Stopping Toxic Exposure Before It Happens

A new social networking forum called The Prevention Agenda is urging President-Elect Obama to do what few other presidential administrations have done in recent history: make preventing threats to the environment and human health a top priority.

The forum is amassing recommendations to prevent climate change, toxic exposures, food contamination, water pollution and other dangers that affect both people and the planet. The recommendations will ultimately be synthesized into an Agenda that will be submitted to the Obama transition team. The goal is to help focus the Obama vision for change into a commitment to make preventing environmental crises before they occur a cornerstone of the new administration.

As the catalyst behind The Prevention Agenda, I hope the forum will help revolutionize the government's traditional, "after the fact" approach to addressing threats to human health and the environment. It is extremely expensive and usually completely inadequate to attempt to fix problems after they've taken hold. While we certainly must address the dilemmas that already exist, if we don't make prevention a priority, we will never make any true progress.

The Prevention Agenda is open to any and all wishing to contribute in a meaningful way. I particularly invite women to add their voices to this initiative. Women supported Pres.-elect Obama in record numbers at the polls. Women wield the most consumer clout in the economy. Given how vulnerable they are to pollutants and environmental catastrophes, women also have the most to lose if our government doesn't fundamentally sharpen its perspective and change its approach.

It will only take you five minutes to join the forum. Your input could affect our country's future for decades. Please sign up, and invite your friends, associates and colleagues to contribute their thoughts to this important directive as well.

The Prevention Agenda. Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.