March, 14 2022, 03:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Rachel Doughty, Greenfire Law, PC, 510-900-9502; rdoughty@greenfirelaw.com (Counsel)
Stefanie Spear, As You Sow, sspear@asyousow.org, 216-387-1609 (Amicus & plaintiff in related case)
Michael Bender, Zero Mercury Working Group, 802-917-8222; mercurypolicy@aol.com (Amicus)
Dr. Astrid Williams, Black Women for Wellness, astrid@bwwla.com, (323) 290-5955 (Amicus)
California Court Rules Amazon Must Protect Consumers
WASHINGTON
The California Court of Appeals Friday ruled Amazon, the world's largest store, must comply with consumer protection laws including warning California consumers when products sold on its marketplace contain chemicals listed by California as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants. As You Sow and other consumer advocates applauded the decision in a case involving skin lightening creams containing extremely toxic and illegal levels of mercury.
This ruling deals a major blow to Amazon, which has tried mightily and with some success to evade liability across the country for harm caused by products sold on its marketplace. (Read these two news stories -- Wall Street Journal, CNN -- on Amazon and the health impacts of skin lightening creams).
"Our position has always been that Amazon's online shelves must be subject to the same consumer protection laws as other businesses, full stop. Big is not an excuse to harm, and virtual shouldn't mean lawless. Amazon has the resources to comply with the law and it must do so," said Danielle Fugere, president and chief counsel at As You Sow. "Amazon is in a far better position than individual shoppers to ensure that the products it sells meet health and safety standards."
Amazon was sued in 2014 by Larry Lee, and again in 2018 by As You Sow, under the Toxic Enforcement Act, sometimes called Proposition 65, for exposing consumers to skin lightening creams which are illegal under state and federal law due to their dangerously high mercury content. Testing showed that Amazon allowed sales of more than a dozen brands of skin-whitening creams that contain mercury, at thousands of times the legal limit set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The lawsuits against Amazon allege Amazon knowingly exposed consumers to mercury by allowing the mercury-laden, skin lightening creams to be sold through its website without providing the legally required warnings to shoppers.
Amazon's primary defense was that it does not have an obligation to comply with the Act because health and safety compliance should be handled entirely by the third-party vendors on its online store -- no matter how small and no matter whether they are familiar with U.S. laws -- even if Amazon knows the products are dangerous. Amazon also argued that because it is an online platform, it should bear no responsibility for any harm to consumers from the dangerously high mercury products sold on its virtual shelves.
Lead counsel Rachel Doughty of Greenfire Law, PC, points to another recent ruling involving the sale of defective products on Amazon -- Bolger v. Amazon.com.
"This case represents a continuation of the sea change we are seeing in the law to finally reflect the reality of online marketplaces -- both legislatively and in interpreting existing laws," Doughty said. "The court looked at what voters intended when they adopted the Toxic Enforcement Act and determined it was that California consumers be warned of reproductive and cancer health risks prior to exposure, and found no basis to give Amazon a pass."
This decision is a major win for public health and the consumer advocates who have been working to ensure that products are safe for consumers.
"Our most recent testing report confirms that Amazon continues to flaunt the law by selling often illegal and dangerously high mercury skin lighteners around the world," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project, who along with Black Women for Wellness submitted an Amicus Brief in support of the lawsuit filed by Lee.
"As the Court of Appeal for the State of California First Appellate District shows, Amazon violated the Toxic Enforcement Act when, despite knowing that the skin-lightening creams at issue contained mercury, it took concrete actions to sell those products and ultimately exposed its shoppers to mercury without warning," Bender added.
The plaintiff was represented by Greenfire Law, PC and the Law Office of Jonathan Weissglass. The California Attorney General's Office, As You Sow, Black Women for Wellness, and Mercury Policy Project filed amicus briefs in the case.
Additional quotes on the court ruling:
Plaintiff Larry Lee said:
"I'm happy that Amazon shoppers will be informed of the risk of these dangerous products and avoid buying them and bringing them into their homes if they want to."
Dr. Astrid Williams, environmental justice program manager for Black Women for Wellness, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said:
"This is great news for communities of color, particularly Black women who use these skin lightening products. Black women carry a higher load due to toxins and environmental exposures and are often under-protected. We look forward to greater monitoring and regulation of beauty aids and personal care products."
Danielle Fugere, chief counsel at As You Sow, the plaintiff in a related 2018 mercury in skin lightening cream case against Amazon, said:
"Amazon, one of the world's largest companies, argued that it was not 'acting in the course of doing business' and should not be held responsible for the sale of these extremely toxic skin lightening creams on its website marketplace. California's Toxic Enforcement Act requires anyone acting in the course of doing business to warn Californians before they are exposed to carcinogens and reproductive toxins. Our position has always been that there is no exception for Amazon. The California Court of Appeals soundly confirmed our position on Friday."
As You Sow is the nation's non-profit leader in shareholder advocacy. Founded in 1992, we harness shareholder power to create lasting change that benefits people, planet, and profit. Our mission is to promote environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies.
LATEST NEWS
Lawyers for Jailed Palestine Defender Mohsen Mahdawi Demand His Release
One attorney said that the former Columbia University organizer "sits in a jail cell because of his lawful speech," while another reminded supporters that Mahdawi "has not been charged with any crime."
Apr 23, 2025
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Attorneys for Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student organizer at Columbia University and permanent U.S. resident caught up in the Trump administration's crusade against Palestine defenders, argued in federal court Wednesday that their client was illegally arrested and detained for his constitutionally protected speech and should be immediately freed.
In what Mahdawi's legal team hailed as a "victory," U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford extended a temporary restraining order issued last week by Judge William Sessions III to prevent federal officials from transferring Mahdawi from Vermont, where he is being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans. Crawford also scheduled a new hearing for Mahdawi on April 30.
Addressing the nearly 100 letters submitted in support of Mahdawi, Crawford said that "no one has ever provided anything like that before," adding, "These were quite striking in geographic and philosophical breadth, including many members of the Jewish community."
Mahdawi, who is 34 years old and has been a green-card holder for a decade, was arrested on April 14 by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during an appointment for his citizenship test in Colchester, Vermont. He was steps away from naturalization; instead, federal agents attempted to force Mahdawi onto a plane bound for Louisiana, where other Palestine defenders are being held pending deportation proceedings.
Mahdawi's lawyers are seeking his immediate release.
"We ask this court to suspend this unlawful retaliation and slow the grave threat to free speech posed by his continued detainment by releasing Mr. Mahdawi on bail," his legal team said in a filing.
Luna Droubi, an attorney on the team, said after the hearing that "Mohsen Mahdawi sits in a jail cell because of his lawful speech."
"What the government provided thus far only establishes that the only basis they have to currently detaining him in the manner they did is his lawful speech," Droubi added. "We intend on being back in one week's time to free Mohsen."
"What the government provided thus far only establishes that the only basis they have to currently detaining him in the manner they did is his lawful speech."
Like the numerous other pro-Palestine activists arrested—critics say kidnapped—and detained by the Trump administration, the government concedes that Mahdawi committed no crime. However, under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the secretary of state can expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to foreign policy interests.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argued that Mahdawi should be deported because letting him remain in the country "would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest."
Trump administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio have cited President Donald Trump's executive order ostensibly aimed at combating antisemitism and his edict authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza as justification for Mahdawi's arrest and detention.
However, Mahdawi has repeatedly condemned anti-Jewish hatred, including during a 2023 interview on CBS News' "60 Minutes" in which he asserted that "the fight for freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
VTDiggerreported that hundreds of people gathered outside the Burlington, Vermont courthouse Wednesday to show support for Mahdawi and demand his release. Nora Rubinstein of Middletown Springs, Vermont said she was rallying in defense of "democracy and freedom" and to help the U.S. "return to the democratic principles this country was founded on."
"It's time to end the shredding of our democracy, the shredding of our Constitution," Rubinstein added.
On Monday, Mahdawi told U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who visited him behind bars, that "I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles of this country."
"The most important rights [are in] the Bill of Rights, which includes free speech on the top of these rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of having religion or not having religion at all," he added.
As Welch visited Mahdawi, Columbia University students, faculty, and alumni once again chained themselves to a fence to protest his detention and demand the release of not only Mahdawi but also of fellow Columbia activists and permanent U.S. residents Mahmoud Khalil and Yunseo Chung, as well as other student Palestine defenders including Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, and others.
On Tuesday, a delegation of Massachusetts Democrats—U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Jim McGovern and Ayanna Pressley—visited Khalil and Öztürk at the Louisiana ICE detention facility where they are being held. Markey accused the Trump administration of jailing the activists in Louisiana in a bid to have "the single most conservative circuit court of appeals in the United States of America" hear the case.
Mahdawi's lawyers said they believe their client will soon be free.
"We are very hopeful that he will be released," attorney Cyrus Mehta told supporters and media gathered outside the Burlington courthouse on Wednesday. "The judge wants to move quickly, and he realizes that this is a case of great importance for this country."
"What we're seeing here is unprecedented where they are so hell-bent on detaining students," Mehta added. "These are not hardened criminals. These are people who have not been charged with any crime, they have also not been charged under any of the other deportation provisions of the immigration act."
One of the attorneys read the crowd a statement from Mahdawi in which he said that "this hearing is part of the system of democracy" that "prevents a tyrant from having unchecked power."
"I am in prison," he added, "but I am not imprisoned."
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Amnesty to Kristi Noem: 'Stop Revoking Visas of Foreign Students'
"These repressive tactics and the summary revocation of people's immigration status," said Amnesty, "demonstrate an utter lack of respect for their human rights."
Apr 23, 2025
The global human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday called on supporters of the United States' core constitutional rights to write to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that the Trump administration stop its campaign to strip foreign students of their right to be in the country for exercising their First Amendment freedoms.
As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accosted former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil, forced him into an unmarked vehicle, and took him to a detention center in Louisiana thousands of miles from his pregnant wife in March, the administration's attacks on international students have only intensified.
Seven identified students have had their visas revoked, while the administration is pushing to revoke the residency status of at least two students who protested the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza.
The White House is using a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to claim that certain students including Khalil pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy and should be deported.
"At least 1,300 additional students are known to have had their visas revoked," reads a letter template provided to supporters by Amnesty. "However, many of these students never received notice of the revocation, nor did they participate in any protest or expressive activity on campus. Some students may have been targeted due to having committed minor crimes such as traffic violations. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of students, many were targeted because of their country of origin, particularly those from African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian backgrounds."
Supporters who send the letter can urge Noem to "restore the visas and immigration status of these students and visitors, release all students from immigration detention, refrain from deporting any of them, and end the targeting of students based on their immigration statuses and for exercising their human rights."
"According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of students, many were targeted because of their country of origin, particularly those from African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian backgrounds."
As Common Dreams reported, President Donald Trump's attacks on foreign students' First Amendment rights and his threats to universities' funding if they don't comply with his policies aimed at rooting out criticism of U.S. policy in Israel and Palestine, which both Republican and Democratic politicians have claimed is synonymous with antisemitism, have pushed schools to notify hundreds of students that their visas were revoked.
Trump's attacks on international students have shocked several federal judges, and one judge in Georgia on Friday ordered ICE to restore the legal status of students whose visas were revoked due to DHS' termination of their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS).
DHS admitted in a court filing last week that it does not have the authority to change students' visa status via SEVIS.
"These repressive tactics and the summary revocation of people's immigration status," said Amnesty, "whether due to their speech and protest activities or their country of origin, demonstrate an utter lack of respect for their human rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, due process, and to be free from discrimination."
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Pushing to Eviscerate Head Start and SNAP, Trump Wants to Give Parents Medals for Having More Kids
Republicans, said one feminist writer, "don't care about making the world better, safer, or healthier for American families and children. They just want women to have more babies."
Apr 23, 2025
Political observers have warned that U.S. President Donald Trump has spent his first months in office "flooding the zone"—unleashing a torrent of executive actions and Republican proposals meant to overwhelm his opponents while furthering his right-wing agenda, including pushes to slash healthcare for more than 36 million children, eliminate funding for early childhood education, and weaken environmental justice initiatives.
But new reporting this week revealed that while taking significant actions that are expected to directly harm millions of children—and make the cost of living higher for parents across the country—White House officials have been considering a range of proposals aimed at encouraging people to have more children.
As The New York Times reported Monday, White House aides have met in recent weeks with policy experts and advocates for boosting U.S. birth rates, which have been declining since 2007.
Simone and Malcolm Collins, activists who founded Pronatalist.org, which they describe as "the first pronatalist organization in the world," told the Times that they have sent multiple draft executive orders to the White House, including one that would bestow a "National Medal of Motherhood" on women who have six children or more—a scheme with history in numerous fascist regimes, including those of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Other proposals aides have discussed would reserve 30% of Fulbright scholarships for people who are married or have children; grant a $5,000 "baby bonus" to families after they have a baby; and fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles so they can use "natural family planning" and determine when they are able to conceive.
"Just so we're clear: Instead of teaching kids about birth control and sexual health, the government would fund programs that teach little girls how to get pregnant," wrote Jessica Valenti at the Substack newsletter Abortion, Every Day.
The latter proposal would likely be offered without offering women any information about contraception or other comprehensive sex education, which President Donald Trump vehemently opposed in his first term.
The administration's "pronatalist" push has been steadily building since before Trump won the presidency. During the campaign last year, Vice President JD Vance provoked an uproar when he doubled down on his comments from 2021 when he had said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies." He said last summer that people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future and defended his previous remarks that the government should "punish the things that we think are bad"—meaning not having children.
"For years, proposals and debates have separated having children from raising children. But parents aren't dumb. They'll look around and ask whether this is a world where it's good to have children."
Vance's claim that the Democratic Party is "anti-family and anti-child" was based largely on his belief that politicians on the left are too negative about the future—frequently expressing concern about the scientific consensus that continuing to extract fossil fuels, which Trump has promised to ramp up, will cause more frequent and devastating extreme climate events.
Since Trump took office, he has pledged to be a "fertilization president"—touting his support for in vitro fertilization even as federal researchers in reproductive technology were dismissed from their jobs—and his transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, told staffers to prioritize infrastructure projects in areas with high birth and marriage rates.
But the Republican Party, including Trump, has long scoffed at concrete policy proposals meant to make raising children—not just birthing them—more accessible for American families.
The Michigan Republican Party penned a memo in 2023 saying a paid family leave proposal was a "ridiculous idea" akin to "summer break for adults," and a budget proposal by Trump in 2018 claimed to require states to provide paid parental leave, but it was derided as "phony and truly dangerous" by one policy expert.
Senate Republicans last year blocked legislation that would have helped lift 500,000 children out of poverty by expanding eligibility for the child tax credit.
According to a leaked draft for the Health and Human Services Department's budget, Trump is now proposing eliminating federal funding for Head Start, which provides early childhood education and other support services for low-income children and their families, helping nearly 40 million children since it began six decades ago.
Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children, said of the proposed cuts to Head Start last week that it was "shocking to see an administration consider a proposal that will impose such widespread harm on children."
"Rarely has there been such a clear, targeted attack on children," said Lesley. "Parents already have trouble finding available childcare and early learning programs, and even when they do, they struggle to afford them. The average annual cost of center-based childcare for an infant is over $15,000, more than in-state college tuition in many states. And who has the least access and greatest financial challenges to care? The children served by Head Start.
Meanwhile, the federal budget proposal passed by House Republicans earlier this month would help pay for "huge tax giveaways for wealthy households and businesses," said the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, by cutting health coverage for 72 million people who rely on Medicaid and food assistance for an estimated 13.8 million children who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
Responding to the reports of Trump's potential "pronatalist" proposals, Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, told the Institute for Public Accuracy that the White House "can't just encourage people to have children. You have to think about what happens to those children after they're born."
"The countries that have been more successful in [raising children] have given family allowances, parental leave, and focused on who will teach and take care of children," said Galinsky. "The more children you have, the more likely it is you'll need to work and bring in a salary. Do parents have flexibility at their workplace?"
"For years, proposals and debates have separated having children from raising children," she added. "But parents aren't dumb. They'll look around and ask whether this is a world where it's good to have children."
Republicans' proposed cuts to essential services for families demonstrate that they "don't care about making the world better, safer, or healthier for American families and children," wrote Valenti. "They just want women to have more babies."
"What happens after that?" she added. "They couldn't care less."
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