Environmental Books and Leadership
Steinman’s contributions to Seafood Safety led to his 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 recommended the Purification Rundown, a "detoxification" regimen created by L. Ron Hubbard as part of the scripture of Scientology. It was criticized by sectors of the food industry as well as by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and by C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General of the United States. 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 actress and Scientologist 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.
On March 14, 2008, Steinman led a similar press conference with the Organic Consumers Association at the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, CA regarding the presence of 1,4-dioxane in "organic" and "natural" personal care products. This press conference led to the California Attorney General suing four companies with 1,4-dioxane in their cleaning and/or personal care products in June 2008. On March 6, 2009, Steinman and the Organic Consumers Association announced at the Natural Products Expo that 16 major brands had cleaned up 1,4-dioxane from 23 of their products, and that they would bring legal action against several brands whose products still had high amounts of the chemical.
On March 12, 2010, Steinman and the Organic Consumers Association, in cooperation with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and Clean Water Action, announced at the Natural Products Expo that Procter & Gamble had agreed to reformulate 18 of their Herbal Essences products to reduce levels of 1,4-dioxane to 10ppm (parts per million) or below. They also released results of a new study testing 20 laundry detergents for 1,4-dioxane which found the highest levels in P&G brands Tide, Tide Free, and Ivory Snow.
Steinman also wrote the introduction to 50 Simple Steps to Save the Earth from Global Warming by the Green Patriot Working Group (Freedom Press, 2008).
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