News Releases

Consumer Products

California News Release

Wednesday, May 2, 2001

Guns can be hazardous to your health even if you don't get shot with one, according to a new study of the harm to people and the environment from lead pollution at shooting ranges in California and nationwide.

Key Issues:

Lead

Study Documents How Shooting Ranges Poison Children; One of the Nation's Top Lead Polluters

Tuesday, May 1, 2001

The Violence Policy Center (VPC) and EWG release Poisonous Pastime: The Health Risks of Shooting Ranges and Lead to Children, Families and the Environment. The study documents how shooting ranges poisoning children and polluting the environment with lead, yet remain almost entirely unregulated-exempt from even the Bush Administration's new lead pollution reporting rules.

Key Issues:

Lead

Children’s Products

Government Seafood Consumption Advice Could Expose 1 In 4 Newborns to Elevated Mercury Levels

Friday, April 13, 2001

Government recommendations for fish consumption could expose more than one in four expectant mothers - 1 million women - to enough mercury to put the health of their fetuses at risk, according to a new computer investigation released today by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG).

Key Issues:

Mercury

EPA sharply restricts consumer use of diazinon, nation's #2 selling home and garden insecticide

Tuesday, December 5, 2000

Citing excessive risk to children, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today moved to sharply restrict consumer use of diazinon, the nation's #2 selling home and garden insecticide.

Key Issues:

Pesticides

Aerospace contractor pays Californians $1,000 to eat thyroid toxin in first large-scale human test of water pollutant

Monday, November 27, 2000

On behalf of military contractor Lockheed Martin, Loma Linda University is conducting the first large-scale tests of a toxic drinking water contaminant on human subjects -- a precedent medical researchers and Environmental Working Group condemned as morally unethical and scientifically invalid.

Key Issues:

Perchlorate

Tap Water

Lone Smog State

Wednesday, October 18, 2000

A new computer investigation by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), using data generated by Texas and other state governments, shows Texas Gov. George Bush has the worst anti-smog record in the country.

Key Issues:

Environment

Press Release

Tuesday, October 3, 2000

As farmers head to the fields to harvest corn, soybeans and other crops that they know will bring ruinously low prices at the local grain elevator, Congressional leaders are quietly arranging a pre-election infusion of farm subsidy aid, atop billions in emergency funds already added this year.

Key Issues:

Subsidies

EWG Press Release

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

The watchdog group that forced John Stossel's on-air apology for an erroneous story on organic food today asked ABC News to make good on a promise to halt circulation of tapes and transcripts of the show.

Key Issues:

News Release

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook demanded that ABC News President David Westin fire reporter John Stossel for fabricating a network-sponsored laboratory study and repeatedly broadcasting the nonexistent results in a story attacking the safety of organic food.

Key Issues:

EWG Press Release

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

The watchdog group that forced ABC News to admit it had fabricated laboratory tests for a story attacking organic food has called correspondent John's Stossel's on-air apology "an insult to the ABC News audience, the organic food industry, and to organic food consumers everywhere."

Key Issues:

USDA sides with EWG on E. coli

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

The food poisoning test that ABC News Correspondent John Stossel used to allege that organic food "could kill you" cannot definitively prove any risk of food poisoning, according to a letter issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture today.

Key Issues:

Pesticides

Truth Wins Round One: ABC Confirms Stossel's Pesticide Results don't Exist

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

After six months of stone-walling, ABC News yesterday confirmed an Environmental Working Group (EWG) allegation that the network did not conduct pesticide tests for a special "20/20" investigation by correspondent John Stossel that was harshly critical of organic food.

Key Issues:

OTA: ABC planned apology does not go far enough

Wednesday, September 6, 2000

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) today said ABC News intentions to announce a brief token apology on Friday's 20/20 falls far short of what the network must do to make amends to the organic industry.

Key Issues:

ABC Correspondent John Stossel's Attack on Organic Food Industry Exposed as a Fraud

Thursday, August 10, 2000

Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the Organic Trade Association (OTA) will release new evidence on Thursday that ABC Correspondent John Stossel knew himself months before his story ran that he lacked scientific proof when he claimed on ABC's 20/20 (2/4/00) that organic food "can kill you."

Key Issues:

Local & Sustainable

Leaking Fuel Storage Tanks Threaten Water

Monday, July 17, 2000

The state has almost never ordered cleanup or assessed fines for the thousands of underground gasoline storage tanks leaking MTBE and other toxic chemicals into California’s water and soil, even when the leaks have been known for more than 10 years, according to a study by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Key Issues:

Water

4 Contra Costa Plants Long Overdue

Thursday, June 29, 2000

Half of major industrial water polluters in California are operating with expired pollution permits, according to state and federal data analyzed by Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Friends of the Earth (FOE).

Key Issues:

Water

10 LA County Plants Long Overdue

Thursday, June 29, 2000

Key Issues: