By Courtney Brein, Linda Golodner Food Safety and Nutrition Fellow

This afternoon, I attended the Enrollment Ceremony for the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.  I sat in a beautiful room in the Capitol building and listened to Speaker Nancy Pelosi applaud the efforts of her colleagues, advocates, and the First Lady in pushing for the passage of important improvements to child nutrition programs.  Surrounded by a group of Congressional child nutrition champions – including Representative George Miller (D-CA), Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AK), and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) – she signed the legislation, completing the final step necessary to send the bill to President Obama’s desk to be signed into law.

Less than 24 hours earlier, I had watched – via C-SPAN live stream – as members of the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act by a vote of 264 to 157.  With one eye fixed to the goings on in the House chamber, I’d kept the other trained on my inbox and the steady stream of optimistic, and then downright festive, emails from child nutrition and anti-hunger advocates sitting in offices throughout D.C. and around the country.  The victorious cries of an even broader array of the bill’s supporters overwhelmed my twitterfeed.

The opportunity to celebrate a landmark achievement for healthier school meals was long overdue.  I began advocating for the passage of a strong reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act when I joined the League in August 2009 – and I came late to the game.  Many of my fellow advocates in the NANA (National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity) Coalition started pushing for the improved nutritional standards and increased reimbursement rate included in this bill before the last child nutrition authorization took place (it happens every five years).  And, more recently, the 2004 authorization – which was set to expire on September 30, 2009 – was extended until September 30, 2010.  While the Senate unanimously passed the bill in August of this year, the House did not take up the issue until the lame duck session following the November election.

Why is this bill so important?  While the bill’s provisions improve the nutrition of food served in schools for all children, they will also greatly help efforts to combat hunger and obesity, which often go hand-in-hand and disproportionately impact low-income kids.  Among other measures, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act does the following:

• Provides the biggest increase (six cents) in per-meal reimbursement that the National School Lunch Program has received since its inception

• Simplifies the process for enabling low-income children to receive the free meals to which they are entitled and expands after-school meal access for at-risk kids

• Makes significant strides in getting junk food out of schools

• Strengthens school wellness policies

• Increases funding for farm-to-school and school garden programs

If you support these improvements to child nutrition programs, please take a moment to check out this list of representatives who voted in favor of the bill and, if your rep is on it, send a quick thank-you email!  These 264 members deserve recognition for their leadership in getting this bill to the President’s desk.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Just before Thanksgiving, NCL wrote to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ask that the Commission set a safety standard for table saws. Table saws are used by hobbyists, shop students, woodworkers, and carpenters to cut wood and other products. They are critical equipment for those who work with wood and other products, but they have inherent dangers that have been documented by the CPSC: 3,000 people each year suffer amputations (10 people suffer finger amputations each day). The average per-accident business cost is estimated to be $67,000. Each year, 30,000 people suffer injuries from table saws.

Seven years ago a company called SawStop, which has developed safety technology to stop the saw blade when it detects electrical impulses given off by a finger or other body part, filed a petition with the Commission asking that the Commission adopt safety technology throughout the industry. The CPSC has yet to act on that petition or set a safety standard for table saws.

NCL’s letter says, in part: “The technology exists – and indeed is being used today by one manufacturer – to prevent the needless and brutal accidents associated with the hazards of using table saws. These involve amputations of fingers, including potentially those of teenage students working with table saws in woodworking classes.

While this petition languishes before the Commission, with no action taken by previous CPSC officials, every day 10 ten new amputations associated with the use of table saws occur! According to CPSC’s own data, a table saw injury occurs once every nine minutes. Table saws sold in the United States are currently required to meet UL Standard 987 for Stationary and Fixed Electric Tools, but this standard does little to prevent the amputations and injuries described above.

The hazards posed by table saws are unacceptable, especially when we have the means to prevent these accidents.

In this regard, NCL strongly urges the Commission to take action toward a performance standard for table saw safety, to give the industry a specific time period in which to adopt current technology or develop new technology to prevent grave injuries and amputations from table saws. The benefits of a performance standard include allowing for innovation and creativity in the design of a table saw with these safety components built in.

Table saw safety – and the ability of CPSC to take action to protect users of table saws– seems to us to be a classic example of how the Commission’s role was envisioned by Congress when the CPSC was established in 1972. While table saws do have certain inherent hazards, that is not an excuse for failing to enact safety regulations for these products. There are many products, such as lawnmowers and ATVs, which are inherently dangerous and yet are still regulated by the Commission. And because we now have the technology to prevent those hazards and the pain, suffering, and cost that goes along with any pattern of human injury from a hazardous product, the Commission should take action.

We hope the NCL letter will provide an impetus for the Commission to act. When technology exists to prevent injury, if a pattern of injury exists and if the cost is reasonable to implement injury prevention technology, we believe the CPSC should move forward to set an industry standard for safe design.

Thanks to the American Cancer Society, smokers and friends of smokers have the third Thursday in November to work towards improving their health by quitting smoking. Quitting can be a challenge, but there are many resources available to help you through the process. Many employers and health insurance plans are now making it easier and more affordable to benefit from smoking cessation programs.

While we’re making strides in reducing the number of smokers in this country, 46.6 million adults still smoke and 40 percent of nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke. Nearly 500,000 deaths each year are linked to smoking and secondhand smoke.

You can do your part! Send an e-card to a friend or family member to encourage them to put down their cigarettes. Even if they are able to quit for just one day, their blood pressure and heart rate will drop and their carbon monoxide levels in their blood will return to normal. And if they continue to keep the cigarettes away, they’ll experience even more health benefits.

Show a loved one you care – or take a moment to care for yourself – by participating in this year’s Great American Smokeout!

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

As we come off the election last week, we’re reminded that early leaders of the National Consumers League were deeply involved in local elections. Florence Kelley and Jane Addams, from their perch at Hull House in Chicago, worked to defeat corrupt local officials and elect those who shared their concerns about child and sweatshop labor, then known as one of the leaders of the “boodlers,” as corrupt city officials were called.

I personally have always enjoyed Election Day. Ever since I was a kid and my mother would take her with me to vote, election day carries with it a sense of excitement. As Florence Kelley and Jane Addams knew, “all politics are local.” I experienced that during last week’s election; not only did I have my hopes set on the election of a number of consumer-friendly candidates locally and around the country, I myself was listed on my local ballot, running for a neighborhood advisory post that serves as the voice for the local community. I didn’t win, but nevertheless the process was unexpectedly rewarding.

I needed to be at my polling site catching the early voters and handing out literature by 7 am. I’ve never been to any polling site at that hour! But I wasn’t alone. By the time I arrived at 6:45 am, there were signs up and down the street from candidates running in the District of Columbia. And throughout the day I met my neighbors and friends, exchanged tidbits of information, learned about their concerns on traffic, pedestrian safety, or trash collection. We were visited by local officials: Mary Cheh, our Ward 3 city council member, our school board representative, and our new Mayor-elect, Vincent Gray. All stopped to chat and exchange information about turnout and who was likely to win what post.

Perhaps most moving were the elderly voters who came out. One woman moved down the street slowly but deliberately, her walker outfitted with a stylish Burberry pattern that matched her purse. Another gentleman, coming from the nearby assisted living facility, was bent all the way over his walker, but he moved at a swift pace up the hill to the church that served as our polling place. I walked him down the street after he voted, and he had a smile on his face as we talked, though he did complain that since he moved to the District, he couldn’t vote for a member of Congress! A valid criticism indeed, since District residents don’t have a vote in Congress.

I remained at the polls till they closed at 8 pm. Friends came and helped me hand out literature; another friend took me for a quick lunch break; I picked up my 15-year-old son from school and brought him to the polling place for a bit. Yes, there were a few dull moments, but all in all it was a great day and a terrific face-to-face exercise in civic involvement. Friends have asked me if I will run again for this local position. The answer is I don’t know, but the rewards of being on the ballot were a lot bigger than I ever imagined.

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

Sunday’s Washington Post featured a *compelling – and sad – story that reaffirms NCL’s concerns about farmworker kids. In “A Harvest of Reduced Expectations,” by reporter Kevin Sieff, the youngsters interviewed describe constantly moving from town to town during the school year – following their farmworker parents, showing up at new schools in the middle of the year, and failing to enjoy any continuity in their education. As a result, many drop out.

One teenage girl talked about living in farmworker’s quarters, which are typically run down and lacking in the niceties so many of today’s teens take for granted – a good bed, a desk on which to do homework, regular hours for meals and bedtimes. One boy is pictured sitting on his bed reading over his homework; he has no desk and lives in a threadbare makeshift living quarters.

But most troubling in the teenage girl’s story is that though she is glad to be able to be with her father and take care of her siblings, she is often surrounded by farmworkers who are NOT there with their wives and families. During the weekends many of these men bring prostitutes back to the quarters where these children live.

Reid Maki at NCL has worked tirelessly with the other members of the Child Labor Coalition, which NCL co-chairs, to gain passage of the *CARE Act, which will help to get farmworker kids out of the fields and in school full-time. This Washington Post article is particularly well headlined: A Harvest of Reduced Expectations; the piece does a great job of shining a light on the substandard and unacceptable living conditions of so many farmworkers – and their kids. Let’s pass CARE and get these kids into schools where they will be learning on a continuous basis and not exposed to a world that is hardly fit for adults, let alone children.

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings