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Gloria Pan's picture

WalgreensWhen I think of my drugstore, I think, “HEALTH!” and “WELLNESS!” After all, that’s where I go to pick up bandages for boo-boos, cold medicine for the sniffles, and medications for reducing fevers and relieving pain. That’s where my pharmacist gives me the antibiotics that stop simple infections from turning into life-threatening, raging monsters.

But what if a drugstore willfully ignores the concerns of its customers and continues selling things that could actually threaten their health?

Last year, MomsRising joined the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition to launch the Mind the Store Campaign, which challenges the top ten retailers to get tough on toxic chemicals. Since then, both Target and Walmart have announced new chemicals policies.

But not yet Walgreens.

While Walgreens has taken some steps to address certain environmental and public health risks, such as launching the "Ology™" Brand of Healthy Home Products that is free of phthalates and other risky chemicals, what about all the other products it carries? It has yet to adopt a chemical policy to work with their suppliers to reduce, eliminate, or safely substitute the Hazardous 100+ chemicals identified by the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Coalition.

In 2013, testing of items bought from Walgreens found, among other things, high levels of lead in decorative beads, and high levels of phthalates in out-door folding chairs. Lead can cause brain damage, while phthalates, an endocrine disruptor, can produce adverse reproductive impacts such as low sperm count, and even cancer.

Walgreens is the nation’s largest drugstore chain, whose business is all about promoting and supporting health and wellness. How can the company in good conscience continue to sell products that could contain dangerous chemicals that could actually cause harm to their clients?

Moms and families need to trust that our pharmacy truly serves our health and wellness needs. But how much can we trust it if it is unresponsive to our concerns about potentially harmful chemicals in products we might bring home from there?

Please help me tell Walgreens it needs to be ALL ABOUT HEALTH and stop selling toxic products!

I'll make sure your message gets delivered to Walgreens' top executives, so TAKE ACTION NOW!

http://action.momsrising.org/go/4337?t=9&akid=5345.1976766.XodYWE

Together, we’ll be a powerful voice against toxic chemicals and for healthy families and communities.

 


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