes the process leading to the passage of the Toxics Use Reduction Act in 1989, and his work following the law's enactment, including his leadership of the Toxic Use Reduction Institute (TURI). He recounts some of his extensive work with colleagues and allies across the country, building organizations to tackle various aspects of the Toxic Chemicals problem.

In the first episode of the Toxic Avengers podcast, we interview Lois Gibbs, who led the successful fight for community relocation from the poisoned neighborhood of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York. For the past 40 years, she has been the Director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, helping communities facing similar threats to their health from toxic chemicals. www.https://chej.org/ The interview, taped in February, begins discussing Lois' sabbatical and how she separates her work and non-work lives. We discuss how the pandemic has affected CHEJ's advocacy. Lois outlines two of CHEJ's current projects for ensuring protection for communities overburdened with pollution, and discusses the different perspectives of national environmental groups and local community organizers. She also provides insight into how CHEJ helps individual communities organize their opposition to toxic threats including incinerators, oil refineries and chemical plants, and the creative process that CHEJ's interns use to develop new policies and strategies.

Dr. Linda Birnbaum is a "rock star" in the world of environmental health, a groundbreaking scientist who has devoted her career to studying the potential health impacts of toxic chemicals. We learn about Dr. Birnbaum's interest in science and notable accomplishments beginning at an early age, and trace her path of education and early career. Dr. Birnbaum narrates her 40-year career as a leading scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Toxicology Program, and Environmental Protection Agency, culminating in her serving as Director of NIEHS and the NTP. She discusses her work studying classes of chemicals including PCBs, dioxins, brominated flame retardants and PFAS.

Welcome to Episode 0 of the Toxic Avengers podcast. For this introductory episode I discuss the problem of our continuous exposure to toxic chemicals, in our air, our water, our food, in all kinds of consumer products, at home and in the workplace. I describe the purpose and format of the podcast, interviewing people who work to attain health protections, nationally, in the states, and in local communities. We will learn about their lives -- how they came to their work -- and what it is that keeps them committed to pursuing the goals of environmental health and justice. Learning about each of our guests will provide listeners with a greater understanding and awareness of how and where exposure to toxic chemicals occurs, their potential health effects, and the many ways that the system could protect us, but frequently fails to do so. What people hear and learn from the podcast, may inspire them to get involved, joining the league of Toxic Avengers working to make a better, safer, healthier world.