Our Toxic Environment
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Send to friendPollution studies quoted from the Canadian Medical Association
http://www.cma.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/10042903/la_id/1.htm
"Each one of us carries at least 500 chemicals in our bodies that were unknown before 1920.
After the discovery of chlorine in the 1st World War, the development of new chlorine based synthetic compounds launched a wave of new products, insecticides, plastics and chemicals of all kinds to which to which the human body has had little time to adapt.
The American Environmental Protection Agency has stated the problem starkly: "Everyone in the US has a body burden of dioxin reaching the potential of a national crisis.."
In addition to their involuntary exposure through toxic waste sites, Canadians unwittingly dump poisons on their lawns. Of the 36 most common lawn pesticides, 34 are carcinogenic, 14 are suspected of causing birth defects, 21 damage the nervous system and 15 injure the liver and kidneys. In total between 1994 and 1996 1.45 billion pounds of toxic substances were released in Canada, of which 280 million pounds were carcinogenic.
Studies on Cosmetic pesticides and pets
"Dogs and cats were contaminated with 48 of 70 industrial chemicals tested, including 43 chemicals at levels higher than those typically found in people, according to our study of plastics and food packaging chemicals, heavy metals, fire retardants, and stain-proofing chemicals in pooled samples of blood and urine from 20 dogs and 37 cats collected at a Virginia veterinary clinic.
Average levels of many chemicals were substantially higher in pets than is typical for people, with 2.4 times higher levels of stain- and grease-proof coatings (perfluorochemicals) in dogs, 23 times more fire retardants (PBDEs) in cats, and more than 5 times the amounts of mercury, compared to average levels in people found in national studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and EWG. *
For dogs, blood and urine samples were contaminated with 35 chemicals altogether, including 11 carcinogens, 31 chemicals toxic to the reproductive system, and 24 neurotoxins. The carcinogens are of particular concern, since dogs have much higher rates of many kinds of cancer than do people, including 35 times more skin cancer, 4 times more breast tumors, 8 times more bone cancer, and twice the incidence of leukemia, according to the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Center (2008). Between 20 and 25 percent of dogs die of cancer, making it the second leading cause of death in dogs (Purdue University Department of Veterinary Pathobiology 2000). *
Cat samples contained 46 chemicals altogether, including 9 carcinogens, 40 chemicals toxic to the reproductive system, 34 neurotoxins, and 15 chemicals toxic to the endocrine system. Endocrine (hormone) system toxins raise particular concerns for cats, since they include the thyroid toxins and fire retardants called PBDEs. Thyroid disease (hyperthyroidism) is a leading cause of illness in older cats (Gunn-Moore 2005). The growing use of PBDEs in consumer products over the past 30 years has paralleled the rising incidence of feline hyperthyroidism, and a preliminary study suggests that PBDEs are found at higher levels in cats stricken with this disease (Dye 2007). Studies also show a high correlation between eating canned food and developing hyperthyroidism later in life for cats (Edinboro 2004; Kass 1999, Martin 2000). In addition to PBDEs, hyperthyroidism in cats could be linked to the plastics chemical and potent endocrine disruptor BPA that is known to leach from the pop-top cat food can lining into food (Edinboro 2004; Kang 2002).
Body Chemical Burden
This is where the incinerator related so-called risk analysis miserably fails.
By using a threshold which covers but one aspect of consequences to exposure to toxic matters, namely that of consequent morbidity, it ignores the fundamental issue that 100% of the population will be carrier of unwanted chemicals.
In fact, this will amount to being slowly, but gradually, poisoned by incinerator emissions simply as a result of the simple process of living, not as the result of accidental or work-related exposure.
Indeed, not only is this presumptuous to say that a certain risk of mortality is "acceptable" (for who?, one may ask), the fact of the matter is that everyone, certainly unwillingly, will carry within their own body a mixture of chemicals of known toxicity.
Pushed to its logical limits, one can readily see that a carrier who carries a large chemical body burden and who dies from a cause "other" than chemical poisoning (e.g. traffic accident) will not be recognized as an exposure casualty in the current R.A. framework.
In other words, that person may be poisoned well beyond legal limits and on the way to become a statistic of emission risks, yet does not enter into the category of emission related casualties simply because he accidentally died from something other than exposure to emissions.