A coalition of businesses and organizations representing a broad swath of the economy, including ISSA, the American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN), the Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA), Change Chemistry, the American Cleaning Institute, the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), and the Alternative Fuels & Chemicals Coalition (AFCC), have come together to express their united support for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safer Choice program. 

This voluntary program, which labels cleaning products meeting stringent safety and environmental standards, is seen by businesses as a vital tool for communicating product safety to consumers.

“The Safer Choice label is a beacon of trust for consumers and has been for the last decade,” said David Levine, American Sustainable Business Network co-founder and president. “It signifies that a product has undergone rigorous scrutiny by the EPA and meets high standards for human and environmental health. Privatizing this program would jeopardize its integrity and open the door for greenwashing. We have been defending EPA’s Design For the Environment (DFE) and subsequent Safer Choice programs since 2014, and will continue to lead this effort.”

Plans to transition the Safer Choice program to the private sector proposed by Project 2025, have sparked concerns among businesses that the program’s credibility and effectiveness could be undermined. The business community’s support for the program is evident in a coalition letter signed by over 200 businesses, investors ,and organizations, including ASBN members Ecos, Seventh Generation, and Naturepedic.

“We are proud to stand by the EPA’s historic foresight in building up this incredibly impactful program that sets American products apart from competitors, and we are ready to defend the Safer Choice program,” said Barry Cik, Naturepedic founder and technical director. “This program is a nonpartisan win-win for businesses and consumers, and we urge the EPA to maintain its commitment to protecting human and environmental health through this vital initiative.”

The coalition letter highlights the Safer Choice program’s numerous benefits, including its role in incentivizing product innovation; promoting safer chemistry; complementing federal, state, and retailer efforts to enhance product safety; and providing businesses with an efficient and effective way to communicate with consumers. The coalition is calling on the EPA to maintain the program’s integrity and ensure its continued success.

“EPA’s Safer Choice program has been incredibly beneficial for both American consumers and businesses,” said Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks, ECOS president and CEO. “This nonpartisan program is critical for reducing toxins in homes and workplaces across the U.S., and it gives American manufacturers like ECOS the opportunity to compete globally with this powerful certification program.”

A bird flu strain spreading among dairy cows in Nevada has infected a dairy worker, the Central Nevada Health District confirmed. The farm worker, who had been near infected cows, experienced conjunctivitis with no other reported symptoms and is recovering. The case marks the first for the state of Nevada.

The patient was found to have a strain of bird flu called D1.1, which is prevalent in wild birds. D1.1 is a different strain of the virus that’s caused the majority of human infections in the U.S., called B3.13, NBC News reported. The D1.1 strain has a mutation that could make the virus spread more easily in mammals and marks the second strain that has circulated from birds to dairy cows, the news agency reported.

The one person who died from bird flu in the U.S. had been hospitalized in Louisiana with the D1.1 genotype as well. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates D1.1 is responsible for 15 of the 68 human cases of bird flu confirmed last year.

The case brings the U.S. outbreak of the virus to nearly 70 people since April 2024, Reuters reported. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still considers the bird flu risk to the public health low.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported for the first time last week that a second strain of bird flu was found in dairy cattle in Nevada, a discovery that concerned experts.

Last month, the CDC also said the U.S. should increase testing for bird flu in hospitalized patients, ideally within 24 hours of admission.

Fifteen measles cases have been confirmed, mainly among unvaccinated school-aged children in Gaines County, a West Texas county with one of the highest vaccine exemption rates in the state, the Associated Press reported.

The South Plains Public Health District confirmed its first case of measles on Jan. 31 in Gaines County, which marked its first measles case in the county in over 20 years. Last year, Gaines County had a 13.60% exemption rate among school-aged children, according to Texas Department of State Health Services data. (The Associated Press also reported the numbers of unvaccinated kids in the county is likely significantly higher as many children in the county are homeschooled and the data would not be reported.) The only counties with higher exemption rates in Texas were Bell County with 18.82% and Crosby County with 23.68%. Looking at kindergarteners alone, Gaines County also had the third highest exemption rate in the state with 17.62% and surpassed only by Throckmorton County with 27.27% and Briscoe County with 20.0%.

Texas allows children to get an exemption from school vaccines for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs, the news agency reported. In turn, school-aged children with exemptions has risen during the last decade in Texas from 0.76% in 2014 to 2.32% last year, according to Texas Department of State Health Services data. For kindergartens in Texas the rate increased from 1.35% to 3.63%, during the decade.

The Houston Health Department (HHD) also identified two cases of measles associated with recent international travel on Jan. 23, confirming the first cases of measles in Texas since 2023.