The latest from EWG’s staff of experts

Oh no! According to Forbes, McDonald’s marketing chief Bill Lamar may be resigning soon amidst the “dubious call of putting toy Hummer replicas in Happy Meals.”

Key Issues: 

Food

Mercury is believed to attract love, luck or riches and can protect against evil. It is also known to cause permanent damage to developing children's brains and have numerous harmful effects on the nervous system of adults.

Key Issues: 

Mercury

After more than 5 days--and critical posts on TreeHugger, AdWeek, Fast Company, Emergence Marketing, Church of the Customer blog, AutoBlogGreen, TriplePundit, CityHippy, BlogHer and Viral Garden--McDonald’s is unable to ignore the buzz calling into question the authenticity of its corporate blog. Last night, VP Bob Langert began allowing comments, but has yet to respond to any of them. Langert still needs to respond to live up to his blog’s name, “Open for Discussion.”

Key Issues: 

Conservation

Now that McDonald’s Hummer happy meal promo is officially over and the marketing experts who conceived it are out looking for new jobs, their successors should be hard at work searching for a toy that isn’t such a PR nightmare. The answer seems pretty obvious to Nick from TriplePundit and Al from CityHippy--Hybrid Cars.

Key Issues: 

Food

Safety of Mercury in Fillings Debated: The FDA wants to know if a government report reasonably concludes that silver dental fillings aren't dangerous even though they expose patients to toxic mercury. Exposure to high levels of environmental pollutants called organohalogen compounds (OHCs), could impact the size of sexual organs in animals and probably humans, say scientists.

Key Issues: 

Mercury

From a press release issued on Labor Day by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER): "WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Bush administration has declared itself immune from whistleblower protections for federal workers under the Clean Water Act, according to legal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result of an opinion issued by a unit within the Office of the Attorney General, federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures."

Key Issues: 

Chemical Policy (TSCA)

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Food and Drug Administration is bargaining with the pharmaceutical industry for an increase in fees used for reviewing new drug applications-- a move experts say will give the industry a greater role in shaping the priorities of its regulator. "There is no doubt that user fees give the industry leverage on setting the agency's priorities, because of the negotiating process," says Dr. Kessler, former head of the FDA, and now dean of the medical school at the University of California, San Francisco.

Key Issues: 

Chemical Policy (TSCA)

Pulitzer-prize winning biologist E.O. Wilson is working to unite religious Creationists and secular believers of evolution theory around a shared commitment to environmental conservation. "There are two world views in conflict -- religious and secular -- but yet they can meet in friendship on one of the most important issues of this century," he said.
Amen, prof! [Link]

Key Issues: 

Conservation

A study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that drinking three to four cups of tea per day can reduce one’s chances of having a heart attack, and possibly help protect against some cancers. The study’s author, Carrie Ruxton of Kings College London, challenges the common perception of tea as dehydrating, insisting that tea rehydrates just as well as water does:

Key Issues: 

Food

Water