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Is Limestone Radioactive?

Question from Stacey Santoro

Hi Debra,

I found a table made of wood with a limestone top that I love. However, I am concerned about radon/uranium levels in the limestone. Would you recommend avoiding limestone because of this?

Thanks so much!

Debra’s Answer

No, I’ve never heard of a problem with radioactivity in limestore, but if you are concerned you can test it with a geiger counter.

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Outdoor Patio Set

Question from Stacey Santoro

Hi Debra,

I am looking for an outdoor patio set and trying to purchase the safest/least toxic one.

I saw one that is made of powder coated steel at Lowe’s, and it is made in China.

I found another set that is made of wrought-iron, made in the USA, but is also almost triple the price of the steel set made at Lowe’s.

Do I need to worry about the set that is made in China?

I’m sure that the wrought iron set is a little heavier, sturdier, but in terms of toxicity/safety, would you recommend one over the other?

Thanks again!

Debra’s Answer

Powder coating is a system for applying paint to a surface using dry paint. The dry paint is in the form of a powder, which is sprayed on the surface. The two major types of powder for powder coating are thermoplastic and thermoset.

There are some toxic substances in the powder, including lead and other carcinogens. This is mostly a concern if you are applying the powder coat to the steel at home. There are many different formulas, however. One MSDS I checked contain no lead, but did contain aluminum. You’re just not going to know because the retailer probably doesn’t know and the manufacturer probably doesn’t know. They just buy “powder coat” and usually are not concerned about the toxic exposures.

It would be unlikely for you to have much, if any, exposure to these toxic substances when using a powder-coated product. It would not release these substances into the air, as they are particles bound into the paint. You may have some of these substances transfer through your skin if you touched a powder-coated item.

So I would say I do recommend one over the other. The safest without question would be the wrought iron. It would also last longer.

SOURCE: eHow: Health Hazards in the Powder Coating Process

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Organic Food From China

Why it’s important to know where your organic food comes from?

Organic food has reached the mainstream—you can even buy an organic version of Heinz Ketchup (I wouldn’t—still contains sugar)—but where is all this organic food coming from?

Some, at least, is coming from China, particularly organic food sold at low prices in big stores.

Here’s a article that outlines 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Trust “Organic” From China

In addition I would add, who wants food shipped all the way from China?

I’d rather eat organic food from my own backyard or a nearby family farm.

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Interior Design: Healthy, Colorful and Fun

rowena-fineganToday my guest is Rowena Finegan, BBEC, Managing Partner and Interior Designer of Pine Street Natural Interiors in Sausalito, California. She says: “Our mission has always been to provide a next wave of green furniture and design, one that combines social responsibility and healthy habits with color and texture and, well, fun.” The idea for this particular combination hatched years ago as Ms. Finegan visited various countries all over the globe, where she developed her design sense, which is especially influenced by African and European pattern and style. Emigrating from Brighton, England when she was in her early thirties, she started her business life in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She built a tiny shop handling ski clothing alterations into a very successful interior design concern that handled high end clients and hotels in the area. Not satisfied with the essence of her work, she eventually sold her business and enrolled with the Institute for Bau Biologie and Ecology, which promotes the use of healthy building principles in homes and also teaches its students how to identify elements in the home that might be dangerous, such as mold and volatile organic compounds released from such materials as carpet and plastics. Ms. Finegan earned a certification as a Building Biology Environmental Consultant (BBEC). For the past ten years, Ms. Finegan has been using the principles of Bau-biology in her work, specializing in Healthy Home Interior Design. In 2004, Ms. Finegan collaborated with Cisco Pinedo, owner of Cisco Brothers, a furniture manufacturing company in Los Angeles, to create a sustainable, fully upholstered furniture line, utilizing natural, non-toxic and sustainable materials. www.pinestreetinteriors.com

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transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Interior design: Healthy, Colorful and Fun

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Rowena Finegan, BBEC

Date of Broadcast: July 23, 2015

DEBRA: Hi! I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. It is Thursday, July 23rd, 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida, as usual, beautiful, sunny Clearwater, Florida except today, I think the clouds are coming in. I think we’re going to have a thunderstorm, but we’ll see. I think we’re going to be fine.

Today, we’re going to be talking about interior design, all the types of things that are go into interior design. Yesterday, we had a great show about furniture, wood furniture. But today, we’re going to talk about paint, carpets, curtains, everything that goes into a home

My guest has her own – she’s been doing interior design for a number of years, she’ll tell us.

Anyway, she’s the managing partner and interior designer at Pine Street Natural Interiors in Sausalito, California. Her name is Rowena Finegan and she is a certified Bau-biologist. That’s the German word for ‘building biology’. So we’re going to learn about that too and how she applies her knowledge as a building biologist to interior design. Hi, Rowena!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Good morning, Debra! Thank you so much for having me on the show!

DEBRA: Thank you for being here!

ROWENA FINEGAN: It was a great introduction. While I was waiting to come on the show, the music, the various products that you’re talking about, I’ve learned a few things while I’ve been waiting.

DEBRA: Oh, good! I should say that I’ve known Rowena for many years. How many years have we known each other?

ROWENA FINEGAN: Well, must be 10 or 12 years, since the beginning of the green movement when we all got started.

DEBRA: Yes! Yes! It’s been quite a while. Well, I think it’s more than 15 actually because…

ROWENA FINEGAN: Really?

DEBRA: Really, because I’ve been living here in Florida for 14 years and we met when I was living in California.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Oh, that’s interesting! That’s amazing! Well, time flies when you’re working at [inaudible 00:03:16]?

DEBRA: So, tell us your story about how you got interested in interior design and what made you make it be non-toxic?

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes! Well, probably, it all started when I moved to this country in, let’s see, in 1982. I have always been very interested in sewing. As a little girl, I started sewing at about seven years old and the school I went to (I went to boarding school) we had to complete garments. They had very high standards.

And so, I went into fashion design. That is where I started. I learned all about mass production and couture. So, I learned how to finish of an inside of an item as well as the outside. It was very important to me. And also, I learned with mass production how to move quickly, so that you could get things done at a sensible pace.

And then, I moved to this country. Because I wasn’t supposed to be working at all, because of immigration laws and all that sort of thing (I was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and I was working in the ski area in one of ski stores), I noticed that people were buying this beautiful and really expensive ski suits and it didn’t fit properly. So, I offered my services as the alterations person.

Every night, I would collect these little bags of suits and this and that that needed to be altered. I’d take them home. I’d work on under my green visor in the corner while everyone else is having fun.

Then that moved into going around all the stores in the village, in the town of Jackson. And then, it turned into the hotels. And then, I found myself wok with a work room. I moved out of my home for work and I had a work room. That led from one thing to another, people wanting help with their homes. They liked what I did. And then I had a fabric store as well because I realized the fabric stores weren’t very good in this country.

And then, we moved and everyone started buying decorative fabrics, which means indoor fabric for the home.

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: I offered those and it just went from strength to strength. I ended up having a small design showroom in Jackson Hole which became very, very busy, so busy, it was very, very stressful. It got to a point of where it became difficult. I felt there wasn’t a real purpose to what I was doing. It was just flat out pleasing people and doing a great job, but it wasn’t good enough. So, I sold the business and moved to Bozeman, Montana.

While I was in Bozeman, for once, I was sitting around and not doing too much. I was reading a magazine. And on the back of the magazine, there was a little advertisement for Bau-biology. So, I made the mistake of calling them and Helmut Ziehe who I’ve sure you’ve met…

DEBRA: You made the mistake of calling them.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, because he wouldn’t let me go. Once I called, he’d be on the phone calling me back and saying, “Okay. When are you going to start?”

DEBRA: Wait! I need to tell you! I need to tell you a story about Helmut Ziehe. I met him even earlier than I met you, maybe 25 years ago.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Really? Yes.

DEBRA: Early, like when he first came here and was first doing Bau-biology in California. I met him at a trade show or something. And then, fast forward until, let’s see, probably – see, I’ve moved here 14 years ago. Probably 13 years ago, I was in a grocery store here in Florida. We hadn’t met, we hadn’t talked, anything, we had that one meeting way all those years ago.

Now, I was I a grocery store and I was reaching for a carton of eggs. Helmut Ziehe was reaching for the same carton of eggs. We stepped back and looked at each other and he said, “Debra!”

ROWENA FINEGAN: That’s amazing!

DEBRA: Yeah!

ROWENA FINEGAN: That’s amazing and that was that before his stroke?

DEBRA: Yes. Yes.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes. Yes. Yes.

DEBRA: And from then, he and Susana and I and my husband, we just started having dinner and we became great friends and I got to spend a lot of time with him…

ROWENA FINEGAN: Oh, lovely! Yeah. Great person, great person!

DEBRA: …while he was still with us. Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: That was lovely! Well, anyway, he talked me into it. So, that’s when I did my correspondence course which, you know, you’re a Bau-biologist, don’t you?

DEBRA: I’m not certified, but I’ve studied a lot of it.

ROWENA FINEGAN: No? Yes. So, what you have to do, you have to do three seminars.

So, for my final seminar, my final exam, you were asked to do a presentation. So, at the house we were living in Bozeman was an old Victorian that had been moved from the city of Bozeman up to the farmland. That’s where we had it. It has been renovated a lot.

So you have to map the stray electromagnetic fields in the molding and all that sort of thing. And then, I hadn’t been sleeping well. I just didn’t sleep well in that bedroom for some reason. It had the usual – you know how behind the bed, you have the usual two electric outlets (which don’t make sense at all, but they were there). And then, there was a – what do you call it? – a heating duct that went along to the top left corner of where I was sleeping, along the ceiling. And then, there was a center light fixture.

And when I tested the door lift with my instrument, I found that stray electromagnetic fields were raining down on where I sleep, on my side of the bed.

People probably don’t know, these are floating around in the air if the electricals haven’t been installed properly. And we had the old open, tube wiring. And so, this was all in the upstairs. So, this was raining down on me, disrupting my sleep because what happens is stray electromagnetic fields will find the shortest route to the ground. So, they’ll go through your body and they’ll disrupt your own electromagnetic levels.

DEBRA: Yes. Yes.

ROWENA FINEGAN: So, I did that. I did the presentation. I was so absolutely taken by what I’ve learned in my course and the type of people I found myself working alongside, very generous, spirited people, very kindhearted…

DEBRA: I need to interrupt you for a second. I need to interrupt you, I’m sorry because I’m listening too and I am not watching the clock.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Oh!

DEBRA: We need to go on a break because otherwise, the commercials going to start playing right on top of all your words and I do not want to miss anything.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Okay!

DEBRA: So, you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Rowena Finegan, Bau-biologist, managing partner and interior designer of Pines Street Natural Interiors in Sausalito, California. Her website is PineStreetInteriors.com and we’ll learn more about Rowena when we come back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Rowena Finegan, she’s Bau-biologist and interior designer. She’s at Pines Street Natural Interiors in Sausalito, California, PineStreetInteriors.com. Okay, so, go on with your story.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Okay, well, let me finish the story. So, because I was so enthralled by everything I’ve learned, I decided, I realized, I got one of those resounding messages that I needed to go back to interior design using my bauobiologie expertise, I suppose, by that time and help people create healthy homes. It became a very important thing to me to show people that you can have a healthy home using healthy materials and it doesn’t have to be beige. So, the whole idea…

DEBRA: Yeah! That’s the thing! That it doesn’t all have to be beige because people think that if it’s natural and healthy and organic, it’s all beige.

ROWENA FINEGAN: It’s all beige and earthy and we’re all growing gardens in our rooms!

DEBRA: But it isn’t!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Which of course is great! So, I decided to go back and I started again, doing this. But I decided what I wanted to do is to create a store. So, I created Eco-Terric. I don’t know if you remember that name…

DEBRA: I do!

ROWENA FINEGAN: …which of course comes from esoteric, that’s the whole idea. Because I think what we wanted to talk about now of what chemicals are in furniture and the types of things that I sell and how I proposed to do something about it.

DEBRA: Yes, yes. Let’s go on and talk about that because you know a lot about what the toxic chemicals are because you’ve looked at that in furniture and you’re finding the safer alternatives. You do exactly what I do except you do it specifically in interior design.

And I want to say, aren’t you the only interior designer who is also a Bau-biologist? Because most people who study Bau-biology, don’t they go into structure of the home more than they go to the interior design materials.

ROWENA FINEGAN: You know, I don’t know! But I do know that ever since we started this, we get calls from all over the country from people who are really frustrated that they can’t find this type of help.

I know that aren’t many of us. Maybe I am the only one. And it’s funny because in the institute, I’ve always said, “You’re forgetting the word ‘interior design’. You talk about architects from these builders, but you forget about designers.” Now, what about Cal Tenant? Maybe, they…

Well, anyway. I decided I wanted to open a little store called Eco-Terric where people could come and pick up the stuff and look at it and buy them, so they could find out for themselves it’s great! And people would come to the store and they would have a feeling (well, they still do). They’ll make a comment about the calmness of the space.

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: That’s because it’s devoid of all the electrical fields, the toxins and all that. So, I’ll just describe, shall I?

DEBRA: Yeah. 

ROWENA FINEGAN: I’ll run down what we sell and what’s wrong with it and how we’ve done something about it and what we tend to be able to offer.

The main thing of course is furniture. People now are learning more about furniture especially in California. The flame retardants are being phased out in California. These are very, very bad, very full of chemicals and they are being phased out.

The trouble is a lot of the furniture comes from overseas. And for the rest of the country, the standards aren’t the same. A lot of the furniture that comes from overseas still has flame retardants in it. Not only are we worried about flame retardants, what I find happening is people call me and say, “Oh, do you sell furniture without flame retardants?” and I say, “Yes.” But I say, “That’s only the beginning. That’s the tip of the iceberg.”

People aren’t understanding that they are many other chemicals in furniture that aren’t to do with flame retardants.

DEBRA: Thank you! I’m so glad that you said that. I just want to say that this is not limited to furniture. That companies will put on a label like it’s BPA-free. They just focus on one aspect, one thing. And then, people think that the whole thing is fine when actually, it isn’t. There’s probably a dozen, at least, other chemicals in there that you need to be concerned about.

It’s very unusual for people to be looking at the whole thing like you are and like I do, the whole product and evaluating the whole product and all the chemicals and not just one that’s being used for advertising.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yeah.

DEBRA: I just want to take a minute to discuss this because in California, this very interesting thing is happening where the law has been changed and they changed the way they evaluate the flammability requirements. So then, now people say, “Well, there’s no flame retardants.” So, we have things and places where you can replace your flame retardant foam with non-flame retardant foam, but it is still polyurethane foam!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Exactly! Exactly!

DEBRA: And they don’t understand this!

ROWENA FINEGAN: No and this is such a big thing that’s why I’m so grateful to you for inviting me on the show and knowing that you have a lot of knowledge in the field as well. It’s so frustrating!

A lot of my customers are young parents with very young children or they are expecting their first child and they want to do the best thing and they say, “Oh, but that’s okay! I can go to such and such and buy my sofa. There are no flame retardants, so that’s okay!” And I’ll say, “No, it’s not!”

As you say, polyurethane foam is still full of toxic chemicals which evaporate. They become VOC, volatile organic compounds. They collect in the dust and pollute the air. They act as a chemical soup in the indoor environment from all the other offgasing that’s going on. The glues on finishes that they use are normally toxic and they cause severe reactions in sensitive people and animals. The dyes and finishes on the fabric, they contain pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers when they’re being grown. It’s terrible! Chlorine, bleach, is toxic to us…

DEBRA: And I need to interrupt you again for the break, but I want to just add to this list that people are so concerned about fire retardants, but they are not talking about stain repellent finishes, which evaporate formaldehyde. We need to looking at all of these things. Please, please do not think that a sofa or a bed or a chair or anything that advertises “no flame retardant” is safe because it’s not. It’s just not. But we’ll talk more about this when we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Rowena Finegan, she’s at PineStreetInteriors.com and we’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Rowena Finegan.
Rowena, I want to make sure that I correct something that I said right before the break. I was trying to talk fast. I said that if sofas are advertised as being no fire retardants that you shouldn’t buy them. But here’s the caveat about this. Of course, you could advertise as no fire retardants because they have no fire retardants and yours would be perfectly wonderful because you have considered all the other toxic chemicals and have been using all the safest material you could possibly find. I know this because I know you.

So, listeners, if you want to buy a sofa, it says no fire retardants, what you need to do is to look at the rest of the product. No fire retardants doesn’t mean it is safe through and through.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yeah.

DEBRA: You need to look at the rest of the sofa and evaluate the rest of the materials and see what the toxic chemicals are or you could just like go to Rowena and she’ll give one that’s correct.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes! If you are in a store and you’re looking at furniture and you ask the sales staff whether the furniture is non-toxic, apart from the fire retardant, what about the rest of it? If they look at you blankly, that means you should walk away.

DEBRA: I agree.

ROWENA FINEGAN: That means they don’t know what you’re talking about and they don’t really care. I’m sorry to say it but – excuse me, I’m so sorry. Quick glass of water.

DEBRA: Okay, I’ll say something while you’re, so we don’t have dead air here. You ready? Okay.

ROWENA FINEGAN: So, as I said, if you get a blank stare, it means they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s almost safe to say (and I hate to have to say this and I hope it’s going to change as the years go by), it’s almost safe to say that if you go into a conventional store, you will find conventional materials.

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: People who sells healthy furniture are going to make it loud and clear. They’re going to tell you. They’re going to make sure that you know that what they’re selling is what you’re looking for. So, do know that if it looks alright, if it seems to smell alright to you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ okay at all.

DEBRA: Now, I totally agree with you because this is what I found. I’ve been looking for toxic-free materials and products for over 30 years and I can say, without a doubt that people who are actually producing these products are telling you.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes.

DEBRA: If you have to ask, it’s probably not what you’re looking for.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Exactly! I have a lot of people inquiring and they’ve been doing their research. These days, everyone can research online. They do research and they send me a long list of, “Well, I found this, I found that, blah-blah-blah” and all this.

DEBRA: I know! I get those same list, “What about this, what about that…”

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yeah!

DEBRA: I don’t mind getting those list because all I have to do is look at them for two minutes and see that it’s not…

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yeah.

DEBRA: Anybody can go to your website. I’d give it again PineStreetInteriors.com. Anyone can go to your website and tell, in the first minute, what you’re selling and that it’s toxic free and what they’re looking for.

ROWENA FINEGAN: That’s great! Thank you very much!

DEBRA: Yeah, you did a really good job!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Oh, right! I have to thank my fellow who did it for me. I think he thought it was never going to work. But anyway, we’ve done it and we’re thrilled!

Yes, you can even tell by the style of advertising. The style, the whole presentation will give you lots of clues. And luckily, for people like Debra and me, we’re so sensitive that our noses tell us when we walk into a place.

DEBRA: Mm-hmmm…

ROWENA FINEGAN: When you become sensitized, it does you a favor in sickness…

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: …because you can smell when there is something wrong, you can smell when you walk into a room. When you walk into a conventional mattress store, when I do, I’m really knocked over. I have to get out. I can’t stay in there.

So, that leads us to beds and beddings as well. You have to be very careful with what you’re surrounding yourself when you’re sleeping. You do not want to be buying sheets with a perma-press. They’ve got a finish on them that makes them. Polyester sheets, they’re full of chemicals. You’re sleeping on those things, you’re right next to it. You don’t want to be sleeping on conventional mattresses because it’s the same thing.

I hope people are not going to panic and run away with their hands in the air. It’s good to know these things and to gradually work towards improving everything in your home so that you’re healthy. Debra? Hello?

DEBRA: Pardon me. I’m here. So, let’s see what happened to Rowena.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Oh, I’m here!

DEBRA: Good, good!

ROWENA FINEGAN: I don’t know what happened.

DEBRA: Oh, it’s just a technical thing.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yeah.

DEBRA: So, in terms of changing things, it does take time. When I started, there were no stores like yours. I couldn’t just walk into a store and say, “Well, here’s the non-toxic store.” We still can’t do that today! If any investors are listening, I would love to just create a store where people can walk in and buy everything that they need and they would all be non-toxic.

ROWENA FINEGAN: That’s what I’m planning!

DEBRA: Yeah. I would love to have that exist!

ROWENA FINEGAN: I would love to be able to. Since we’re on the subject, I think it really is a need now to have – we don’t need to mention their names, but the stores where you go and buy all your furniture, towels, floor coverings, window coverings, we need those started around the country, which are all healthy. And that really is my plan, what I would love to do.

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Thank you, Debra! Let’s do it!

DEBRA: I would love to do it with you, Rowena! Okay! So now, what we need is we need an investor!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Okay!

DEBRA: Okay! So, let’s have one show up!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, that’s right!

DEBRA: So, what I want to say was that even today, most people aren’t in the position where they could just empty their houses and refill them with everything non-toxic. You just choose what it is that you’d do first and then just keep doing it and doing it.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Right.

DEBRA: There’s nothing toxic in my home, nothing toxic!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes.

DEBRA: But it was because I had the vision and the knowledge and knew where I was going. I just kept changing one thing after another after another. That’s the way the process goes.

Fortunately, you can go into a store like Rowena’s. There are few and far between, but they do exist nowadays. And when you find somebody like Rowena at Pine Street interiors, you can trust that she’s going to give you the right thing.

We need to go to break but when we come back, we’ll talk more. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Rowena Finegan from Pines Street Interiors, she’s a Bau-biologist. She’s at PineStreetInteriors.com. Go look at her website and see how beautiful it is. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Rowena Finegan, Bau-biologist. That’s a building biologist and managing partner and interior designer of Pine Street Natural Interiors in Sausalito, California, PineStreetInteriors.com.

So Rowena, we’re in the last segment. Doesn’t it go by fast?

ROWENA FINEGAN: I know! Doesn’t it?

DEBRA: Yes! So, I want to make sure that we don’t go off on tangents here. I want to make sure that our listeners know all the breath of things that you have to offer. So, tell us more about the things that you’re selling?

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, okay! Well, in order to do healthy design, healthy interior design, of course, I had to set about finding all these products that I would be able to offer to all my people. Yes, you do a whole home, you need to put all healthy everything in there.

So, the first thing I did was to approach the company that I’ve been buying furniture from the years. I love their styles and designs. I asked him if he would do an organic line with me and he agreed right away. This was about 12 years ago. So, he asked me to be the consultant. I did all the research and provided the names of the companies where he could buy the products, the healthy products to put in the furniture and he stuck to it to a T.

He has now created, between us, we created a technology called Inside Green Technology which is completely devoid of chemicals. So, you can safely buy anything from a sofa to an ottoman to a upholstered bed. The whole gamut of furniture can be bought toxic-free completely. But you have to know what you’re asking for. All the glues and finishes are water-based, VOC-free, so everything is good. So, that’s the main thing that we offer.

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: And then, of course, if you want a sleeper sofa, you don’t buy this lovely healthy furniture and then put in an nasty toxic mattress, so we offer a sleeper sofa with a certified organic sleeper sofa mattress as well.

DEBRA: Wow! I think that’s the only one I’ve ever heard of!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yeah, I don’t think they’re available.

DEBRA: Yeah.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes. So, you probably gathered that I am very fussy, I have very high standards. I am awfully chemically sensitive and it’s important to me that people know that if they come – as you say, you need to find someone you can trust. Once you trust them, you don’t have to ask the questions anymore. Everything we sell has been thoroughly backed.

So, wooden furniture is still a problem. It’s very hard to find wooden furniture that is the right price for the man in the street that doesn’t have toxic chemicals.

DEBRA: Oh! Let me introduce you to Vermont Wood Studios. The founder was on yesterday and she’s got wood furniture, solid wood, made in Vermont, hand-made, they’ll custom make anything and they’ve got non-toxic finishes.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes! I will contact them! I wish I had heard that. So, I will contact them and find out. That’s great!

DEBRA: Now, you can go back, go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and you can listen to yesterday’s show or any other show that’s been on. I have done like over 200 shows now and they’re all in the website.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Okay! Lovely! I will. I will. Thank you. Actually, I could spend all my days listening to all that.

Anyway, obviously, if you’re going to have a healthy home, you have to have a healthy furniture. Everyone wants a good carpet in their bedrooms. It’s not the best idea, but I understand it. So, if you’re going to put carpet in your bedroom, you have to be very careful. Just because its wool doesn’t mean it’s non-toxic. Wool carpet still has very nasty finishes on them, nasty backing, full of toxins. And I’m talking about conventional.

However, there are companies – there’s one in particular. May I mention his name?

DEBRA: Sure.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Because he’s so great! It’s Earth Weave was one of the originals.

DEBRA: Earth Weave, he’s been on. I’ve interviewed him on the show too!

ROWENA FINEGAN: Oh, has he? Good! He’s very, very good! Very fussy. So, we sell his carpet as a production line wool carpet and we’re very, very pleased with it. Sensible price and it’s very good.

Apart from those, we have [inaudible 00:43:48] rug companies that I’ve been [inaudible 00:43:51] who have used anything from metal, hemp, linens, silk, wool, various different companies. The only organic rod company in the world called Organic Weave, we sell those, Eco Fiber. Two good companies.

Window coverings, you have to very careful with those because if you use a conventional window blind or sun shading or black out curtain, you’re heating up chemicals, which then, come floating into your room and then, toxicate things. PVC, formaldehyde, flame-retardant, chlorine, bleach, all that is coming into your room.

So, we offer safe window coverings which are free of all those things. They have various different types. They have lovely grass shades, rich shades, black out even now.

DEBRA: Oh, good! People ask for that. People ask for that.

ROWENA FINEGAN: I know! Yes. And the best you can find in a blackout shade is by Earth Shade. We sell that product.

Many blinds he’s brought out are unfinished, uncoated recycled aluminum mini-blinds which is very well priced. We have Green Guard wood venetian blinds and shutters which you just can’t find. So, we do all that. We also of course could custom-made everything. If you can’t find want you want, we could do non-toxic, eco-friendly custom anything you like from furniture to window coverings, bed coverings, everything.

So, another important aspect of my business, to me, is education. It’s holding people’s hand and helping them learn and not to be afraid. Some people get very frightened when they hear this. And so, I feel that it’s a big part of my job to help them go through this process of changing their homes.

I tell you one major thing (and I’m sure you’ll agree with this, Debra) is to get rid of stuff. Don’t just replace it. A lot of the stuff doesn’t even need to be replaced just get rid of it.

DEBRA: Yes, yes! I think the whole idea of simplifying our lives and getting down to what is essentially needed for you as a being is so important because we just have too much stuff. I think that all goes hand and hand with reducing out toxic, just to reduce overconsumption.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, Yes.

DEBRA: I know that every few years, I just go through my house and I remove more and I remove more.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, that’s lovely! That’s great!

DEBRA: it’s beautiful! It’s wonderful! And then, if you only have a limited list of things that you need to have around you, they can be more beautiful, they can be less toxic.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Exactly!

DEBRA: And it’s not like you should buy a whole bunch of new things because your list of what you need is smaller. I’m so glad you mention that because it really is about being thoughtful about each item in your home and understanding it and knowing what’s in it and knowing that it’s safe and healthy and supportive to your body and your life and your well-being. Anything that somebody will buy from you fits that description.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, exactly. Yes. I think that’s such an important thing.

And you made another important point. However hard I try, I really tried hard to find product that are affordable. A lot of them are the same price if we’re talking apples for apples as they would be for conventional. But sometimes, they are a little more expensive. And as Debra said, the point is you don’t need it. How many pairs of sheets do you need? We have washing machines. You don’t need all these things.

DEBRA: I’ll tell you how many pairs of sheets do I have? I have probably six or eight. The reason that I do is because cotton sheets do wear out. And so, when I can buy them on sale, I buy them on sale. I always make sure that I have cotton sheets so that I never run out. I’ve probably gone through, in 30 years, probably worn out 10 sets of sheets.

ROWENA FINEGAN: Yes, yes. And if you don’t mind me just slopping in a word there, organic cotton sheets. They have to be organic.

DEBRA: Yes.

ROWENA FINEGAN: A lot of people are thrilled within themselves because they finally decided that they need to be natural. Trouble is natural isn’t necessarily good. Cotton, conventional cotton is absolutely covered with herbicides and pesticides and toxins. And so, as we said, buy what’s the word iron-free. You don’t need to iron them, non-iron. Make sure you’re buying the best you can get, but it has to be organic. Don’t go out and buy super, duper quality cotton sheets that aren’t organic because you’re still going to be surrounded by the wrong thing.

DEBRA: Well, we only have less than a minute now, 45 seconds. Is there any closing thing you’d like to say?

ROWENA FINEGAN: Not really. I think the main thing is to breathe deeply. Don’t be careful. Make a list and gradually work through your home and replace everything. Don’t forget to replace those cleaning products under your sink. Make sure that everything that you’re using is non-toxic. Those need to be the first to go. Make sure you throw them out in the right place too.

DEBRA: I agree. Thank you so much, Rowena! There’s so much that we could talk about. I’m sure that I would love to have you on again. So, everybody, remember you could go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and listen to any of the shows in the past. I know Rowena is going to listen to yesterday’s show about wood furniture. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well!

Handmade, Toxic-Free Wood Furniture That Helps Rainforests Too

peggy-farabaughMy guest today is Peggy Farabaugh, owner and operator of Vermont Woods Studios, an online furniture store specializing in high-quality, eco-friendly, handmade wood furniture from Vermont. She’s a CEO who breaks for salamanders, has bottle-fed rescued squirrels, and spends her vacations volunteering to plant trees in the rainforests of Central and South America. She believes in the future and in the people who build it. A former distance learning instructor at Tulane University with a master’s in Environmental Health and Safety, Peggy turned an interest in forest conservation and endangered species into a thriving, local furniture business. Now in it’s 10th year, Vermont Woods Studios exists not only online but in a lovingly restored 200 year old farmhouse in the woodlands of southern Vermont. www.vermontwoodsstudios.com

read-transcript

 

 

transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Handmade, Toxic-free Wood Furniture that Helps Rainforests too

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Peggy Farabaugh

Date of Broadcast: July 22, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.

I always love listening to that song. I’ve listened to it – how many shows have we done? Two hundred and fifty or something like that. I always listen to that song. I’m always sitting here, tapping on the desk and just enjoying the thought that we do the right thing, that we really are points of lights. And this show really is all about doing the right thing in terms of toxics and not being exposed to toxic chemicals, producing toxic chemicals, manufacturing toxic chemicals, having toxic chemicals hurt us in any way and all the wonderful, wonderful alternatives that are available, all the people who are really doing the right thing.

I’m just so happy to be here every day, bringing you this show really. Even though I’ve done so many of them now, it always makes me happy to be here.

So it is Tuesday, July 22nd, 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida where it’s a beautiful summer day. I don’t think we’re going to have a thunderstorm in the next hour.

My guest today is the owner and operator of Vermont Wood Studios, which is an online furniture store specializing in high-quality, eco-friendly, handmade wood furniture from Vermont. Her name is Peggy. I’m guessing how to pronounce it, it’s Farabaugh, but we’ll ask her when she comes on.

Her bio says that she’s a CEO who breaks for salamanders, has bottle-fed rescued squirrels and spends her vacations volunteering to plant trees in the rainforests of Central and South America. Hi, Peggy.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Hi, Debra.

DEBRA: How do you say your name?

PEGGY FARABAUGH: It’s Farabaugh like “faraway.”

DEBRA: Oh, good, Farabaugh. I’ll get it right the next I say it, Farabaugh. Okay, it’s good.

The first thing I want to say to you, Peggy, is that this show is about toxics and doing things that aren’t toxic and your furniture certainly qualifies in spades. There’s nothing I would change about your furniture in terms of how you would produce it.

What I think is so wonderful is that if we start with saying, “I don’t want something to be toxic,” you can end by saying, “Okay, this is not toxic.” But to go farther and have beauty of design, to have a purpose behind your business, to utilize your local resources and have it be a locally based business that contributes to your local economy, you just have done so many things that are just all the best things that I would like to see in a business. I just wanted to start by saying that.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Thank you very much. We try our best. I didn’t come into this business as a businessperson. I came into it as someone who wanted to see if you really could develop a business that could do good things and be a part of the solution that we’re all trying to find for this world and the environment.

DEBRA: I would say you certainly accomplished it. So tell us your story. What made you decide that you wanted to start this business?

PEGGY FARABAUGH: It started with losing my job.

DEBRA: Sometimes, they can be blessings in disguise.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Yes. Yeah, I didn’t realize it at the time. I was working as a distance learning instructor for Tulane University and I was in their Environmental Health and Safety Department. Hurricane Katrina came along and wiped out a large part of the Tulane campus, leaving me and many others without a job.

I was working from Vermont. And doing all of my work online, I had learned a little bit about how to develop online communities of likeminded people. So when I was trying to figure out what I would do next and couldn’t find an employer up here in Vermont that was a match to my skills, I decided I try to start my own business.

DEBRA: Yeah.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: So I really took the time to take stock of what I knew and what I believed in and what my passion was. I married that with where I am in Vermont, which is a very woody place. There were a lot of woodworkers including my husband.

So I said, “Ken, if you want to do the wood working and make wooden furniture, I would be very interested in promoting it if it was made of all sustainable materials and non-toxic finishes.” And so we just walked into it as an experiment, Debra.

DEBRA: And it was a big success!

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Yeah. Well, it’s a day-to-day adventure I guess, but it has been a big success. We were one of the first who believe that you could sell fine furniture online. And everybody looked at me like I was crazy.

I said, “Well, I would buy it for someone who explained what it was and who had pictures of what it looks like from all angles and who could tell me all of the little details about how it was made, where the wood came from, what kind of finishes were on it, who made it. I’m someone who doesn’t like to go into a store and be sold to. I’d rather do the research and do my own selection.”

So we went forward on the premise that other people, some other people at least, believe in the same thing. And it worked!

DEBRA: I had to say too with all the other things that I said in the beginning that your website is so beautiful. The first instant that I saw it, I went, “Oh, wow! I wish I needed to buy furniture” because your pictures are so inviting, the design, the simplicity and the timelessness of your furniture. It’s like it has familiarness in the designs, but it’s not something that could go out of date.

It has a moderness to it, but it also has traditionalness to it. I just want to walk right into those rooms that you have in these pictures and just sit down and stay there forever.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Thank you. And you’re welcome to come up here and do that anytime.

DEBRA: Thank you. I need to see that.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: It may be just the right time to visit Vermont.

DEBRA: Yeah, I’ve never been to Vermont, but it’s a place that I’ve always wanted to go. As I said before, I just have so much admiration for the way you’ve put together your values with such beauty and craftsmanship and ecological safety for people and for the planet.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Thank you. We have a lot to build on in Vermont because our state does have a 200 or 250-year old history of woodworking and fine furniture making. So we’ve taken that tradition and we’ve connected with fine furniture makers all over the state who has their own independent businesses.

They were wonderful craft people. But honestly, they’re not very good at tooting their own horn. They needed someone to partner with them to show the world what they’re doing and how beautiful it is. They needed somebody to take pictures and convey all the details of their furniture.

So it has been a nice partnership and an efficient one too because in this age of such competitive companies especially online, you have to be a specialist in order to compete.

DEBRA: Yes.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: So the crafts people can be a specialist in their workshop and studios. We’ve developed specialties in online marketing and sales.

DEBRA: An excellent job. We need to go to break. But when we come back, we’ll talk more with Peggy Farabaugh. Did I get it right?

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Farabaugh.

DEBRA: Farabaugh.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Like “faraway.”

DEBRA: Farabaugh. Okay, Farabaugh, owner and operator of Vermont Wood Studios. Her website is VermontWoodStudios.com. If you’re listening on a computer, just jump right up there during the break and see how beautiful it is. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Peggy Farabaugh. Did I get it right that time?

PEGGY FARABAUGH: That was good.

DEBRA: Thank you. She’s the owner and operator of Vermont Wood Studio where they specialize in high-quality eco-friendly handmade and wood furniture from Vermont. Excuse me. I had this tickle on my throat.

Let’s talk for a minute about why did you decide that you needed to have nontoxic finishes? Actually, I’ll tell you, that’s pretty unusual.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Right. For most furniture, you don’t know what the finish is. I don’t know how you would even find out. But I think pretty much we never considered anything else living in Vermont and working with Vermont furniture makers.

It’s the tradition in Vermont to use traditional finishes like linseed oil, which is nontoxic. It’s a natural substance made from flax. A lot of our furniture makers use that or a version of that. Some use a lacquer, a clear, nontoxic lacquer. Basically those are the two finishes. We have a specialty finish that some of our furniture makers use and that’s called Vermont Natural Coatings.

DEBRA: Which I love, I absolutely love. I’ve been using that. I used it to paint some wooden stairs, to finish some wooden stairs. It was absolutely lovely to work with.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: It is. It smells like baby food or something.

DEBRA: Yeah.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: It’s made of whey (as in curds and whey). It’s made right here in Vermont.

DEBRA: That’s a byproduct of cheese makers.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: I think Vermont is really, truly a leader in both sustainable furniture and nontoxic finishes.

DEBRA: I think so too. And I think that you seem to have a sense of sustainable community like Vermont, you’ve got a cheese maker and then you’ve got Vermont Natural Coatings making a finish from the byproducts of the cheese-making process. And then it’s going down the street probably literally to you and it goes on a piece of furniture. That is the way all manufacturing should be.

It’s people actually making each one of these products with their own hands. And it’s all beautiful and it’s safe materials and it’s renewable. All the money just goes around in your community and it all got shared by the people that are there.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: It’s true. I think Vermont is pretty outstanding in that respect. We work together to build our communities. There’s a big push now for American-made, which is great. But I can say that we’ve always had Vermont-made and local at the top of the list of priorities up here.

Local, we have a local wood, local good. We try to get as much of our wood for furniture as we can locally. It just helps in so many ways, including reducing transportation cost and oil usage and pollution and so on and so forth.

DEBRA: Right. So I just want to mention because this is a show about toxics that if you were to look at a spectrum of furniture, Peggy’s would be at the very, very best at the top. And then at the very bottom would be something like you buy at most furniture stores, which is basically particle board, which is emitting formaldehyde and this unknown finish that’s made out of toxic chemicals that actually is evaporating from the furniture.

What you said earlier, you probably can’t even find out what the finish is. That is absolutely true. I’m constantly asking people, “What’s the finish on this piece of furniture?” They can’t tell me. I think that this is a big issue for consumers that there are all these products (and we’re talking about furniture, so we’ll talk about furniture), all this furniture has materials in it that we don’t know what they are. So we can’t even begin to evaluate the toxicity of it.

So what I’ve done in the past is that I just buy unfinished wood furniture and so I can put whatever finish that I want to put on it. So, it’s so wonderful for me to see that you have put all these elements together and I know that I can come to you. The next time I buy a piece of furniture, I’m buying it from you.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Well, I’d be happy to see you in Vermont. We will show you everything we’ve got. I’ll find the perfect thing just for you, Debra.

DEBRA: You have put it all together. I know that I can come and I can get solid wood. I know that it’s grown and harvested in America, so it’s not sitting on some tank or truck being sprayed with pesticides and that you have the right finishes.

And you’re totally transparent in all of your disclosure about everything that you’re using. Probably, if I wanted to, I could come up there and you’d take me down the street and introduce me to the furniture maker.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: We could do that. We could tour you around. We have so many furniture makers that we partner with.

DEBRA: I want to do this. I’d love to do this.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Yeah. I have a neighbor who adopted a little girl from China and she had lead poisoning when they did her blood test. That is very common, to have lead in the coatings of furniture that’s brought in from other countries. And most furniture that you see in the stores in the US, especially the big box stores, comes from Asia or different developing countries where there’s little to no safety regulations.

DEBRA: Right. We have regulations here in America that I think are not as strict as they should be, but they have even less in other countries and those products are allowed to come into this country with who knows what on them. And as I said, they did spray pesticides all over these tankers and these containers that they are shipping these things in.

I even saw on TV once – some doctor show, I don’t remember. It was a mystery. We have to go to break. I’ll the story when we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Peggy Farabaugh, owner and operator of Vermont Wood Studios, VermontWoodStudios.com. We will be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Peggy Farabaugh. She’s the owner and operator of Vermont Wood Studios, which we’ve been talking about. You can go to her website at VermontWoodStudios.com.

Peggy, I know that part of your inspiration to start this business had to do with the rainforest. Tell us about that.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Okay. That’s one of my favorite things to talk about. I guess I developed a love of the forest and the rainforest as I was growing up. I’ve always lived in rural world places. I don’t know. Maybe 20 years ago, I started realizing and reading that the rainforest is being mowed down at a dangerous rate. In fact, we’re losing an acre of rainforest every second.

DEBRA: Wow.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: I guess it’s hard, especially for people in northern climates to understand the importance of the rainforest. But even though the total of all the rainforests on earth only take up about 2% of the earth’s surface, but they have 55% of the earth’s species. So we really need to conserve this precious resource and the biodiversity inside it.

It’s not just that, but it’s also the wildlife in the rainforest that I always had an interest in. Most of the primates that you think of (chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, all those iconic species that I used to watch and still watch on TV), they live in the rainforest and they are all extremely endangered. They won’t be here very much longer if we don’t conserve the rainforest.

That was probably the biggest influence really in my developing Vermont Wood Studios. I knew that the rainforest was being cut down largely to provide timber, which is turned into furniture and flooring and is sold very, very cheaply at the big box stores. I thought maybe we could use the beauty and the integrity of Vermont-made furniture to raise awareness about buying responsibly, buying American-made or Vermont-made furniture rather than imported furniture that’s contributing to rainforest destruction.

DEBRA: That’s such an important connection to make because I think that a lot of times, I don’t want to say casually, I think most people don’t realize the connection between the products that they buy and where those resources came from and what is the ecological destruction that happens in order for that product to exist.

I’ve been aware of this for a long time. I used to live in a forest in Northern California and I lived there for 12 years actually in the forest and another 2 years before that in a different forest. But I remember when I was writing a book, I wrote something about my local forest. And my editor who lived in New York had no idea what I was talking about.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Right.

DEBRA: And I live next to a place called Samuel P. Taylor Park where there’s a whole stand of redwoods in that park. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful park. It was preserved. They used to cut the redwoods to make paper. Instead of cutting the stand of redwoods, I think it was Mr. Samuel P. Taylor who was collecting rags to make paper out of rags so that the trees could stand.

It just touches my heart when I hear these kinds of things because it’s such a different viewpoint from the industrial viewpoint. And the industrial viewpoint just says, “Let’s just cut down all the resources and turn them into products and sell them as cheaply as we can.” Whereas what you’re doing is being very thoughtful about harvesting the wood in a sustainable so that the forest is still there.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Right. And our challenge every day is to promote this awareness. I guess a lot of people really don’t think about the forest. If you live in a city, you certainly don’t think about the rainforests, but so many of the things that we use in our daily life do come from the rainforests, coffee, paper, anything that’s made of wood, pharmaceuticals I think.

Forty percent of cancer pharmaceuticals originate in rainforests and scientists were saying, “There’s so much research to be done about what else we can extract from the rainforest for new cancer-fighting drugs.”

It’s a tough part of our mission to raise that awareness, but we are not giving up on it.

DEBRA: But you’re providing an alternative. You can say to somebody either, “You have furniture in your house that is clear-cutting the rainforest” or “You can have this beautiful furniture in your house that is using a renewable resource that has been sustainably harvested in a thoughtful so that that ecosystem stays in place.”

I think that if anybody understands that, it’s an easy choice to make. It’s just that I think most people don’t know. When you walk into a big-box store, there is not a big sign on the $19.95 chair that says, “This came from a clear-cut rainforest.”

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Right, it’s true. And you’re probably not going to see anything in a big-box store, anything at all that shows where that furniture originates.

There might be one or two lines of furniture that say American-made, but a lot of times what that means is that the wood was clear-cut illegally from the Amazon rainforest. It was shipped to China or to Vietnam because there’s a lower cost workforce there. It’s shipped there, it’s made into furniture, it’s shipped across the ocean to America where this Asino, maybe the drawer handles are put in or maybe a finish is put on and that’s the way they’re designing American-made furniture.

DEBRA: That’s just not right.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Yeah, it’s very tough to know where your furniture is coming from unless you go to a small company.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Peggy Farabaugh. And she’s from Vermont Wood Studios. She’s the owner and operator at VermontWoodStudios.com. Go see how beautiful their furniture is. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Peggy Farabaugh, owner and operator of Vermont Wood Studios and she’s at VermontWoodStudios.com.

Peggy, tell us all the details about your furniture.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: You already know it’s made of real solid wood that’s sustainably harvested in North America.

Typically, we like to use four – hardwood maple, which is harvested typically in Vermont, cherry, black cherry wood, which doesn’t grow really so well here in our state, but it grows in adjacent New York and Pennsylvania. So that’s where we usually get that from. We use walnut, which is a beautiful darker wood and that we have to often go to the Midwest for. It doesn’t grow so well here. And then we use oak, which grows fine in and around Vermont.

So those are the woods we use. And we have many different styles, ranging from your traditional shaker style, which is probably our most popular. And we also have a lot of people interested in mission style furniture. And then we’ve got many things in between.

And then we have some modern furniture as well or mid-century modern furniture, which maybe you remember. Well, you’re too young, Debra. But I do remember back the furniture from the 1950s and 1960s.

DEBRA: I was a toddler then.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: That’s back in style now, so we’re making a lot of that and anything in between.

And we also do custom furniture. People often will say, “I love this bed, but I’m tall and I need it longer.” Or they’ll say, “I’m short. I want my table leg shorter.” And sometimes, they’ll just send us a picture of something that we have never even considered before. So we do a range of different work and we have a range of different styles and furniture makers and price points.

DEBRA: So I just want to reiterate here that if you’re looking for furniture, how can you get better than this? It’s real solid wood from the USA with a nontoxic finish that you can specify. And you can have any design you want. What could be better than that?

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Well, we’re trying our best to listen to our customers and understand what their preferences are. Usually people come to us because they’ve looked for a long time and they haven’t been able to find exactly what they want. So that’s why they’re coming to us.

We try to show a lot of pictures in our online store. And for I guess probably six or eight years, we were able to run the business just with the online store.

But we always wanted a beautiful place to showcase this Vermont-made furniture because it’s a natural product. It’s beautiful, it’s handmade and we really didn’t think that the website did it justice. So in the last two years, we’ve been fortunate enough to find a gorgeous spot on the mountainside in Vermont where we have renovated an old farmhouse and we’re using that as our showroom.

DEBRA: I’m coming to Vermont.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Well, I can tell what you’ll see when you get here.

DEBRA: Yes, tell me.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: So I’m looking out the windows. You’re going to walk into our farmhouse on a stone pathway. And it’s a traditional farmhouse with a porch. It’s painted white with some blue shutters.

You’ll walk in. At the back of the house you’ll see a wall of windows that overlook meadows, which rule down to a view of the Connecticut River. And this is what we feel is worthy of showcasing Vermont furniture.

Now the downside, Debra is that we are in the middle of nowhere. We’re on a mountain in southeastern Vermont. So it takes a little time to get here, but we have made a promise to our customers that it is worth the trip.

DEBRA: I’m sure it is. I totally am sure it is. Again, I want to say that it’s one thing to take a step away from toxic chemicals and find something that’s not toxic. And it’s another thing entirely to take all the steps that you’ve taken to have this incredible business that addresses so many other things that go from the beauty of the furniture, that it’s handmade, that it’s local, that it’s saving the rainforest. I just love it.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: We have a team here that is very, I don’t know, “aspirational” I guess. We all have shared values of healthy environments, natural materials and we wanted to work for something that reflected our values.

So that’s how the company has evolved to be what it is. It wasn’t just my initial thought and Ken’s initial furniture designs. It’s really reflective of the people who work here who are very hardworking, creative people, each trying to make the world a better place.

DEBRA: That’s just so beautiful. I just would like to be able to buy all of the products that I need to buy from a company like yours. It’s just a model of how I think a company should be. Someone used to say to me, “We have to keep making these toxic products for economic reasons. That’s just not true.”

A friend of mine – this falls into the times they are a changing department. A friend of mine was just telling me this morning his son works in the energy business and he said that what’s coming is that we’re not going to have centralized grid energy anymore. Everybody’s going to be off the grid because energy is going to get produced in ways that are extremely local instead of these big things. It’s going to happen in my lifetime.

It’s just almost there right now. In all the technology exists, it’s a matter of cost. And he said the energy companies are really worried they’re all going to go out of business. What’s more solid than the energy company that you think is going to be there?

My great aunts and uncles bought stock in energy companies because that was the most secure thing that they could think of to put their money in. And now they’re going to be gone.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: I would love to see more localized energy.

DEBRA: Me too.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: More solar panels and more windmills.

DEBRA: Oh, I love the windmills. Yeah. So we’re going in the right direction. We are.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Yeah. We’re trying to follow those models. We like the model of organic food and the local food movement and we’re trying to learn from their lessons because that’s been a very successful model of raising awareness about where your food comes from. So our challenge is to take their lessons and apply it to where your furniture and flooring comes from and all their forest products.

DEBRA: Yes. Yes. We’ve only got about a minute left. Are there any final words you’d like to say?

PEGGY FARABAUGH: Well, I would like to thank you very much for inviting me on the show. It’s been my pleasure to chat with you today.

DEBRA: I’m delighted as well. Thank you.

PEGGY FARABAUGH: And I would invite you and your listeners to come to Vermont. As I said, we would make it worth the trip.

We usually tell the customers to pack a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine so they can relax out in the backyard.

DEBRA: I think I should probably come in the fall because I have never seen the New England fall. I saw the edge of it one year we were in North Carolina and I saw it in Ashville. I saw the leaves. We don’t have that in California where I used to live or here in Florida. I’m going to see about coming to Vermont in the fall.

Thank you so much, Peggy. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and find out more. Be well.

And we have more time. I’m sorry. I was looking at the wrong. I have this clock on my computer that has hours and minutes and seconds. The show is over at 12:56 and 30 seconds and I was watching the seconds, 12:56.

So go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. What you can find there are archives of all the shows I’ve done. Some of them have transcripts. You can listen to today’s show again if you’d like. You can find out the rest of the guests that are coming up this week. There’s just so much information there, so many wonderful people who are doing wonderful things that are making the world less toxic. It’s a good place to get information.

Now, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. Be well.

Aerotoxic Syndrome: How Flying in Airplanes Can Affect Your Health

dee-passonMy guest today is Dee Passon, founder of the website Toxic Free Airlines. Dee was a Cabin Service Service Director for British Airways, and flew for nearly 25 years with four different airlines, until she was ill health retired in 2009 with a written diagnosis of Aerotoxic Syndrome. Dee now works as an unpaid advisor to passengers and crew affected by cabin air. In addition to her website, Dee also has a Toxic Free Airlines page on Facebook that posts the latest information and also set up a group on Facebook called Angel Fleet to pay tribute to and raise awareness of the number of British Airways crew who are passing away every year. In June 2014, Dee became a member of the Air Safety Group, an independent, unpaid and impartial group dedicated to improving all aspects of safety in aviation which reports to Parliament every year. www.toxicfreeairlines.com

read-transcript

 

 

transcript

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Aerotoxic Syndrome: How Flying in Airplanes Can Affect Your Health

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Dee Passon

Date of Broadcast: July 21, 2015

DEBRA: Hi! I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.

It is Tuesday, July 21st, 2015. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida and I don’t think we’re going to have a thunderstorm during the show. I think we’ll be just fine, but we’ll probably have one later on today. We’re having thunderstorms every day now here.

Anyway, today we’re going to be talking about something we’ve never talked about before on the show. Indeed, I suspected that this was a toxic problem, but didn’t know anybody was talking about until recently. The subject is toxic chemicals on airplane flights, what you’re being exposed to and how it’s affecting your health, but perhaps more importantly how it’s affecting all the stewardesses and pilots and people who are flying on planes every day. There’s actually a term now for the health effects that happen to this airline workers. It’s called Aerotoxic Syndrome.

My guest today is founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines. That’s at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. She has information there about health effects that happen when people fly in airplanes, especially frequently and what you can do to be safer. That’s what we’re going to be talking about on the show today.

She has had her own experience in being made ill from the toxic chemicals on airplanes. She was a former Cabin Service Director for British Airways. She flew for nearly 25 years with four different airlines until she was “ill health retired” in 2009 with a written diagnosis of Aerotoxic Syndrome. So without further ado, hi Dee.

DEE PASSON: Hello Debra.

DEBRA: Hello. I just want to tell the listeners that we’re talking to Dee from the United Kingdom. So it’s a very long distance call.

DEE PASSON: Sorry. Am I sounding a bit faint?

DEBRA: If you could talk into the phone and talk up a little bit, that would be great.

DEE PASSON: Okay, I’ll try my best.

DEBRA: That’s better. That’s better. So anyway, why don’t you start off by us your story? What happened?

DEE PASSON: Like you, I haven’t heard of Aerotoxic Syndrome, but I kept getting lots and lots of things wrong with me and I was ill for many years. It was one thing after the other, constant flus and I was developing unexplained aches and pains, constant headaches. I didn’t know what was wrong. This went on for quite a long time.And then one day, I saw a headline in the newspaper over here that said, “Toxic Fuels in Jets.” Suddenly, it all made sense.

So I went and got myself tested. I had a very high level of toxins from the fume, from the engine oil and high levels of nickel, which comes from the engine. I’ve never heard this ever mentioned.

And then, once I started looking on the internet, I found that over here in Parliament, they’re discussing it in our House of Lords since 1999, but [inaudible 00:04:40]. And certainly passengers, most passengers still don’t know about this. They need to be warned that this could happen.

DEBRA: Do you think it’s because you and other flight attendants (and I’m assuming pilots and everybody who works on the planes) are being exposed to it more frequently than say me who doesn’t fly very often?

DEE PASSON: Yes, we are. We’re just getting chronic low level exposures. So every day, we’re getting a certain amount because the air we breathe in the cabin is completely unfiltered. But some people are more susceptible than others. So a passenger can get sick just for one flight. Some flights have more contamination than others. There are certainly a very high number of flight attendants and pilots that’s getting sick.

DEBRA: Tell us more about specifically what the chemical are that you’re being exposed to.

DEE PASSON: You’ve got all the chemicals from the fuel. You get things like hexane, heptane, methane, benzene. They’re carcinogens. And also, the organophosphates, which are the chemicals that are causing the most concern. I don’t know if you had a problem in America with farmers. Over here, our farmers actually dip their sheeps in organophosphate dips. And they’re all becoming very, very sick.

DEBRA: I didn’t know about that.

DEE PASSON: Oh, you don’t have that there. But you’ve got the Gulf War veterans?

DEBRA: Yes.

DEE PASSON: They were exposed to organophosphates. So it’s the same illness in fact. That’s why when you go on a flight, you get a feeling that you’ve got the flu. And everybody thinks they’ve got a virus, but actually, it’s chemical fume and it’s coming from the organophosphate. There’s organosphosphate in the hydraulics called tributyl phosphate. And there’s another one in the engine oil, the tricresyl phosphate.

Organophosphates were originally developed as nerve agents for warfare. So the governments and airlines are saying that they’re not harmful, that they’re not harming people. It’s complete rubbish. That’s what they were designed to do. They were designed to harm the human nervous system and that is exactly what they are doing.

DEBRA: I don’t even know what to ask you. It just seems incredulous to me. I mean, I’ve done a fair amount of flying in the past. I don’t even remember the last time I took a flight. It was probably across the United States, which is about 3000 miles to go from Florida to California. I know that when I’m on a plane, I can smell what I think is the jet fuel.

DEE PASSON: Yes.

DEBRA: The first thing I do when I get on the plane is – now I’m going to say this and you’re probably going to tell me that I’m doing exactly the wrong thing. But what I do is I get on the plane, I sit in my seat and I immediately open up the little air thing completely open so that I can get as much fresh air as possible.

DEE PASSON: Yeah, you don’t want the air that comes in. It’s unfiltered. So the airlines, in their little flight brochures, they’ll tell you the air is filtered. But it’s only the [inaudible 00:07:58]. All the air that you breathe comes off the engine and it’s unfiltered and it’s getting contaminated with all these chemicals. It’s only once the air has gone through the cabin and it gets recirculated that it then gets filtered.

So the sorts of symptoms you are likely to experience (nose irritation, eye irritation, cough, dizziness, vertigo, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), eventually, you’ll start to feel like you’ve got the flu, runny nose. Some people will also get tremors, which is the effect of having it on your nervous system. You’ll get chest pains, heart palpitations. Everybody gets everything.

Some people will get more major symptoms if they’re depressed or anxious. Obviously, they will have the physical ones. They’ll be in pain and they’re not working properly or they can’t walk after a flight. Other people will have heart attacks. These chemicals can make the brain swell, which is why you get these terrible headaches. It can cause brain hemorrhages. It can cause pneumonia. It’s really serious.

The reason why these things have been kept quiet is the airlines don’t want you to know about these problems because they’re not planning on fixing it. It will cost a lot of money.

DEBRA: But it just seems to me negligent to be exposing passengers to this. I mean, probably worse than negligent. I can’t think of the right word for it, irresponsible.

DEE PASSON: I know. It certainly is. It’s also illegal. The [inaudible 00:09:37] itself says that the passenger and crew compartments must be free from toxic fumes and vapors. That isn’t the case at the moment.

They keep saying fumes like those are rare. I got to see the reports from the UK and they’re happening every day. I don’t think something that happens every day is rare. And these are just the ones that are getting reported. There’s an awful lot that’s unreported. The average fume only lasts for less than a minute. So, by the time people have thought, “Have I smelt something or haven’t I?”, it’s gone, so they bother to report it.

And it affects your sense of smell, especially crews because they’re flying a long times. [Inaudible 00:10:20] I was told that the damage to my respiratory tract [inaudible 00:10:25]. You lose your sense of smell.

Some of the chemicals are odorless. The engine oil are odorless. But sometimes, it smells like sweaty feet. So then if you smell something, you don’t know what to do. Whoever will ever report that smell. [Inaudible 00:10:44] we just think passengers taking their shoes off.

DEBRA: I understand. We need to go to break, but when we come back, we’ll talk more with Dee about various toxic chemicals that you may encounter when you’re taking an airline flight and what to do about it.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She is the founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines, which is at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is Dee Passon. She is a former – what do you like to be called, a flight attendant?

DEE PASSON: We call it cabin crew in the UK, but flight attendant is fine. I don’t mind.

DEBRA: Cabin crew. I like cabin crew. I will call you in the UK term.

DEE PASSON: You can use that.

DEBRA: She is a former cabin crew member from British Airways who retired because she got sick from the toxic chemicals that she was being exposed to. We’ve been talking about that.

When I smell something, when I’m in a plane, there are definitely times when I smell quite strongly something that I think is fuel and it might be something else. But it seems to come and go. So I was really interested in you saying that these episodes are just so short that you’re not quite sure that you smelled something at all. I know that I smelled things and then it stops.

It never once occurred to me that I should report it because as a passenger – I guess even though I’m probably more aware of toxic chemicals in my environment than most people and I was aware it was going on, I just thought this is the way it is on a plane. I don’t know what the rules are for planes and I don’t like it, but I just thought this is just the way it is.

DEE PASSON: Yeah. But they’re not filtering that air at all. So on some flights, you will have a problem where you’ve got a thing in the engine that’s either worn or it’s got a hole in it. Then you’re going to get a very big contamination. And those are the flights where you might actually see the mists in the cabin although that’s quite rare. You will have other people possibly fainting or feeling unwell and you’ll hear the calls for doctors.

Even on ordinary flights, these fuels aren’t designed to fuel all the time. They’re kept in place by air pressure. They’re wet fuel. So you are going to get a certain amount of contamination. It’s a design flaw.

In 1962, the air used to be blown in from the outside. It didn’t go through the engine. But back then, they decided that they could save money by combining two. They thought, “Engines need warm air for propulsion and passengers need warm air to breathe, so let’s combine the two.” Unfortunately, it’s a flawed system and it’s not very good for people’s health.

The only aircraft currently flying that doesn’t use this system is the Boeing 787. That is the only aircraft that I would ever fly on now.

DEBRA: Do many airlines have that plane?

DEE PASSON: Yeah, more and more. At least Boeing had acknowledged the problem. They actually gave evidence to the British House of Lords and they originally said it was to prevent any possibility of cabin air contamination. And then, I think they realized after they shot themselves in the foot a little bit because they’ve still got lots of [inaudible 00:17:07] 767 planes, but they retracted that slightly. But that is the real reason.

But at least, we saw the Boeing 787 using a completely different system and the air doesn’t come through the engine. So you’re far less likely to have fumes in there.

DEBRA: That’s so good to know. That’s so good to know because that’s something that we can do.

DEE PASSON: Exactly! And if you have to fly on something else which personally I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t risk it.

Seven years ago, I couldn’t even change channels with the remote control. I was so fundamentally confused. I didn’t know what day it was. I didn’t have the energy to even go and have a shower. So I’m very scared of going back to being like that again, so I just won’t fly.

DEBRA: When was the last time you’ve flied?

DEE PASSON: I have flown since I stopped flying as a cabin crew, but I take a mask with me now, one that’s designed to screen their oily mist. I haven’t gotten sick when I’ve used that.

But then, I haven’t been on [inaudible 00:18:17] is when you get a lot of fumes in the cabin. The problem with that is from the time the pilots realize there’s a problem, they’re actually getting you down on the ground and getting those doors open, it’s going to be about half an hour. And the pilots has got full face oxygen masks. The passengers has got nothing. So you really do need to take something with you.

DEBRA: Okay. So you need a mask that’s specific for oily mists. Where do you get such a thing? I mean, you don’t know where in America because you’re getting it in UK. But where do you get it in the UK? Maybe I can look at that.

DEE PASSON: Yeah. Actually you can look on the internet. I have got one called SSP3, which are the best. They do screen out chemicals as well as bacteria and viruses. There’s an association called the Aerotoxic Association. That was set up an ill health retired captain, [inaudible 00:19:15] Captain John Hoyte. He’s done so much to help people.

His website is Aerotoxic.org. He sells masks on there. And he’s also written a really, really good book. I’ve been researching this subject for the last seven to eight years, but there was still a lot in it that I didn’t know. The book is called Aerotoxic Syndrome: Aviation’s Darkest Secret. It’s really, really good. It’s worth reading before you fly.

DEBRA: Yeah. So when did the term Aerotoxic Syndrome come about?

DEE PASSON: That came about in 1999. There were three scientists. One of them was American, one was French and I believe the other one was Australian. They have been looking into this problem and they’ve heard about passengers and crews complaining of getting sick. They looked into this and they found that it was a very real big problem. They called it Aerotoxic Syndrome.

It’s called a syndrome because it affects multiple systems of the body. You don’t just come off with one thing. It’s going to depend on your own health as well.

If somebody had chemo and wants to fly somewhere nice and warm to recuperate, that can be really dangerous because they already have a lot of toxic chemicals in their bodies. People on certain medications are much more susceptible than others. [Inaudible 00:20:43]. If an awful lot of chemicals are already in your liver, then you’re going to be much more affected than somebody who goes for a run every day and excrete these toxins.

DEBRA: Yeah, that makes a big difference, how much you already have in your body. Here in America, that’s called body burden. Do you call it that in the UK?

DEE PASSON: No, I haven’t heard that term.

DEBRA: The Center for Disease Control here in the US started calling it body burden and so now that’s what it’s referred to. There are numbers and they track what is the average body burden of the citizens of America. It’s actually pretty high. There are reports that show.

We need to go to break. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon from ToxicFreeAirlines.com. And we’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She’s the founder of the website Toxic Free Airlines at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. She has spent more than 25 years flying with four different airlines until she retired because of ill health in 2009. And now, she helps people understand Aerotoxic Syndrome and helps people who have been affected by it and helps people prevent being affected by it as well.

You have on your Facebook page a group called Angel Fleet. Tell us about that.

DEE PASSON: Well, that came about when I was told if there was a problem, the company really would like to know about it. So I thought I’d find some practical figures then that I could tell them about. So I went through all the pictures that I could find online. They went back three years and I’ve discovered that a crew member has been dying every single month for the last two years.

DEBRA: That’s a lot.

DEE PASSON: Yeah, it was shocking. I sat up all night on my computer and got all these names and ages and dates. I compiled it into a list and I sent it to my company. I said, “There’s a crew member dying every month confronting a problem that you should be doing something about.” I didn’t get a reply to that letter unsurprisingly. They then terminated my contract very, very shortly afterward. So I do think the two were connected.

So I carried on compiling my list. It is very difficult to find out. This isn’t something that gets talked about very much. And then one day, somebody told me that the obituary board has disappeared as well. So now, nobody knew what was happening. I thought I think it’s time we have a place where we can actually remember these people and make sure that they aren’t forgotten and we found out just how often this is happening.

March of 2013, I haven’t got a clue how set up a group. I’m not very technically minded at all. But I sat at my laptop and I clicked on “Create Group.” I called it Angel Fleet because we’ve got the [inaudible 00:29:06]. And now we have the Angel Fleet as well.

Within seconds, I had people contact me and asking if they could help. And now, we’ve got over 7700 members. The list of the crew that has passed away, I’ve got over 500 names on it now. And that’s one airline in one country, which is tremendous.

So what we’re going to do now is we’re in the process of constructing a website. We want to invite all the other airlines in the world doing this. We will remember our former colleagues. We’ll also find out how often this is happening. We won’t let the airlines keep this quiet because they have to sort this problem out and not just keep pretending it doesn’t exist.

For a long time, they’ve all got away with lies basically. For a while, they said there weren’t any toxins [inaudible 00:30:06]. Even their own government tests have proved that all these organophosphate with toxic chemicals are there.

Then the next [inaudible 00:30:17] was there were no exposure standard. There’s a quote here from the World Health Organization and this is 25 years ago. In 1990, the World Health Organization said at least one of these chemicals, there’s one called tri-o-cresyl phosphate, there’s a considerable variation among individuals in sensitivity to TOCP. It is not possible to establish a safe level for exposure.”

So there are no exposure limits for these chemicals authentically. And even if they did exist, they would only apply to the workers. They wouldn’t apply to passengers. Passengers, especially pregnant women and children, the elderly and the sick, they must be exposed to nothing. The law says they must not be exposed to any toxic vapors or whatsoever. And so does the Airworthy Certification. If that isn’t happening, then the aircraft isn’t airworthy.

Passengers should be complaining because the airlines don’t really care what we’ve seen over the last few years. The airlines do not care how many of their crew died. They would replace them with younger and cheaper ones.

But what they will care about is if their passengers starts saying, “We’re not going to give you our money until you make that air safe.” That’s what we want to happen. We want passengers to complain to the airlines, to the FAAs, to their government representatives. I think some people, Senator [inaudible 00:31:45]. There was some law passed that the FAA is supposed to sort this out. So far, that hasn’t happened.

Another group on Facebook is called Aerotoxic Syndrome Voices. That’s run by an ill health retired American flight attendant. She keeps that updated as well. I’ve got mine on Facebook with Toxic Free Airlines. So between the two of us, there are lots of information. You’ll find out all the latest.

I mean we do have proof now. It isn’t just us claiming. There has been three post-mortems done on [inaudible 00:32:22] crew who recently passed away. All three were found to have information at the heart. [Inaudible 00:32:29] in all three, which is very, very concerning. So it’s a problem that we really do need to get sorted.

DEBRA: It absolutely is. And as I’m sitting here listening to you (and I listen to guests speak every day), as I’m listening to you, I just want to point out that what you’re talking about is people dying from exposure. That’s not usually what we talk about. What we talk about is people get headaches or cancer. All kinds of different symptoms can come from different chemicals. But you’re talking about documented evidence that people are dying from toxic chemical exposures in their occupation.

DEE PASSON: Yeah, they trusted their employer. They thought it was safe. And they’ve been really seriously let down.

The company I used to work for, they just had two deaths in the last week. Any other companies would get shut down. Any other building sites having these many deaths, something would be done about it. They wouldn’t just be pretending it isn’t happening.

They keep coming out with the same statement. We’ve seen [inaudible 00:33:47] in the cabin crew airways that would indicate a problem. We wouldn’t operate a flight if we believe it posed a health and safety risk. And no one is making them prove that. They’re just repeating these statements, but they’re not actually saying, “Show me. Show me how many crews you’ve got off sick today. Show me how many crews have died in the last 10 years.” They are absolutely keeping that secret. And this is one of the reasons the Angel Fleet. We’re now finding out.

Last year in just one company, there were 23 deaths of cabin crews and nearly 50 have retired. And some of them retired [inaudible 00:34:26] the ill health retired, the youngest was 39. And [inaudible 00:34:32], the youngest was 28. We’ve just lost a 23. This can’t go on.

This lie has to stop. Like I said, it’s people’s lives. They’re not just dying a few years early. They are dying decades before they retire.

DEBRA: Yeah. This is not right. This should not be happening. We need to go to break, but when we come back, we’ll talk more about this.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She’s founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines, which is at ToxicFreeAirlines.com. She also has a Facebook page where she has lots of updates including – I was just there during the last break – including an announcement of this radio show and other interviews that she has done. You can just go to Facebook and type in “Toxic Free Airlines” and the page will come right up. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Dee Passon. She’s the founder of the website, Toxic Free Airlines, which is ToxicFreeAirlines.com. You can go there and find out more about what we’ve been talking about, which is about the toxic chemicals that are on airline flights that you may be exposed to and also what you can do about it.

We’re talking before the break that people shouldn’t be dying on the job, that they should have confidence that they can go to work, get paid and live a long and happy life and not die prematurely. Here in the United States, we have something called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It’s called OSHA. It has a lot of rules for what people can be exposed to on the job.

I think it only applies to people who are working with the chemicals and not necessarily the people who are working in offices and things like that. But I think that just morally and ethically, people should be provided with a healthy environment. I mean, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness here in the United States. I think you have something similar in England. It just makes sense that if you value the people who are working for you, you should provide them good health.

DEE PASSON: Absolutely, yeah. We have the similar regulations in the UK. They’re called the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health. Airlines are allowed to get away never doing these tests.

Anybody who knows that they’re working with chemicals, they have to do risk assessments and the work must be tested. If you know you’re working with organophosphate, then you’re tested regularly. I think it’s every month to see what your level of enzymes is in your liver.

None of that happens. I wrote to my airline and I said, “Can you tell me why you’ve never done a Control of Substances Hazardous to Health risk assessments.” And they said, “It’s because we’re not aware of any risks.” I said, “I think you’ll find this the wrong way around. You’re supposed to find out if there are any risks. You don’t justify that there aren’t any risks.”

DEBRA: Wait! This is an organization who’s supposed to be protecting you from hazards, they don’t know that there are associated with these chemicals? I mean, I am just a consumer. I am just an average citizen and I know there are risks associated with these chemicals and you know that. How come the agency that’s supposed to be protecting you doesn’t know that?

DEE PASSON: It’s because they don’t want to know. It’s the only enclosed environment that does not have chemical detectors. They’re saying that there isn’t the technology. Rubbish, we have chemical detectors on submarines in World War II. Mine shafts has them. How come an aircraft full of passengers has no chemical detector?

If I went out [inaudible 00:41:57], by law, I need to put a carbon monoxide detector in there to make sure the oxygen is safe. There’s nothing like that on an aircraft. So you can have [inaudible 00:42:09].

And nobody knows what’s happening. This could explain why you have incidents like the one you had a couple of years ago in the States where the pilot forgot to land. How can you forget to land in all your years of flying? I don’t see how that’s possible unless everybody is affected because you would have passengers saying, “Somebody’s waiting there. We could be landing soon.” But nobody noticed. They overflew their destination by an hour. How was that?

DEBRA: Oh, my God.

DEE PASSON: I think it was either to or from Hawaii. That was a major incident. They said they lost situational awareness. How is that possible? It’s only if they’re brains…

DEBRA: That’s chemicals. That’s chemical exposure.

DEE PASSON: Yes.

DEBRA: I mean they’re a neurotoxic. They affect your brain and your nervous system and your ability to think.

DEE PASSON: Yes, that’s one of the scariest things. It’s not just a health problem, it’s a safety problem because there may be passengers who are very, very healthy and they’ve got tons of enzymes in their liver and they think, “I’m alright, Jack.” But if you are a pilot suffering from Aerotoxic Syndrome (and there are many who do), then you are still in trouble.

So we have to get this sorted from the safety point of view. Pilots do have full face 100% oxygen on the flight deck. Passengers don’t. But one of the first things that’s knocked out is your ability to reason. You have to know that you need to put the oxygen on.

DEBRA: That’s exactly right. What happens is that your ability to think goes out and then you’re not aware that you’re not thinking properly. You just can’t think. And if your thinking goes out, you can’t do anything to help yourself.

DEE PASSON: Yeah, I’ve been on a flight where I couldn’t remember how to put someone on oxygen. It’s something I’ve been doing for over years. I was standing there and I didn’t have a clue. I was thinking, “What on earth was wrong with me?” Now, all of these incidents make sense.

DEBRA: You’re just making me speechless with some of these things that you’re telling me. Here in the United States (and then probably in the UK too), there are a number of chemicals that we’re being exposed to in consumer products. Not that deadly as what you’re talking about, we don’t know. People are dying in just great numbers. But we’re also not in enclosed areas like an airplane cabin.

But it amazes me that if you have something like formaldehyde for example, if you’re working with formaldehyde in occupational setting, there would be warnings and things about formaldehyde and that it causes cancer. But there can be formaldehyde all over consumer products and there are no warning labels needed at all.

And something that has just been alarming to me for very many years (because I’ve been doing this for over 30 years) is just that the same chemical can be in different situations. It’s not consistent about how that chemical is treated or what the warnings are or that it even needs to be required to be listed on the label.

An airline is, in a way, a consumer product. You buy it like you would buy anything else. You go into this environment (like buying a hotel room or something) that you’re putting your life in the hands of the person who’s producing that product. And people need to be more responsible. These businesses need to be more responsible. It’s not that we don’t know that the toxics exist.

DEE PASSON: Yeah. We have been trusting for years, haven’t we? We thought that the government had our best interest at heart and we just didn’t realize that the majority of these chemicals are untested. There are no detectors in an aircraft for a reason. They don’t want to know.

The minute we find out exactly how bad this problem is, they will have to pay compensation and they don’t want to do that. The laws exist, but they’re just not being implemented.

We have one in UK called the Civil Aviation Act . I wrote to my representative in the Parliament and he said, “Yes, you are protected under that. The Executive State is responsible for the welfare of all onboard a British aircraft.” But they delegate that responsibility to the Civil Aviation Authority.

So then I wrote to the Civil Aviation Authority and they said, “No, no, no. It’s not ours. It’s the Health and Safety Executive.”

So then I talked to the Health and Safety Executive and they said, “We have a memorandum of understanding [inaudible 00:46:51].”

Nobody is taking responsibility for actually making sure that the law is upheld [inaudible 00:47:01].

DEBRA: I agree. As you were talking earlier in the show, I just started having this picture in my mind of a movie (and there isn’t a movie like this, I’m sure. Well, I’m not sure). But what I got in my mind was to make a movie where…

DEE PASSON: Actually, one has been made. It had its premiere in February 2015. It’s made by an ill-health retired captain. He was probably one of the very first person to find out exactly what we’re being exposed to. He [inaudible 00:47:40] to find out everything. He’s been fantastic. He’s known as Captain Tristan Loraine and he has made a film called A Dark Reflection.

It’s available on the internet to watch on-demand now. It’s at ADarkReflection.com. It’s a fictional account of two journalists looking into this cover-up and finding out what’s in the engine or whether [inaudible 00:48:03]. It was pilots who did it. It’s really, really worth viewing. I’m in it very, very briefly for about two seconds as an extra.

DEBRA: Well, the movie I was seeing in my mind was that consumers would just get outraged and that there would be a massive strike that people would not fly. And the people would buy tickets and then not fly and the whole airline system would just get shut down for a day to bring attention to this because the passengers would refuse to fly on toxic airplanes.

DEE PASSON: Yeah, there were strikes in Germany of crews trying to highlight this. But yes, that’s just good. That would be brilliant. They need to know about this.

We’re all seeing aircraft now diverting and landing because passengers are complaining and they’re saying, “That is going to make me ill. I don’t want to breathe it in.” That’s what we need to happen. I think we’ve all been too passive for too long.

There are a lot of things you can do. You can take the [inaudible 00:49:13]. But ultimately, we need to sort this problem out and make sure that the air is safe for all of us to breathe.

DEBRA: The number one rule in the field of toxicology is to remove the person from the poison. That’s the number one thing to do. It doesn’t say, “Go ahead and poison everybody and then make everybody detox.” It says, “Remove the person from the poison.” And what we need to do is stop having poisoned planes.

Anyway, we’ve only got just a few seconds. Thank you so much for being here. This is important information.

DEE PASSON: Thank you.

DEBRA: And you can go to this website, ToxicFreeAirlines.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and you’ve been listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. Be well.

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“EnviroKlenz"

“Happsy"

ARE TOXIC PRODUCTS HIDDEN IN YOUR HOME?

Toxic Products Don’t Always Have Warning Labels. Find Out About 3 Hidden Toxic Products That You Can Remove From Your Home Right Now.