As we wrap up this year, Safer States wishes you and your families a very happy and healthy holiday.

As you are celebrating with your families, please remember to keep them happy by following a few simple tips for gift buying and setting your dinner table this holiday.

1. Use the Healthy Stuff website to check for toxic chemical levels in the toys that you buy. The folks at healthy stuff have researched over 5,000 children’s products to see if they are contaminated with potentially harmful chemicals.

2. Choose fresh, local and organic foods for your Christmas dinner. Avoid as many pesticides as possible in your Christmas dinner by choosing organic foods. Pesticides often contain neurotoxins which, in high concentrations have been known to affect nervous system development, cognition and behavior.

If you've bought a plastic water bottle or baby bottle in the last nine months, you've likely seen the words "BPA-free" on some ahead-of-the-curve brands.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a synthetic estrogen widely used in hard plastics and the epoxy resins that line many food cans, although some manufacturers have stopped using it, and some retailers have stopped selling products that contain it. But BPA persists in many of the products we use every day.

Now Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have introduced a bill that would ban this toxic additive from all food and beverage containers. Learn more about the Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009.

This letter was written by Sarah Barba, a mother in Harper Woods, MI. Barba is encouraging other parents to speak out about toxic chemicals in toys:

Dear fellow parents and other concerned citizens:

I am the mother of two wonderful girls, a 2 year-old and a 3 1/2 year-old. The girls love playing in the play kitchen and preparing recipes for me. One dish that has been served many times is corn on the cob. I would order a corn on the cob and the girls would get it for me. They would of course try some themselves first.  Being young children their mouths were always on the play corn even though I urged them to "just pretend."

Tell Governor Patrick that BPA doesn’t belong in baby bottles and other children’s products. Demand better for Massachusetts’ children!

Bring a polycarbonate baby bottle or water bottle and put a message inside to the governor. Together we will deliver these messages in a bottle and the thousands of signatures that we have collected thus far requesting a ban of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in children's products.

Bring your friends and your neighbors to this event at the Massachusetts Statehouse, Room 222, on Thursday, March 19 at 10:30 a.m.

It is about time that action is taken on BPA!

Suffolk County, New York is poised to be the first governmental body in the nation to forbid the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups made from the toxic chemical bisphenol A. Industry is pushing back hard, and your help is needed to ensure that the full County Legislature passes the “Toxin Free Toddlers and Babies Act” this Tuesday, March 3. You can take action by participating in Clean New York's online campaign - just click here.

The bill, Intro 1017, was introduced by Legislator Steve Stern (Huntington) in January. It was referred to the Health and Human Services Committee at the February meeting of the Suffolk County Legislature, which advanced it back to the full Legislature for a final vote.

Washington State has proven to be a leader in protecting children's health from harmful chemicals. All eyes are on Washington as it has an amazing opportunity to set the stage for national change. If Washington passes the Safe Baby Bottle Act of 2009, a bill to eliminate bisphenol A (BPA) from baby bottles and children's food containers, it will not only have passed the nation's first ban on BPA, but will show policy makers across the country it can be done.

We need your help to make this happen. Our legislators in Olympia hear excuses from chemical and industry lobbyists every week about why Washington can't protect children from BPA in baby bottles.

Lindane is a toxic pesticide that has been banned for use in more than 50 countries and the state of California, and is no longer used on pets, in agriculture or in the military anywhere in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But you can still put lindane on children's heads or whole bodies as part of a treatment for head lice or scabies.

The Safer Alternatives Bill, sponsored in Massachusetts by Representative Jay Kaufman and Senator Steven Tolman, will create a pragmatic and flexible program to replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives, wherever feasible.

In 2008 the bill passed the Senate but not the House and so this session we need your help to start out with a strong show of force even greater than last year!

Make sure that your Representative and Senator take the first step this session and sign on as a co-sponsors of the Safer Alternatives Bill.

What if you opened the newspaper one day and saw this headline: Washington State Fails to Ban Toxic Chemical BPA.

That’s what the headlines could read if we don’t take action now to urge our state legislators to eliminate BPA in baby bottles and other food containers.

Washington Toxics Coalition is working hard to mail out 9,000 postcards to supporters. So far, there has been a tremendous response and coalition has mailed out 6,855 postcards to people across the state. That means there are 2,144 more postcards left to distribute!

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a toxic chemical found in polycarbonate plastic that is widely used to make baby bottles, sippy cups, teethers, toys, pacifiers, and utensils as well as being in the epoxy resins of cans of baby formula and other foods. Ask Massachusetts' Governor Deval Patrick to support the Department of Public Health (DPH) to regulate toxic baby products containing BPA, and to issue a consumer warning for pregnant women to avoid BPA products.

The DPH has the legal power to ban the sale of toxic household products and can insist that the products on our store shelves are safer. We are calling on the governor to support the DPH to ban the sale of all products containing Bisphenol A (BPA), intended for use by children 3 years of age and under, that may be mouthed or ingested, and also to issue a consumer warning to avoid products containing BPA directed to pregnant women, woman planning to become pregnant, and those undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Help us reach 1,000 signatures. Click here to sign the petition.