LifeSmarts program awards scholarships to five student leaders from Morehead City, NC, Bedford, TX, and Ellenboro, WV

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January 30, 2020

Contact: National Consumers League – Carol McKay, carolm@nclnet.org, (412) 945-3242 or Taun Sterling, tauns@nclnet.org, (202)  207-2832

Washington, DC—The National Consumers League (NCL) has announced five scholarship recipients, honored for their involvement in a community service and leadership initiative made possible through its consumer literacy program, LifeSmarts  (LifeSmarts.org). The students have been awarded $1,000 academic scholarships for winning entries based on their experiences serving as Safety Smart® Ambassadors, a partnership between LifeSmarts and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) that pairs high school students with elementary classrooms to teach lessons about health, safety, and the environment. 

Scholarship winners 

  • Addison Jones, (11th grade), West Virginia – Ritchie County High School
  • Allison Little, (10th grade), Texas – Midcities Montessori
  • Matthew Loynes, (12th grade), North Carolina – West Carteret High School
  • Abby Olstrup, (10th grade), Texas – Midcities Montessori
  • Destinee Smith, (11th grade), West Virginia – Ritchie County High School

In 2019, more than 300 LifeSmarts students became Safety Smart Ambassadors. Working as teams, high school students made more than 500 interactive, 30-minute presentations, sharing empowering and educational safety messages with 13,600 young children throughout their communities. LifeSmarts is a national program that competitively tests high school students’ knowledge of consumer awareness, with subjects including personal finance, health and safety, consumer rights and responsibility, technology, and the environment.

“We are so proud of our students who participated in the Safety Smart Ambassador program and the positive impact they made on their communities, and especially these five stand-outs,” said Lisa Hertzberg,  LifeSmarts program director. “We truly appreciate this partnership with UL. It has been extremely gratifying to see LifeSmarts students embrace the Safety Smart Ambassador program, provide education and mentoring to younger children, and learn about themselves in the process.” 

The LifeSmarts and UL partnership has underwritten the Safety Smart Ambassador program and provided LifeSmarts with access to the vast knowledge base of UL’s educational programs, including resources for LifeSmarts to bolster its science and environment curriculum, resources, and competitive opportunities. 

For more information, please visit LifeSmarts.org/SafetySmart.  

Winter 2020 Safety Smart Ambassador award winners – in their own words  

Addison Jones (WV)

I have never been good at public speaking. Throughout this experience, I have learned how to adapt to a younger audience and how I can improve my public speaking skills. This truly was an amazing learning experience and I am grateful to have such amazing partners, along with an amazing group of children as an audience.

Allison Little (TX)

Safety Smart has always been one of the highlights of my year. I love teaching kids new things especially when it’s meaningful for all of us. Teaching kids to wash their hands correctly helps them prevent illness and keeps others from getting sick as well. It’s a win, win. 

Matthew Loynes (NC)

This program is more than a community service project to me. It has enriched my High School career in a way that nothing else has. The main draw is interacting with children and feeling like I am making a difference. Safety Smart allows me to step into the education of hundreds of kids and teach them about something that I find very important. This program has gone a long way in teaching me the value of youth education. It has also shown me how much of a difference I can make.

Abby Olstrup (TX)

I brought out a blacklight so we could see all the germs on their hands. They were intrigued as they searched for germs on their hands. I heard one kid talking to his friend saying, “I could feel the germs on my hand.” Then we came around and gave them hand sanitizer to clean off their hands and brought out the blacklight again to see if the germs were still there. We explained that hand sanitizer is good to use if you don’t have soap or warm water. They counted to twenty so they could see how long they should scrub their hands. After this we discussed other ways they could stay healthy. We then passed out “germ fighters” stickers that we created. With what they know about germs and staying healthy, I can officially say that they are “germ fighters” and Safety Smart.

Destinee Smith (WV)

Honestly, I’d never known children had such a narrow understanding of how treacherous the online world could be, or how important it was to make sure they knew these things at such a young age. I’m thankful I had the opportunity to open up their young minds to something that will quite literally affect them for the rest of their lives.

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About LifeSmarts and the National Consumers League 

LifeSmarts is a program of the National Consumers League. State coordinators run the programs on a volunteer basis. LifeSmarts educational resources are available online throughout the year at LifeSmarts.org. Competition begins again in September. For more information, visit: LifeSmarts.org. 

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit  nclnet.org. 

New study reveals promising progress in fight against cancer

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Nissa Shaffi

A recent study released by the American Cancer Society (ACS) shows that breakthrough treatments for lung cancer have resulted in a 26-year record low for cancer mortality overall. Cancer-related deaths have dropped at an average rate of 1.5 percent from 2008 to 2017 and between 2016–2017, cancer mortality rates dropped to 2.2 percent. This translates to nearly three million fewer American cancer-related deaths than would have occurred if mortality had remained stagnant.

ACS revealed that much of this success is due to declines specifically in lung cancer mortality. This is a promising development as lung cancer leads to more cancer-related deaths than colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers combined. Steady reductions in smoking and advancements in early-detection practices have created the perfect environment for dramatic drops in lung cancer rates. Technologies like video-assisted surgeries have enabled doctors to more clearly scan stages of tumor growth, providing patients with higher eligibility for operations and more targeted radiation treatments. Additionally, groundbreaking immunotherapies for both lung cancer and melanoma have acted as a catalyst for an expanding area of research, providing renewed hope to cancer patients with metastatic disease.

Despite the welcome decline in deaths associated with lung cancer, the death rates of breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers have plateaued. Progress for the treatment of prostate cancers has been especially compromised due to growing skepticism from health officials regarding prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screenings. While the original intent of reducing PSA screenings was to prevent over-diagnosing and unnecessary treatments for potentially benign tumors, fewer treatable cancers are being detected as a result.

The National Consumers League (NCL) lauds this truly welcome progress in reducing cancer deaths. At the same time, we would like to echo ACS’s call for better testing, which will lead to accurate and better screening of cancers. It takes a village to see progress of this magnitude in public health. Doctors, researchers, advocacy groups, drug companies, and access to life-saving preventive care afforded by the Affordable Care Act can all take credit for this very good report. NCL recognizes the many factors that helped to reduce the incidence of a terrible disease that takes the lives of more than 600,000 people a year. Let’s keep the progress going into 2020 and beyond!

Script Your Future launches ninth annual student competition for innovations in medication adherence

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January 20, 2020

Media contact: National Consumers League – Carol McKay, carolm@nclnet.org, (412) 945-3242 or Taun Sterling, tauns@nclnet.org, (202) 207-2832

Washington, DC—Today marks the launch of the ninth annual Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge, a two-month-long intercollegiate competition among health profession student teams and faculty for creating solutions to raise awareness about medication adherence as a critical public health issue. The Challenge, hosted by the National Consumers League (NCL), is returning to university campuses across the country after eight years of successful student competition and innovation.

The Challenge is an integral part of Script Your Future, a campaign launched by NCL and its partners in 2011 to combat the problem of poor medication adherence in the United States, where nearly three out of four patients do not take their medication as directed.

“Today’s medications are better than ever at treating and curing people, but these treatments can only work if patients know the importance of taking their prescriptions as directed. It takes all members of the health team to make that happen, and pharmacists play a big role in that circle of trust,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director. “For nine years, our Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge has galvanized student health professionals to explore creative, interprofessional approaches, in encouraging medication adherence. To usher Script Your Future into the next era of improving adherence, we have implemented two new components to the Team Challenge: technology innovation and vaccine adherence. We have been blown away by the ingenuity of our student teams, and we look forward to how they will contribute to their communities in this year’s Team Challenge.”

The Challenge is sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation, the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA), and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA).

Starting today through March 20, inter-professional teams—including student pharmacists, nurses, doctors, and others—will implement creative outreach approaches in their communities to raise awareness and improve understanding about medication adherence. At the end of the Challenge, teams submit entries for review by national partner organizations, and winners are recognized for their efforts to improve medication adherence.

“The Script Your Future Medication Adherence Team Challenge has provided a tremendous opportunity for health professions students to demonstrate how they can work collaboratively to improve patient care through better medication adherence,” said Dr. Lucinda L. Maine, Executive Vice President and CEO at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. “This Challenge, now in its ninth year, is a powerful example of the impact health professions teams can have on the public health issue of medication adherence.”

Since the Challenge began in 2011, more than 18,800 future health care professionals have directly counseled nearly 78,000 patients and reached more than 26 million consumers about the importance of medication adherence. Last year’s National awardees were Pacific University School of Pharmacy, University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, North East Ohio Medical University College of Pharmacy (NEOMED), Touro University California College of Pharmacy, and the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy. Wilkes University Nesbitt School of Pharmacy earned the Rookie Award for their outstanding contribution during their first year of participation in the Team Challenge.

In addition to the national-level awards, the Challenge also honors teams with focused awards in the areas of health disparities, communications and media outreach, and creative inter-professional team collaboration. In 2019, the Challenge honored the following schools with focused awards: Northeast Ohio Medical University College of Pharmacy (Health Disparities), Touro University College of Pharmacy (Media Outreach), and the University of Charleston School of Pharmacy (Creative Inter-professional Team Event).

To learn about previous winners, visit https://www.scriptyourfuture.org/

For more information on the Challenge, visit the Challenge Community website at

https://syfadherencechallenge.ning.com/. Tweet along with us during the Challenge using #SYFchallenge, and follow the campaign @IWillTakeMyMeds.

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About Script Your Future 

Script Your Future is a campaign of the National Consumers League (NCL), a private, non-profit membership organization founded in 1899. NCL’s mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information about the Script Your Future campaign, visit ScriptYourFuture.org. For more information on NCL, please visit nclnet.org.

New National Consumers League podcast We Can Do This! explores current, historic socioeconomic reform in America

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January 16, 2020

Media contact: National Consumers League – Carol McKay, carolm@nclnet.org, (412) 945-3242 or Taun Sterling, tauns@nclnet.org, (202) 207-2832

Washington, DC—The National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s pioneering worker and consumer advocacy organization, has launched a podcast called We Can Do This!, produced by District Productive and hosted by NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg and other members of NCL policy staff. 

In We Can Do This!, NCL and justice-minded, expert guests explore current socioeconomic issues at the heart of American political and cultural battles before a backdrop of the historic and ongoing advocacy and activism that help pave the way for meaningful policy reform. 

We Can Do This! episodes span the breadth of NCL’s wide mission and issues, including; healthcare, data and privacy, food and nutrition, labor, finance, and other topics. 

A first batch of episodes featuring individuals who are helping to shape the nation’s social and economic reforms have been released:   

E1-2: Crashing through the glass ceiling with two dynamos of women’s rights law—parts 1-2 

With Judith Lichtman, president emeritus and senior advisor of the National Partnership for Women and Families and Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center 

E3: Ending the scourge of child labor 

With Kailash Satyarthi, anti-child labor crusader and Nobel Laureate 

E4: Measles, it ain’t over until it’s over 

With Dr. Linda Fu, general pediatrician at Children’s National Health System 

E5: Sorry, fair pay and a safe workplace aren’t on the menu 

With Diana Ramirez, federal senior policy advocate at Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC United) 

These five episodes are available now on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts, and the remainder of the 11-episode series will be released in early 2020. 

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About the National Consumers League (NCL)

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Sorry, fair pay and a safe workplace aren’t on the menu

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Diana Ramirez, Federal Senior Policy Advocate at Restaurant Opportunities Center,….

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