Baby, Daughter, Hispanic Father in Cerebral, Environmentally-Friendly Bonding in a California Suburb Spotlights why new laws on PFAs are key to nation’s health and why we must now worry about Unreal Birds and global tensions from despicable Political Vendetta
DIXON, CA — Ben Edokpayi ©
On a recent Thursday in Dixon, California DHS (Dixon High School) graduate Armando Diaz and his 8-month-old son Armando Jnr. were a pleasant sight at the expansive courtyard of the Dixon Chamber of Commerce as he read from his Bible to his toddler on a stroller purchased from Target.
With the somnolent sounds of Weather Report’s Black Market and Birdland from a walker nearby and off an Amtrak Train Headed towards Fairfield on the day after Gabby Williams was the headlines from the Paris Olympics with a gold medal in the 200 meters, the Construction worker and his Son soaked in the Sun on a day when temperatures crested at 91 degrees.
“My wife Gabby is at work and my seven-year-old daughter at school. This is just a nice way for me and my son to bond,” said the Dixonite. “I use this time for bible lessons and I read to my son because I want him to grow up with a good Christian foundation.”
The sight of a solo father with a baby in a stroller rekindled memories of our travel through Paris on a day in 1995 when a rail strike forced my family to spend two unplanned days at a hotel near the Charles De Gaulle Airport.
Because of the commotion from a City under an unplanned lockdown I and the ex waited excruciatingly in the cold weather at the Paris Airport with my son in a stroller before Air France secured a Bus to take us to the nearby Hilton. They graciously provided toys which kept Son busy with Air France Toys on a Nap Mat provided by the Hotel.
Interestingly, nearly two decades after that Paris trip, Nap Mats and Strollers sold in California became the first Green Chemistry law passed under DTSC (Department of Toxic Substances Control) Cal Safer and Safer Consumer Protection Environmental Protection Initiatives. The (SCP) Regulations establishes a science-based process to identify specific products that contain potentially harmful chemicals and to evaluate potential safer alternatives, while the CalSafer data management system maintained by (DTSC) operates as the information center for the regulatory activities of the Safer Consumer Products Program (SCP).
It became law in 2017 and covers polyurethane foam-padded sleeping
products, including:
• Strollers
*Nap mats and cots
• Sleep positioners
• Travel beds
• Bassinet foam
• Portable crib mattresses
• Playpens
Approximately 75 companies make or sell children’s foam-padded sleeping
products in California. Children’s foam padded sleeping products containing
TDCPP or TCEP is the first Priority Product to be regulated under California’s
SCP Law.
In an interview with this reporter former DTSC Director Barbara Lee said “California’s green chemistry law emphasizes the benefits of product reformulation and the promise of DTSC’s Safer Consumer Products Program for a healthier future for Californians.”
Lee is now the Director of Climate Action and Resiliency for Sonoma County.
After the law was approved The Juvenile Products Manufacturing Association
applauded the DTSC action. “Our manufacturers have a long history of working
with regulators and legislators to ensure only the safest products are available for
the consumer. The state of California has worked to enact common sense
regulations for flame retardants. We share the same,” said Mark Fellin, the
associations’ Director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs in a statement shared
with this reporter.
Armando, who had a striking resemblance to a similarly named Hispanic man who in 2007 sowed the sod for our lawn and bricks from Basalite for our home on 2018 Pine Bluff Vacaville, said he and his wife checked the labels on the Target-purchased stroller to make sure they are compliant with environmental and health laws told
this reporter “It is good to know there is a government department that ensures
the safety of our toddlers, unborn children and prenatal and postnatal health of
our mothers. Imagine if this law was not enacted and consequences for pregnant
or nursing mothers.”
He said he had no links with Armando the Gardner who later told me he thought his image from the yard had been obtained from a drone.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/technology/birds-arent-real-gen-z-misinformation.html
https://observer.com/2017/03/weather-report-heavy-weather-40th-anniversary-review/
The Children’s Nap Mat Regulations are not applicable to general merchandisers of regular carpets. They are however required to meet Cal Recycle Codes. At Gillespie’s Carpet in Fairfield, the lead sales rep Casey told this reporter “We don’t dabble in nap mats for children however all the carpets we sell are compliant by State standards. In fact, they are so compliant that they are good enough to chew.” Said Casey at Gillespie Carpets in Fairfield.
On its website Cal Recycle warns that “Retailers and distributors that sell or distribute carpet to California consumers must monitor CalRecycle’s list of compliant manufacturers to determine if the sale of a manufacturer’s carpet is in compliance with the law. Sale of carpet which is noncompliant is a violation that may result in penalties of up to $10,000 per day.”
(Cal Recycle) is working with researchers at the University of California, Davis, to evaluate if PFAS ( Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a group of synthetic chemicals that have been used in consumer products and industrial processes since the 1940s) used by carpet manufacturers and products that migrate into food and soil. In the lab, researchers have been sampling a mixture of food waste, wood chips, leaves, and compostable products.
Preliminary testing has found levels as high as 2,350 parts per million of total fluorine, an element found in PFAS, Daphne Molin, a senior environmental scientist at CalRecycle , said during a seminar which this reporter attended at CalEPA-DTSC Headquarters. Ms. Molin is now the Renewable Energy Generation Supervisor at California Energy Commission. PFAs was a peripheral matter when Congressman Mike Thompson met with constituents at a 2022 meet and greet at the Dixon Chamber in 2022 that addressed concerns about the Russia-Ukraine War.
Exclusive Report: Congressman Mike Thompson, 5th District, Takes The Pulse Of The Community on Health, Gun Violence, the Russia-Ukraine Conflict and Other Important Matters
https://twitter.com/BenjaminEdokpa1/status/1516687801021960193?s=20&t=JYY24gV11w5LdFy8IOiSOw
In 2016 DTSC published a report that showed that Levels of flame retardants aka PFAs (which was addressed in Congressman Mike Thompson’s meet and greet with local stakeholders) absorbed into women’s breast milk have declined in California since a legislative ban on the chemicals took effect in 2006, according to a new study by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC).
The findings, by scientists at DTSC’s Environmental Chemistry Laboratory (ECL) in Berkeley, showed a 39 percent decline of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), common flame retardants found in many household products. Their use in California was phased out under Assembly Bill 302 authored by former Assembly member Wilma Chan in 2003, and since then a dozen other states have instituted similar bans.
Vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and children, are still routinely exposed to flame retardants. The DTSC study found that despite declining levels, all breastfed babies were exposed to PBDEs, and 30% of them were exposed to very high levels. The DTSC study used biomonitoring to assess the effectiveness of the ban in reducing PBDE levels. Biomonitoring is the measurement of chemicals (or their metabolites) in a person’s body fluids or tissues, such as blood or urine. Another recent biomonitoring study found that firefighters are also highly exposed to PBDEs.
In an interview with this reporter while he was with DTSC, Myrto Petreas, Ph.D., a Supervising Research Scientist at the ECL said “Biomonitoring is a great tool to assess how well regulatory interventions work. We first reported anomalously high levels of PBDEs more than 15 years ago and hypothesized that California’s unique flammability standard was the reason. By comparing PBDEs in breast milk collected before and after the phase out, we found a significant decline.”
To assess the ban’s effectiveness, DTSC examined levels of PBDEs in the breast milk of 66 first-time mothers recruited at the Women’s Health and Birth Center in Santa Rosa between 2009 and 2012 and compared them to levels from another group of 82 first-time mothers from a previous DTSC study conducted in 24 California communities between 2003 and 2005.
https://calsafer.dtsc.ca.gov/ https://dtsc.ca.gov/scp/ https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/about
