David Steinman is an acclaimed environmentalist, consumer health advocate, publisher and author. His major books include Diet for a Poisoned Planet (1990, 2007), The Safe Shopper’s Bible (1995), Living Healthy in a Toxic World (1996), and Safe Trip to Eden: Ten Steps to Save the Planet Earth from the Global Warming Meltdown (2007), the book that introduces the concept of “Green Patriotism.”
 
  In 1985, David Steinman was writing for the LA Weekly when he learned that fish in the Santa Monica Bay were tainted with DDT and PCBs. He began to wonder how many other poisons were in other foods he ate. He started doing research into the levels of industrial pollutants and pesticides in human blood and published his team’s findings in the Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The resulting landmark human blood study led to the historic movement Heal the Bay that cleaned up the Santa Monica Bay.

In 1986, Steinman testified before the Congressional Subcommittee on Health and the Environment as an expert witness on the levels of chemical contaminants in the blood of fishermen and women eating locally caught fish from the Santa Monica Bay. From 1989 to 1991, Steinman served as a member of the Committee on Evaluation of Safety of Fishery Products for the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. Steinman was also a contributing author of Seafood Safety (National Academy Press, 1991).

This work led to Steinman’s groundbreaking and controversial book Diet for a Poisoned Planet (Crown 1990, Ballantine 1992; Thunder’s Mouth Press 2007). Steinman made hundreds of requests under the Freedom of Information Act for government studies on food safety and reviewed tens of thousands of chemical analyses on food. In Diet, he identified foods with the lowest and highest toxicity levels by classifying them as green-, yellow- or red-light foods. The book was received with harsh criticism by sectors of the food industry. Steinman’s book was criticized by the Food and Drug Association and by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. The California Raisin Advisory Board spent over $500,000 on a PR campaign to directly counteract Steinman’s warnings about industrial chemical and pesticide residues in raisins.
 
In 1995, Steinman wrote Safe Shopper’s Bible: A Consumer’s Guide to Nontoxic Household Products, Cosmetics and Food (Macmillan) with a foreword by Ralph Nader, and which included a comprehensive review of products from pet supplies to carpeting to auto products.		   


He challenged 12 manufacturers or distributors of the most dangerous products, calling them “the Dirty Dozen” in an effort to force manufacturers to reformulate their products or pull them from the market. The following year, Steinman wrote Living Healthy in a Toxic World: Simple Steps to Protect You and Your Family from Everyday Chemicals, Poisons, and Pollution (Perigree, 1996). TV actress Kirstie Alley wrote the foreword of the book.

Since 1996, Steinman has been an advisory board member for The Green Guide Institute, a national non-profit, organization for consumer research and information run by Wendy Gordon Rockefeller. In 1997, Steinman founded Freedom Press, a publishing house for books and magazines on health and the environment. He also become editor and publisher of the popular science-based health magazine The Doctors’ Prescription for Healthy Living, distributed nationally to health food stores, doctor’s offices and select bookstores.

In 2000, Steinman served as Chairman of Citizens for Health, a national nonprofit consumer advocacy group known as the voice of the natural health consumer.

In February 2007, Steinman led a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. regarding the presence of the undisclosed carcinogenic petrochemical 1,4-dioxane in children's and adults' bath and beauty products.  The press conference, held jointly with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and with participation from the Environmental Working Group, called for official FDA oversight of the cosmetics and personal care products industry.

In March, 2008, Steinman led a similar press conference with the Organic Consumers Association at the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim, CA regarding the presence of 1,4-dioxane in "organic" and "natural" personal care products. This press conference led to the California Attorney General suing four companies with 1,4-dioxane in their cleaning and/or personal care products in June, 2008.

On March 6, 2009, Steinman and the Organic Consumers Association announced at the Natural Products Expo that 16 major brands had cleaned up 1,4-dioxane from 23 of their products, and that they would bring legal action against several brands whose products still had high amounts of the chemical.

On March 12, 2010, Steinman and the Organic Consumers Association, in cooperation with the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and Clean Water Action, announced at the Natural Products Expo that Proctor & Gamble had agreed to reformulate 18 of their Herbal Essences products to reduce levels of 1,4-dioxane to 10ppm (parts per million) or below. They also released results of a new study testing 20 laundry detergents for 1,4-dioxane which found the highest levels in P&G brands Tide, Tide Free, and Ivory Snow.

In January, 2008, Steinman began to host the Internet radio show Green Patriot Radio with David Steinman on www.webtalkradio.net

In 2008, Steinman also wrote the introduction to 50 Simple Steps to Save the Earth from Global Warming by the Green Patriot Working Group.

As a journalist, Steinman has won awards for his reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, Sierra Club, and the Society of Professional Journalists (“Best of the West: Environment and Natural Resources Reporting”). He is often featured as a consumer health advocate in the media on TV, radio and in the press.

Steinman has three children and lives in California.
 
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