Nancy Alderman

Having spent an evening in the emergency room of Yale New Haven Hospital, it brought a few important issues into focus.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s proposal to have a new Food Safety Agency is exactly what is needed if the United States is to have a safe supply of our food and timely recalls.

A speech to the annual meeting of Upjohn stockholders began the long process of creating Brick Yard Point.

The lawmakers who passed this bill into law knew full well that on-line gambling would cause people to become addicted to it and they knew people would go bankrupt.    So did that keep them from passing the bill?

Last month the CT Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released its report on the state of Connecticut’s environment. The report tracked the number of unhealthy air days there were in Connecticut last year. There were 17 bad air days, meaning that for over two weeks during the hot summer months Connecticut’s air was burdened with ground level ozone.

So goes our democracy. Making democracy work is not easy — for those who wish to delve into it — it is clear democracy is hard work — but there is no better way to govern — so we will keep at it even when it seems unfair.

It’s been more than 40 years since Connecticut lawmakers enacted the CT Redemption Bottle Law, known as the “Bottle Bill.” The  CT  Bottle Bill became law in 1978, and at that time a five-cent deposit was put on the bottles of water, beer and soda. That same five- cent deposit remains today, 42 years later. In our present economy. the five-cent deposit fee is inadequate.

At the present time, Connecticut legislators need to be in the actual Legislative Office Building in order to cast their votes. Legislators can either be on the floor of the Legislative Office Building or in their offices when they vote, but they must be in the building for their vote to be counted.

We cannot know whether PFAS are contaminating our drinking water unless the water is tested.  There is legislation now before the Connecticut Public Health Committee, HB 5288, requiring Connecticut’s drinking water supply companies test for PFAS. It is of the utmost importance that this bill becomes law, if we are to protect Connecticut’s citizens.

The federal government has announced that it will not allow any legislation that regulate e-cigarettes — a reversal of prior indications. The lobbyists for the e-cigarette companies have convinced the administration that their supporters like to vape — and therefore the administration will not allow any legislation that might curb the vaping epidemic. This announcement leaves the work of protecting the health of children, teenagers, and adults to the states.

There is a serious disconnect between what the public assumes to be the case and what the reality is when it comes to product safety.  Most people believe that if a product is on the market it has been proven to be safe.   There are numerous products that have been brought to market without proper testing that later have been proven to be harmful. The most recent example of this is e-cigarettes.

Monsanto and its German new owner Bayer AG face more than 9,000 lawsuits in the U.S. brought by people suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and who blame Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) for their diseases. Glyphosate/Roundup is an herbicide and herbicides are used to kill weeds.

Get ready. The State of Connecticut’s new ban on single-use plastic bags goes into effect August 1. It will place a tax of 10 cents on each single-use plastic bag.