Founder Jessica Alba Receives Champion for Children Award

[caption id="attachment_4985" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Christopher Gavigan (also a CEHC board member), Jessica Alba, and Dr. Landrigan (CEHC director who presented the award and helped edit Jessica's book).[/caption]

The Mt. Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center (CEHC) honored co-founder Jessica Alba with the Champion for Children Award, recognizing her as a leader in the children’s environmental health movement. In front of a crowd of almost 800, Jessica shared how her personal experience with childhood illness—like severe asthma, allergies, and even kidney surgery—inspired her journey to ultimately advocate for toxic chemical reform and create The Honest Company.

[caption id="attachment_5042" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Image courtesy of Mt. Sinai Hospital.[/caption]

“It made me determined to create the safest, healthiest environment for my two little girls and children everywhere,” Jessica said. “The CEHC and director Dr. Philip Landrigan’s groundbreaking research have been a true source of inspiration for our work at Honest and my and new book, The Honest Life…. With [their] vision and commitment to the cause, we’ve been able to turn research into real action — providing solutions to childhood disease and spearheading meaningful regulatory reform.”

In their desire to discover and resolve why today’s children are suffering from diseases that were virtually unheard of a generation ago, the CEHC and Dr. Landrigan have made great strides in researching and identifying the environmental factors that cause them:

• Dr. Landrigan’s landmark discoveries on lead toxicity ultimately convinced the U.S. government to remove lead from gasoline and paint.

• Dr. Landrigan authored a groundbreaking report that found children to be uniquely susceptible to the effects of pesticides, changing public policy on pesticides and other toxic chemicals and serving as the blueprint for the only federal environmental law that contains explicit provisions for the protection of children.

• Currently, one in six American children suffers from a developmental disability; however, genetics alone accounts for only about one third of cases. With its Autism and Learning Disabilities Discovery and Prevention Project, the CEHC employs a multidisciplinary approach to discover the environmental causes of these common conditions.

• The CEHC’s Endocrine Disruptor Research Program examines the effects of exposures to BPA, phthalates, pesticides, and perchlorate on children’s health. Currently, it conducts two large pregnancy cohort studies that analyze the developmental effects of prenatal exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Researchers also study the impact of early exposures on childhood conditions like obesity, breast cancer risk, early onset of puberty, neurodevelopment, and reproductive outcomes.

• The CEHC has been able to ban BPA from baby bottles, sippy cups, formula, and receipt paper in areas of New York and Connecticut.

As leaders in the children’s environmental health movement, CEHC and Dr. Landrigan have truly made a difference.

The Honest Company was proud to sponsor and participate in the Greening Our Children Benefit Luncheon, work alongside other like-minded vendors at the Green Expo, host a Q&A with bloggers, and support CEHC initiatives through a silent auction. The afternoon was a great celebration of the CEHC mission, one Honest will continue to advance by exemplifying and promoting social, corporate, and government responsibility in children’s health.

To learn more about the CEHC, visit its Web site and check out these great resources for parents while you’re there.