David Steinman

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David Steinman in 2006
David Steinman in 2006

David Steinman is an acclaimed environmentalist, consumer health advocate, publisher and author. His major books include Diet for a Poisoned Planet (1990, 2007), The Safe Shopper’s Bible (1995), Living Healthy in a Toxic World (1996), and Safe Trip to Eden: Ten Steps to Save the Planet Earth from Global Warming Meltdown (2007), the book that introduces the concept of Green Patriotism.

Contents

[edit] Early career

In 1985, David Steinman was writing for the LA Weekly when he learned that fish in the Santa Monica Bay were tainted with DDT and PCBs. He began to wonder how many poisons were in other foods he ate. He started doing research into the levels of industrial pollutants and pesticides in human blood and published his team’s findings in the Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The resulting landmark human blood study led to the historic Heal the Bay movement that cleaned up the Santa Monica Bay.

As a journalist, Steinman won awards for his reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, Sierra Club, and the Society of Professional Journalists (“Best of the West: Environment and Natural Resources Reporting”).

In 1986, Steinman testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Health and the Environment as an expert witness on the levels of chemical contaminants in the blood of fishermen and women eating locally caught fish from the Santa Monica Bay. From 1989 to 1991, Steinman served as a member of the Committee on Evaluation of Safety of Fishery Products for the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. Steinman was also a contributing author of Seafood Safety (National Academy Press, 1991).

[edit] Environmental Books and Leadership

Steinman’s contributions to Seafood Safety led to his groundbreaking and controversial book Diet for a Poisoned Planet (Crown 1990, Ballantine 1992; Thunder’s Mouth Press 2007). Steinman made hundreds of requests under the Freedom of Information Act for government studies on food safety and reviewed tens of thousands of chemical analyses on food. In Diet, he identified foods with the lowest and highest toxicity levels by classifying them as green-, yellow- or red-light foods. The book was received with harsh criticism by sectors of the food industry as well as by the Food and Drug Administration and by former surgeon general C. Everett Koop. The California Raisin Advisory Board spent over $500,000 on a PR campaign to directly counteract Steinman’s warnings about industrial chemical and pesticide residues in raisins.

In 1995, Steinman wrote Safe Shopper’s Bible: A Consumer’s Guide to Nontoxic Household Products, Cosmetics and Food (Macmillan) with a foreword by Ralph Nader, and which included a comprehensive review of products from pet supplies to carpeting to auto products. He held a press conference with Ralph Nader challenging 12 manufacturers and distributors of the most dangerous products, calling them “the Dirty Dozen” in an effort to force manufacturers to reformulate their products or pull them from the market. The following year, Steinman wrote Living Healthy in a Toxic World: Simple Steps to Protect You and Your Family from Everyday Chemicals, Poisons, and Pollution (Perigree, 1996) with foreword by TV actress Kirstie Alley.

Since 1996, Steinman has been an advisory board member for The Green Guide Institute, a national non-profit, organization for consumer research and information run by Wendy Gordon Rockefeller. In 2000, Steinman served as Chairman of Citizens for Health, a national nonprofit consumer advocacy group known as the voice of the natural health consumer. He has also been featured as a consumer health advocate in the media on TV, radio and in the press.

On February 8, 2007, Steinman led a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. regarding the presence of the undisclosed carcinogenic petrochemical 1,4-dioxane in children's and adult's bath and beauty products. Held jointly with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and with participation from the Environmental Working Group, the conference highlighted a range of products including name-brand baby shampoos and bubble baths that were found in lab tests to have the carcinogenic petrochemical in significant amounts, although it was never included in product labeling. The press conference also called for official FDA oversight of the cosmetics and personal care products industry, which is currently self-regulated and subject only to suggestions from the FDA.

[edit] The Freedom Press

In 1998, Steinman founded The Freedom Press, a publishing house for books and magazines on health and the environment. In 1998, he founded and became editor-in-chief of the popular science-based health magazine The Doctors’ Prescription for Healthy Living, distributed nationally to health food stores, doctor’s offices, bookstores and newsstands.

Under Steinman’s leadership, The Freedom Press partnered with many respected traditional and alternative medical professionals to publish more than two dozen books in health including The Green Foods Bible (2006) by David Sandoval, Dr. Katz’s Guide to Prostate Health (2005) by Aaron Katz, M.D., Invisible Illnesses (2005) by Gloria Gilbere, N.D., D.A.Hom., PhD., The Healing Power of Flax (2004) by Herb-Joiner Bey, N.D., and Physician Heal Thyself (2002) by Jordan Rubin, N.M.D., C.N.C.

Through The Freedom Press, Steinman also published environmental titles such as Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability (2006) by Greg Horn, The Toxic Bedroom (2006) by Walt Bader, and Surviving Bioterrorism (2003) by the editors of The Doctor’s Prescription for Healthy Living.

David Steinman is the father of three children and lives in California.

[edit] Books by David Steinman

[edit] References

  • Ahmed, Farid E. (Ed.) and The Committee on Evaluation of the Safety of Fishery Products. Seafood Safety, National Academy Press (1991).
  • Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. "Cancer-Causing Chemical Found in Children's Bath Products". http://www.safecosmetics.org/newsroom/press.cfm?pressReleaseID=21, accessed 2-12-07.
  • Dykema, Ravi. “The Cancer Frontlines: Supermarket Aisles.” Nexus, Colorado’s Holistic Journal, January/February, 1997, pp. 31-36.
  • “Flying the Koop: A Surgeon General's Reputation On the Line.” PR Watch, Volume 5, No. 4, 4th quarter 1998.
  • Glendinning, Chellis. “A Diet Designed for Human Survival.” San Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 1990.
  • Gossett, Richard W.; Wikholm, Gary; Ljubenkov, John and Steinman, David. “Human Serum DDT Levels Related To Consumption of Fish from the Coastal Waters of Los Angeles.” Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 1989(8):951-955.
  • Stauber J. & Rampton S. Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, Common Courage Press (1995), pp 6-10, 184-5.
  • Sheldon Rampton. “Ketchum (the UN's PR Firm) Tackles Corporate Responsibility.” PR Watch, Volume 8, No. 4, 4th quarter 2001.
  • Steinman, David. “Poison Fish, Poisoned Fishermen? A Special LA Weekly Investigative Report.” LA Weekly, Volume 7, no. 49, November 1, 1985, pp.13-18.

[edit] External links

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