Year: 2020

The Consumers Association of Penang, (CAP) calls on the Ministry of Health to strictly enforce the Poisons Act 1952 as controlled poisons were found to be added to food. Recently the Health Ministry found 21 food products such as health drinks, candies and premix coffee to contain controlled poisons, such as sildenafil, tadalafil, dexamethasone and prednisolone. Sildenafil is the active agent in...

One department store in Japan use smells proven to induce a sense of dread in their complaints department. Intimidated through scent, an irate customer is more likely to accept the complaint officer’s explanations and leave the store without a refund! Marketers have spent millions of dollars on “AROMACOLOGY”, the study of how smell affects behaviour. As a result, some shopping places now...

Why do checkout counter displays always sell sweets, chocolates, candies and other unhealthy snacks? And often at the eye level of kids? A UK government-funded study showed that 76% fewer purchases of sweets and candies were bought from supermarkets that do not stock them at checkouts than at those that do. The checkout displays tempt kids to put these items into the shopping carts when the...

Thony Dizon, EcoWaste Coalition’s (EWC) Chemical Safety Campaigner, talked about EWC’s work against the many risks of mercury in skin whitening cosmetics that are widely sold in Asia. In the Philippines, skin whitening or bleaching is a big business, and is especially popular among women and girls. However, mercury can directly affect women’s health, especially those of child bearing age....

  PAMELA MILLER, IPEN Co-chair and Co-chair of the IPEN Women’s Caucus, discusses how citizen science plays a huge role in women’s health and health policies. Pamela shared the results of a small study by Commonweal and IPEN participating organizations that investigated levels of certain persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in women’s breast milk. The study found that samples from...

Day 2 of the conference (11 Nov 2020) focused on gender, with 43 participants from 11 countries coming together to share their thoughts on how to better achieve gender equality using citizen science approaches to environmental problems. The highly experienced campaigners on our panel shared moving stories of women’s struggles and victories though on-the-ground campaigns in their respective...