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Save Our Organic Standards! |
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As loyal customers of Terressentials and devoted environmentalists, you are probably aware of the huge controversy surrounding the mislabeling of conventional personal care products as “organic” and even “certified organic” when such products are not in compliance with our USDA National Organic Program regulations. We’re sorry to say that, despite our best efforts to educate the public and work within the natural products industry, we have not been able to persuade most personal care product companies to uphold the National Organic Program regulations and seek official certification for their products. Unfortunately, the USDA has, thus far, not been inclined to utilize their powers of enforcement to reprimand and/or fine companies that abuse and misuse our legally-defined word “organic,” or to require all companies that use the word “organic” on their label, or in their company name, to be certified to our federal organic law. We have been working for years to demonstrate authentic organic leadership, and have inspired a number of companies to follow in our footsteps to create excellent and functional personal care products. We all have proven that a wide variety of personal care products can be made according to our existing National Organic Program rules as they are written. A number of larger personal care companies (many who have few, if any, actual USDA-certified organic products) have been working together, without consumer or organic farmer input that we are aware of, to move away from our USDA National Organic Program regulations by creating their own unnecessary and confusing “organic” standards that suit their conventional synthetic personal care formulas and their profit expectations. These well-funded corporate players and their industry groups are now attempting, via back-door tactics, to persuade the USDA to adopt their anti-competitive and unnecessary lesser standard as part of our consumer-driven National Organic Program. If you care about protecting the National Organic Program and saving it from corporate attempts to water down the organic standard, now is the time for you to make your voice heard in Washington DC. The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) has announced that they are seeking comments from the public regarding this matter up until August 31, 2009, only. This is your opportunity to make a difference – to save the National Organic Program from corporate takeover and degradation before we lose the meaning of the word “organic” forever. Please take a stand with us and submit a letter to the USDA and your elected representatives now! Following is an example of a sample letter that you can utilize in your correspondence to the USDA, your congressman, a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, etc. If you wish to submit your letter electronically, you can find a copy of this notice, the sample letter, background links and mailing address info online at the following link: http://u.nu/9are PDF version: http://u.nu/2bre For additional background on this urgent matter, we are including links to letters that we have written to the NOSB and our Congressman, as well as links to the web site of our US Congress to find the email addresses for your elected political representatives. If you prefer to mail a hard copy of your letter via USPS, the USDA/NOSB address at the top of the sample letter is the correct mailing address for the USDA and the NOSB. Use the links below to locate an email address for your representatives in the House of Representatives or Congress. Please send them your letter ASAP urging them to support the enforcement of the USDA National Organic Program for all products making organic claims in the US marketplace. http://www.house.gov/writerep/ http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm Historical Background Terressentials May 2009 Comments to the National Organic Standards Board Regarding the Preservation of the National Organic Program for Personal Care products: Terressentials 2009 letter to Senator Cardin, Maryland: Terressentials 2008 letter to the FTC: Send Your Email to: Ms. Kathleen A. Merrigan, Re: Solving The Problem of Mislabeled Organic Cosmetics & Personal Care Products. Dear Deputy Secretary Merrigan, Ms. Frances, and all members of the NOSB: For the sake of consumers who want truly organic personal care products, and to protect organic farmers and manufacturers who want to provide those products, we ask you to uphold the National Organic Program (NOP) by: 1. Rejecting proposals to allow private industry standards for organic product labeling, which private standards will only further confuse consumers, and will circumvent NOP regulations; 2. Educating consumers concerning USDA labeling standards, by funding public education programs for that purpose; and 3. Enforcing existing NOP standards, to stop the misrepresentation of organic content by makers of personal care products. Many consumers want authentically organic products, and legitimate organic farmers and manufacturers have incurred significant expense to deliver what these consumers want. But there are other personal care manufacturers and distributors who are competing unfairly through deceptive advertising. These deceivers take money that they would have spent on making products organic, and invest the money in misleading the public through packaging, advertising, and labeling that bear false claims of organic content. Such deception puts legitimate organic farmers and manufacturers at an unfair pricing and marketing disadvantage. Soon, authentically organic products will be driven from the market, leaving the consuming public with nothing but mislabeled products. Please drive the imposters from the organic product marketplace. Please reject private industry standards, educate consumers, and enforce the NOP standards. Sincerely,
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ATTENTION true organic people! Please take a minute now to support Terressentials co-founder, Diana, and her appointment to the National Organic Standards Board where she can continue with our urgent mission of preserving the organic standards for personal care products and protecting the integrity of organic without dilution from self-serving corporate interests. Go here to send your letter of support to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
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