Travel & Hotspots

MARIE-CLAIRE IN MALIBU

For years I have been worried about all the toxins we come into contact with in daily life. From sprayed vegetables and fruit and toxins added to detergents and shampoo to the municipality trying to keep the greenery in town and village weed-free with Roundup, one of the most toxic pesticides that exists. Daily we put this poison into our bodies, we wash with it and we breathe it in. ‘Oh’, many people say, ‘if it's sold, it can't be that bad.’ And that is not true at all. There is a huge criminal industry, including a company like Monsanto, that encourages the production and distribution of toxins in our daily consumption. And our government simply allows that. Here in Malibu, it is not much different than in Amsterdam. Only here something terrible has been discovered. At Malibu High School, a number of teachers coincidentally became ill. They all got thyroid cancer. Because that was too coincidental, an investigation was conducted in the classrooms and what turned out: the PCB content in a large number of classrooms exceeded the allowed amount by 7000 times. The PCBs were incorporated in the sealant used to attach the windows and doors in the 1970s.

At Malibu High, many children of famous people go and have gone to school. Gigi Hadid was there until recently and the children of Cindy Crawford also went there. After the outcome of the investigation, Cindy Crawford immediately took her children out of that school. She has filed a lawsuit against the school district that, no matter how strong the evidence, refused to remove the PCBs. To the great disbelief of all the teachers and parents. In the meantime, a fund has been established, ‘America Unites’, that fights for a healthy toxin-free learning environment for all children across America, because the problem of toxins in a learning environment is not limited to Malibu High.

Yesterday there was a gala where money was raised for this good cause and because Malibu is such a small village, Jeroen and I were also invited. Cindy was very happy that after a long time of nagging she could take a photo with us and asked if we could also bring this issue to light in the Netherlands. So here it is.