Whether you are a parent, teacher, health care provider, or a concerned citizen, there are things you can do right now. Reducing exposures to pesticides, lead, mercury, dioxin and other toxics covered by this report can start at home, but we can’t stop there. We need to push for government action, and require businesses to adopt clean production practices using materials with proven safety. .

Learn More – Visit on the web to find resources that will help you learn more about toxics and their health impacts, and about what people are doing to prevent harm through all kinds of action. You can download or order a copy of In Harm’s Way, locate more information and materials, connect to others, and join campaigns to reduce and prevent toxic pollution.

Get Involved - Reach out to national, state and local organizations working to change government policy and corporate decision-making (see checklists for Governments and Industry). Become a member or volunteer. However you choose to become involved, your voice is needed and your involvement will make a difference. The changes we need to protect our children will happen because you help make them happen. With only a little time, you can:

1. Write, call or email your representatives
2. Spread the word, inform others
3. Attend a hearing or meeting on pollution prevention
4. Vote based on pollution prevention priorities

Only when candidates and our elected representatives hear from you that pollution prevention and health protection are important to you will they start getting serious about working for solutions. Ask them what they are doing to support changes like those on our "checklist for government and industry." Find more information you can use to help you get started at our special web site, www.preventingharm.org.

Protect Yourself and Family - In Harm’s Way shows that reducing toxic exposures is vitally important, not just for pregnant women and children, but for all of us. Changing what we eat, buy and use can help protect our health and create a demand for cleaner, safer products. Here are just a few examples:

• Don’t use pesticides in your home, lawn or garden, or on people or pets. Then work to reduce pesticide use in schools, parks and wherever we work and play.

• Check your home for lead (pre-1978 paint, soil around older homes), and have your child tested for lead. Run your tap for 2 minutes each morning to reduce lead from solder in plumbing joints and fixtures.

• Avoid solvents in dry cleaning and household cleaning products, paints and cosmetics (read labels!). In most cases, non-toxic alternatives are readily available.

• Buy and eat certified organic foods, which are grown without harmful chemical pesticides.

• Avoid animal fats and eat "lower on the food chain" (fewer animal products, more plant-based foods).

• Avoid fish from polluted coastal waters, bottom feeders, or predator fish like tuna, swordfish and shark that are high in mercury and other toxics. Check with your state about whether freshwater fish may also be contaminated where you live.

• Recycle and compost wastes, and "buy recycled" to reduce a major and growing source of toxics – the trash sent to polluting landfills and incinerators.

Checklist for Health Care Providers

• Familiarize yourself with the health effects of harmful chemicals commonly present in consumer products or in your community, and how patients can avoid exposures.

• Learn how to take an environmental history to assess patients’ potential toxic exposures.

• Advise patients about special toxic exposure vulnerabilities of concern for pregnant women, women of childbearing age, nursing mothers, and parents of infants and young children, and make information available on self-protective and community actions we can take (see the Preventing Harm web site at www.preventingharm.org).

• Make sure that your practice and affiliated medical facilities are reducing their own contributions to toxic pollution by eliminating unnecessary medical waste production and by reducing and recycling other wastes.

• Become a leader on these issues in your community and in your professional associations. Join with and enlist others in advocating for changes in government policies and business practices that cause unnecessary toxic exposures and harm patients’ health.

Protecting our children from preventable and potentially harmful toxic exposures requires a precautionary policy that can only occur with basic changes in the regulatory process. There must be fundamental reform to:

• Set standards that protect everyone in our society, especially children at their most vulnerable stages of development.

• Create and enforce health-based standards for chemical manufacture and use, including pesticides, with neuro-developmental toxicity testing for all chemicals prior to manufacturing.

• Support right to know labeling about toxics in consumer products and create national guidelines for non-toxic product labeling.

• Institute and enforce health-based standards for safe fish consumption; provide fish advisories and widely distribute to most vulnerable populations.

• Adopt least-toxic pest control policies for schools and other public places.

• Limit the role of special interests in shaping public health and environmental policies.

• Become innovators in preventing harm, using technologies and processes that do not pollute.

• Stop undermining our legislative and regulatory systems with disinformation campaigns, selective funding of research, campaign contributions, and lobbying for policies that place corporate profits ahead of clean, safe air and water and toxic-free food for our children and families.

• Phase out the most toxic and harmful chemicals and processes, and support workers and communities impacted by transitions to a cleaner economy.

• Recognize our right to know about toxics in products by providing clear and complete toxics labeling on all products, and by responding to consumers’ information requests.