Americans are increasingly cautious about everyday toxic hazards
Click Here to Add CommentSubject: Americans are increasingly cautious about everyday toxic hazards
Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 10:24:18 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/healthscience/134438016_envirodang er21.html
Dear Mr. Helliker, I thought you might like to read an article dated: Sunday, April 21, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. entitled: Pacific Chemical reaction: Americans are increasingly cautious about everyday toxic hazards By Liz Stevens Knight Ridder Newspapers.
MICHELLE KUMATA / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Ginny Caldwell's babies never saw a Pampers. They wore cotton diapers and natural-fiber jumpers, and they still sleep on organic bedding. All four will attend the Waldorf School of San Diego, where their mom can be sure the teachers aren't wearing perfume and the toys aren't made of vinyl.
"To an average, traditional person we may seem like weirdos," she says, but "there are a lot of people that have not a bit of information, and some people who just deny that the problem even exists."
The problem, as Caldwell sees it, is an increasingly toxic world: That much of our food, water, environment and the products we use are tainted by human-made hazards that are slowly killing us.
Is Caldwell an alarmist? Perhaps, but as society becomes more technologically advanced, there seems to be a growing list of associated environmental health risks, both confirmed (PCBs, for example, and secondhand smoke) and uncertain (bovine growth hormone, electromagnetic fields).
At the same time, the potential for information overload in the Internet age grows daily. Not to mention the problem of separating the credible from the not-credible.
Sooner or later, most of us will have to decide whether to fret about, or forget about, another potential hazard. Consider just this news from recent weeks . In Chesapeake, Va., as many as 195 women claim that dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in their tap water caused them to have miscarriages.
. The wood-preservative industry has agreed to phase out an arsenic-based pesticide, which is potentially carcinogenic and applied to most of the pressure-treated lumber in the U.S. (Look for our story Tuesday in Northwest Life on how the experts are evaluating the risk, plus options and tips for what to do - and not do - if you have a deck or play equipment made of pressure-treated wood.)
The chemical flame retardant PBDE has begun showing up in alarming quantities in breast milk, say scientists. Like PCBs, which were banned in the United States in the mid-'70s, PBDE accumulates in human tissue and potentially poses similar health risks.
Taking precautions
A small but growing number of Americans are taking precautions: buying indoor air filters and water filters, eating organic foods.
Organic-food sales have grown 15 percent annually over the past three years, compared with 3 or 4 percent for the food industry as a whole.
Caldwell, founder and president of the Ecobaby catalog, says the availability of, and demand for, natural products for kids has grown tremendously in the past 10 years. Ecobaby offers organic cotton diapers, clothes and bedding, and chemical-free toys and furniture.
But not everyone can afford this level of caution: an organic cotton and wool crib mattress from Ecobaby runs $260, compared with less than $100 for a regular vinyl one. And for those individuals, uncertainty about their choices can be frustrating.
"I think some people get hypersensitive, and other people just shut down," says David DiFiore, a father of three who works for the Environmental Protection Agency. "I'm a hypersensitive type."
DiFiore purifies his drinking water and tries to eat a vegetarian diet.
When his family moved into its current home, he requested a visit from the electric company to measure the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in the environment and moved the beds of two of his sons away from a spot where the EMF readings were high.
Though there's little scientific proof linking EMFs to cancer, DiFiore has opted for precaution.
"Stepping out of the house is a risk," says DiFiore, "but it would be nice if you didn't have to take on risks that you have control over."
Infant vulnerability
Special concern focuses on fetuses and infants, whose developing brains and bodies are highly vulnerable to toxins.
For new parents especially, uncertainty about many substances preys on their worst fears. Are there environmental factors that raise a child's risk of autism, asthma or attention-deficit disorder? No one knows for sure.
"It's important to recognize the ways that we're healthier today," with longer lifespans and less vulnerability to life-threatening infectious diseases, stresses Daniel Swartz, executive director of the Children's Environmental Health Network in Washington, D.C. "At the same time, we've started to see a variety of new or increased problematic health outcomes in kids."
Like asthma, which has become far more common in children. A recent California study suggests exposure to high ozone levels might cause children to develop the condition. So should a parent keep an energetic kid indoors on every ozone-action day?
Swartz preaches precautions - and grass-roots action, such as lobbying elected officials for change. "I think that helps take away some of the fear."
So does getting the facts, according to University of North Texas health psychologist Chuck Guarnaccia. "Information seems to reduce people's psychological distress."
What about the things that we can't do much about?
Guarnaccia's suggestion is one "most people are not going to be very satisfied with Blissful ignorance may not be a bad idea sometimes." He cites research showing that people who live longer tend to have a "go-with-the-flow" mentality.
Perspective helps, too, some say, pointing out that toxic chemicals and air pollution kill far fewer Americans annually than heart disease or car accidents.
"Like a lot of things in life it's a balance," concludes Fiore in Virginia, "and having information and being informed just makes you stronger."
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
Well Mr. Helliker, the entire Nation has been "going with the flow" of your ever-increasing river of "registered" POISONS. While your "registered" POISONS do not quickly kill a lot of us (acutely); they do make a lot of us sick and weak and then slowly kill us (chronically).
Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten
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