On Point Does Show on Chemicals in the Environment

Excellent discussion Monday on BUR's On Point. The NPR show is entitled, "Household Cancer Hazards." Find an hour to listen to Dr. Julia Brody and Ruthann Rudel from the Silent Spring Institute, as well as Lynn Goldman, Dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University. Toxic chemicals were found to exist even in some products a consumer would judge safe, based on labels. "Are we living in an environment, in which we bring products into our homes, that turn into a menace to our own health?" is just one of the questions Tom Ashbrook asked. Find out which products are safe, and which not so much.

Update: Yesterday there was an article in the New York Times on this subject, mentioning Slow Death by Rubber Duck. Of course, there's a denial-of-potential-harm statement by a member of the American Chemical Council. What will it take to turn this situation around? Have you asked your senator to support the Safe Chemicals Act yet??

Do You Get It?

Here on Cape Cod, we do not need four herbicides sprayed under our power lines. (Tell the EPA to ban glyphosate by signing this petition.) Toxic chemicals will get into our sole-source aquifer. Traces will end up in drinking water. Years from now, our children will look back and say, why did you not stop this?

Did you know that a study, relating to Cape Cod, was published by Boston University this week? The neurotoxin PCE, used from the late 1960s to the 1980s as vinyl-lining in the pipes of eight Cape communities – but, fortunately, not Wellfleet – leached into drinking water. Cape Codders who were exposed to PCE before birth, or as infants and toddlers, are believed to have an increased risk of drug-related problems, "risky behavior," later in life. (Hat tip to Sharyn, who forwarded this article.) Will these people also get cancer, since PCE is a carcinogen?

Last week The New York Times reported a probable link between the use of Tylenol (acetaminophen) in childhood and asthma.

How many new studies do we need? Every week fresh information on the side effects of synthetic chemicals pops up and nothing is done about it. The FDA and the EPA are like hobbled horses. Chemical companies, bent on profit, hold the reins now. Yesterday EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called for limits on mercury emissions, but will these new standards get blocked by Congress and the courts?

If I sound a bit hysterical, it's because I am. Last winter I read Pollution: The Making of Our Chemically Altered Environment by Benjamin Ross and Steven Amter, a book which describes how the chemical industry has systematically avoided regulation. These policies continue. When will we all wake up?

There has been a major miscalculation over the 60 years since the end of World War II. Synthetic chemicals have residual effects beyond their original use. We need to take this into account ourselves, since our government seems incapable of doing so. Toxic chemicals, once created and exploited, can remain in the environment for decades and will harm us. We may absorb them through the water we drink. We may take some into our bodies in the air we breathe, like, for instance, diesel fumes, (which may soon be better regulated in Boston). They can be on non-stick cookware and get into cooked food. Even non-organic food is dangerous, laden with pesticide residue and carrying the risk of BPA leached from packaging.

I feel like Cassandra, crying a warning. In shock I watched a video from Monsanto in which company reps explained to farmers that they must do whatever it takes to rid their fields of weeds resistant to Roundup. No thought is given to the toxic effect of additional pesticides in our food and groundwater. No one speaks out to ask why Roundup Ready crops have failed and require more pesticides, not less.

McKay Jenkins gets it. His book What’s Gotten Into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World sounds the alarm. He hopes that if we change our focus and approach the problem as “a health issue that affects kids”, environmentalists may get more traction.

Carcinogen abolitionist Sandra Steingraber gets it. The author of Living Downstream and Raising Elijah got cancer at age 20. She looked around and asked herself why. Her examination of the evidence led to conclusions, which she explains at the Breast Cancer Action Web site.

I, too, wonder at the disconnect between what the “scientific community knows about environmental carcinogens (quite a lot) and what cancer patients are told (very little).”

How can we change this situation? Elect legislators who get it. Support groups like Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
In the meantime, do the best you can to protect your loved ones from the stealth toxins that have become part of 21st century life.

I like to hope that, over the past few years, posts like this one have helped you become more aware of the dangers posed by synthetic chemicals in the environment. Would I be correct in this assumption? I know, at least, that my own adult children pay more attention to the pollution of food, water, and air. Do you?

Join the Movement to Regulate Toxic Chemicals

Walking at Newcomb Hollow last month, I noticed residue from boogie boards had washed up on the beach. What are boogie boards made of? The material looks suspiciously like polystyrene to me. Styrene is a known carcinogen.

Let's think about health a different way today. Imagine for a moment that HEALTH stands for

Help
Eradicate
A
Life-
threatening
Hazard.

I’m talking toxic chemicals. They are everywhere and must be regulated. We do not need them in our environment.

I received a comment on a recent blog post that neighbors were posting “Organic Lawn” signs, the way people used to post “Just Fertilized.” This gives me hope. But how far we must travel to take advantage of the legislation, proposed by Senator Kerry and Senator Moran (Endocrine-disruptive Chemicals Exposure Elimination Act) and Senator Lautenberg (Safe Chemicals Act)! Every day I hear about a new study indicating toxic chemicals can cause disease or that exposure has consequences on health.

There’s rocket fuel in Rialto, CA wells. Not good to drink the stuff. (Remember how shocked everyone was in 2005 when rocket fuel was detected in the breast milk of women in 18 states?)

The New York firefighters, those who responded to 9/11, are more at risk of cancer due to toxic chemicals in the dust they breathed in while trying to save lives at the World Trade Center. What was in the dust? Benzene and asbestos, among other things. According to today's Guardian, "Some contaminants in the World Trade Center dust, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorinated biphenyls, and dioxins, are known carcinogens."

Studies confirm school age kids have lower IQs when their mothers are exposed to pesticides during pregnancy.

POPs may be linked to type 2 diabetes, according to a new Finnish study.

Locally, NStar intends to spray four herbicides under 150 miles of power lines on Cape Cod. One of these toxic chemicals is glyphosate, which has been detected in air and water in the Midwest. No wonder. More and more weed-killer must be sprayed on American fields because Roundup Ready crops don’t work and require additional herbicide, not less, as Monsanto had promised.

Endocrine-disruptors are often estrogen-mimics and are believed to cause breast cancer, reproductive problems, and the feminization of male frogs. Barnstable County already has a high rate of breast cancer. We do not need herbicides filtering down into our sole-source aquifer …

To make matters worse, the Tea Party is taking aim at the environmental regulations already in place.

The media ignores any studies that hint at the risk toxic chemicals pose, although a new study seems to get published every day. If bloggers and Facebookers do not spread the word, who will?

What can you do about this situation?

1.) Think HEALTH: Help eradicate this life-threatening hazard, toxic chemicals in our food, air and water. Support the movement. (I follow Safe Planet, created by the United Nations, contribute to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and watch for new reports about toxic chemicals on Cape Cod from Silent Spring Institute.)
2.) Get educated on the risks toxic chemicals pose.
3.) Tell friends and family.
4.) Write your legislators.
5.) Eat organic.
6.) Filter drinking water.
7.) Pray?

I have been posting every month or so about how toxic chemicals pose a risk to health. Has my writing made any difference in the way you perceive toxic chemicals?

Why Think About Planet Earth Way Before Earth Day?

After an unseasonably cold week, milder temperatures show up in the forecast, and Dyer Pond will become even more appealing to our B&B guests. Sven and I still walk there when it’s cold at the ocean. Did you know the weatherman predicts snow for Friday? No doubt, the snow will contain more of the radiation that rode the winds across the northern hemisphere from Japan last week as rain. Oops! Sorry for that gloomy thought. I find myself thinking a lot about the modern world these days and the consequences for humanity of nuclear disaster, toxic chemicals in food and water, and other not-so-cheerful topics.

Did you know “most people use around 10 personal care products every day, with an average of 126 different ingredients,” most often not good for us? Environmental Working Group further emailed yesterday, “We'd like to believe that the government is policing the safety of all of the concoctions we put on our bodies, but it's not. Instead, these unregulated products pose uncertain dangers for our health and our environment.”

Strange. That’s exactly what I was thinking.

I don’t understand why our government doesn’t advocate for an environment free of toxins. Why can’t Michelle Obama take the obesity/diabetes issue a step further by mentioning recent research that indicates exposure to endocrine disruptive chemicals in the womb may play a role in the epidemic?

When I was a child, Smokey the Bear taught America not to litter. Over the past fifty years, consumerism has taken hold and corporations rule. Poor Smokey has been completely muzzled.

The more I read, the more upset I become.

New permits for oil rigs were handed out last week to potential polluters although the issue with BP's well has not been fixed. GMOs are not the answer, no matter what Monsanto may claim, and GMO seeds are spreading on the wind, endangering organic crops. (Check out the opinions of non-corporate specialists here.) The chemical industry defends BPA, a known endocrine disruptor, and will fight hard to defeat any effort at revision of the Toxic Chemicals Act, soon before Congress. Plastics end up in the stomachs of sea turtles, as well as in the fish we eat.

To make matters worse, most media outlets are owned by corporations, and in-depth reporting on the environment does not get much airtime.

But the Internet remains free and allows us to stay informed. We can read blogs like AttainableSustainable and make the necessary changes in our own lives, one day at a time. Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families offers Top Tips for Keeping Toxic Chemicals at Bay. Writer Jennifer Margulis tackles the subject of "pretty poisons" at Mothering Outside the Lines.

There was an article in the New York Times yesterday about food dyes. Chris Wragge asked this morning on CBS's The Early Show,"What is artificial food dye doing to your kids?"

Dare we hope regulation is on the way, that public opinion will force change?

If I am posting about this topic, it's because I know many of you are thinking along the same lines. Yesterday Irene emailed: “Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. License runs out in 2012. NRC considering renewal through 2032. Check out Wikipedia. Now is the time. We should protest and insist that it be closed. There is no evacuation route on the Cape that would safeguard residents against nuclear fallout.”

It’s true. No valid evacuation route exists. As another blog reader commented on my post about closing Pilgrim nuclear plant, “What’s the plan? Swim east?”

In Wellfleet, Harriet, posted similar thoughts to Cape Cool Blog.

I was a member of the protest generation but did not protest the Vietnam war because I used to believe in the United States government. Then I moved to a foreign country and found myself obliged to defend American policies. Now I’m older and wiser. I have grandchildren, and I’m ready to protest.

Do you feel the same way? Are you ready to join the protest lines?

What's New On the Bookshelf?

Only one book on our bookshelf this month and it’s a douzy: Our Stolen Future by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. Yesterday I blogged about BPA. A reader wrote in asking how to avoid it. Yes, it can leach out of certain types of plastic, but the chemical also turns up on cash register receipts and pizza boxes. The industry keeps finding new ways to use it. But BPA is not the only endocrine disruptor out there that you need to know about. It is simply the one that seems the most outrageous, being in baby bottles and infant formula cans. It stands out like a bully, on a playground, shaking another kid. You just want to reach out and make it stop. We need to worry about other toxic chemicals, too ....

Our Stolen Future describes how endocrine disruptors can affect unborn children. Turns out we better rethink our lives, from the picture-perfect lawns to flea collars for our pets, know where our water comes from, choose food intelligently, avoid unnecessary exposure. And wash hands even more frequently.

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be Theo Colborn, whose scientific detective work and vision is described so well in Our Stolen Future. How distressing to have one’s research ignored, although her book is practically a sequel to Silent Spring, as Al Gore points out in the foreword.

I am not a science person. I got a D in physics/chemistry, the easiest of all science courses at Vassar. And, yet, Our Stolen Future contains science that it is urgent for us all to grasp and share.

As I understand it, prenatal exposure to endocrine disruptive chemicals, in the environment of the mother, at certain periods of prenatal development, can create the following problems once this child grows up:

Low sperm counts
Reproductive problems ranging from testicular cancer to endometriosis
Masculinizing females and feminizing males
Increase in hormone-responsive cancers (breast, prostate, uterine)
Enlarged prostate
Smaller penis size ...

You get the idea.

What's more, Dr. Colborn warns of transgenerational exposure, in other words, a problem may not show up until the next generation. And, this book is being ignored. It is so important to recognize the gravity of the threat toxic chemicals pose to humanity and support the bill now before Congress. Tomorrow, we will return to the beach and Wellfleet, but in the meantime, please read through two short excerpts and consider borrowing Our Stolen Future from your local library:

"If this book contains a single prescriptive message, it is this: we must move beyond the cancer paradigm ... The assumptions about toxicity and disease that have framed our thinking for the past three decades are inappropriate and act as obstacles to understanding a different kind of damage.  Hormone-disrupting chemicals are not classical poisons or typical carcinogens.  They play by different rules."

"At levels typically found in the environment, hormone-disrupting chemicals do not kill cells nor do they attack DNA.  Their target is hormones, the chemical messengers that move about constantly within the body's communications network.  Hormonally active synthetic chemicals are thugs on the biological information highway that sabotage vital communication.  They mug the messengers or impersonate them.  They jam signals.  They scramble messages. They sow disinformation.  They wreak all manner of havoc.  Because hormone messages orchestrate many critical aspects of development, from sexual differentiation to brain organization, hormone-disrupting chemicals pose a particular hazard before birth and early in life ... Relatively low levels of contaminants that have no observable impact on adults can have devastating impacts on the unborn.  The process that unfolds in the womb and creates a normal, healthy baby depends on getting the right hormone message to the fetus at the right time.  The key concept in thinking about this kind of toxic assault is chemical messages.  Not poisons, not carcinogens, but chemical messages."