Beware:
the chemical invasion!!
The canaries aren't singing the
company song anymore.....
As the son of a doctor, who was the son of a doctor, who was the son of a doctor (whew..), I have experienced an unusual amount of cumulative exposure to doctorly advice. The unusual thing here is that it was my father, the doctor, who was always playing with chemicals. The warnings came from my mother.
Throughout my life, my
mother has always been extremely sensitive to environmental smells. Her
troubles began in her young twenties. She used to work in a florist
shop. One day on the job she experienced an acute exposure to the
pesticide methionine while tending to plants in a greenhouse. Since that
heavy exposure, the condition of hypersenstivity to chemicals has
progressed. It was something I grew up with. Most don't realize that
just about everything is somehow tied in to chemicals, and it seems like
just about everything can be toxic to someone with hypersensitivities.
My mother has had it pretty rough in the chemical department of life. Generally, the chemicals arrive in the form of various fragrances.
Basically,
almost all fragrances cause severe and debilitating reactions in my
mother- from the obvious fragrances of perfumes and colognes, laundry
detergents, cleaning agents, and shampoos and cosmetics- to the less
obvious items like hand sanitizers and lotions, new cars, carpeting, and
building materials like plywood and MDF board. While I was growing up,
I knew fragrances were a serious matter, but it was hard to relate to
the condition. Smells never bothered me- except those of cats and
mildew. As the years have passed, however, I realize the wisdom in her
motherly advice regarding the use and storage of chemicals. Especially
since the condition has developed in my own life.
"Better living through chemistry..."
That
was a saying that the business world tossed around during the chemical
revolution 50 years ago. "Everything" was safe for human use- despite
the fact that the chemical substances themselves were adept at
eliminating various forms of life. A family I grew up with in central
Jersey used to tell me stories how one of their childhood delights was
when the Mosquito Control trucks would come down their rural road. They
would ride their bicycles and play in the "big fog cloud behind the
truck." The joys of following the truck down the road on their bicycles
as children wore off when, as adults, they learned about their DDT
exposure. There are probably millions of similar (but untold) stories
worldwide.
As a painter for many years, I
have been using all sorts of paints and solvents since my youth. Despite
the availability of latex paints in my youth, my father preferred
oil-based paints, and trained me how to use them starting when I
was about nine or ten. Dad was the ultimate handyman; he could build a fishpond and perform a tracheotomy in the same day if he wanted to. He was always painting something- we had a large
colonial house and we basically restored the whole thing as a family as I
was coming of age. There were always lines of old coffee cans with paint thinner in various stages of refinement in our garage.
As a youth, I experienced
side-effects from paint solvents that would be described as normal-
the most prominent of which being headaches. I noticed though, that some people didn't seem to be bothered
by the chemicals at all- even the smell of glues, diesel, gasoline,
kerosene, exhaust fumes. Some kids actually seemed to
like the
smell of gasoline. I always hated fueling up the garden tractor and,
especially, dealing with the fuel tanks on our family's boat. In time, I
noticed some fragrances began to bother me, especially perfumes and
colognes. Then motor oil, greases, dish soaps, hand soaps, other
people's shampoos, new carpeting, vinyl floors, and artificial colors.
When
I was a little kid my mother recalls that I would complain "the food
was poisoned." after I ate standard American junk food (you know- the
stuff with all those unpronounceable chemical ingredients, like HoHos, Snowballs, and Twinkies.) Even
today, I hardly eat any junk food except ice cream, and at that, I can
only handle the all-natural types. The food at fast food places often
gives me a pretty nasty headache that only goes away by sleeping it off.
Sometimes it lingers for a day or two.
So why all this
personal information? What's my point?
I don't get sick from natural
foods.
So what is the difference between natural foods and regular
supermarket fare?
It must be
the chemicals involved in the
production, processing, and/or preservation of the food. Chemicals-
that's my point. Excessive, ever-present, illness-causing chemicals.
Most
schoolchildren are taught that miners used to bring canaries into the
mines. The birds served as detectors for poisonous gas in the air. Since
the gas is both odorless and invisible, the only way for the miners to
detect its presence was by paying attention to the health of the
canary. In the absence of the gas, the canary would be its usual self-
happily singing away; but if the bird stopped singing, or even died,
there was major cause for alarm! The miners knew that swift and decisive
action was required before the gas would overwhelm them too! Thus, the
canary was a vital companion in the depths of the mine.
Is there a modern equivalent to the canary in the coal mine?
The
prevalence of synthetic manufactured chemicals in our living environments is generally thought
of as a normal thing by most people I encounter. In casual
conversation, most folks are quick to defend their perfumes, pledge
spray, and fabric softeners as "completely harmless."
If that was true,
why would they cause splitting headaches in some people??
Even worse,
some people can go into forms of shock, respiratory arrest,.. even die.
True, most people in the population don't suffer extreme adverse
reactions. But scientists have shown that many of the chemicals in
everyday products are dangerous to the health of humans.
Hey, how come the canary stopped singing?
The fact is- many chemicals are
not completely
harmless; they are products consisting of long lists of artificially
synthesized chemical compounds with known effects on living creatures.
Depending on a person's location on the planet and the governmental
jurisdiction they find themselves under, often the list of chemical
ingredients is considered "proprietary" and thus a trade secret. The
result; ignorance is bliss. "The lotion smells nice, so I use it
everyday." Do you know what's in it? "What do you mean,
it's lotion."
Right... exactly my point.
Lotion is made of many separate ingredients called chemicals, some harmless and others...not so much.
Google all those ingredients, then find out about what ingredients are
not required on labeling.
Do
you trust that manufacturer implicitly? I'm not just talking about just
lotion either. What about the laundry soap, the air freshener, the
spray cleaner, the floor wax, the paint cans in the closet, the
deodorant in your bathroom, etc., etc.
Long-term
exposure through deliberate and even joyful use of chemical products
seems to be an unwise course for those wishing to minimize an untimely
demise by way of cancer.
Did I say cancer?
No, I
scream
CANCER!! Everyone around here, it seems in NJ, is dying of one form of
cancer or another. NJ is a scary place; hardly alone in the modern
world. People are dropping like flies near a bug zapper around here.
Here's my theory-
3 factors for isolating the cause:
1. Food-
from the environment our food is grown in to the manufacturing processes that prepare it for market, a huge assortment of
chemicals are often involved in the production of our food. For example: pesticides, fertilizers,
herbicides, preparation baths, preservative fogs/ mists, colorings,
flavorings, binders, stabilizers, etc. Especially suspect are the processed, preserved, and packaged varieties of food. The food with a paragraph worth of ingredients that you have no idea to pronounce may be common at the supermarket, but does that make it good for us? I say caveat emptor!! There have been a number well-researched books and documentaries on the subject over the years. A good introduction to the treachery of the food industry would be to visit Hulu.com and watch a documentary or two. Try
Food, Inc. or
The Future of Food. Both films tend to open eyes to the blind trust that society has in the food industry. Though not specifically movies about chemicals, plenty of food chemistry is discussed. The films both films highlight the extent to which food production is controlled by a relatively small number of corporations, who's only true motive is to turn profits, and the dangers that situation presents to us as consumers. A number of those companies are actually
chemical companies! Their products are used every step of the way through the production chain. Granted, all those chemicals have enabled large, uniform, predictable crops. Unfortunately, there are side effects to the huge amounts of poisons they spray everything with to ensure that, in the end, only humans (or our livestock) will eat any of that food.
WE EAT THAT STUFF. We need food, but we don't need chemically-saturated processed food.
2. Water- the clear stuff that comes out of the tap,
is clearly a suspect to me. In central NJ it tastes terrible- that's never a good thing. It just plain
tastes polluted; not minerally, but toxic.
And
why not, within a 35 mile radius is one of the biggest industrial
environmental nightmares of this country There are superfund sites,
chemical manufacturing plants,pharmaceutical campuses, refineries, abandoned industrial areas,
and plenty of roundup-ready fields being converted to house farms and
strip malls everywhere. My drinking water is from a watershed that can't
dilute poison effectively enough to taste good. Now it seems that all
around the country the chemical companies have been actually injecting
the poison straight down into the aquifers in their quest to make a
quick buck in the natural gas extraction process. What a shame. Have you
researched the hydraulic fracturing process of extracting natural gas
yet? You should! Watch the documentary
"Gas Land." Natural Gas is any
thing but a "clean" form of energy, when it comes at the destruction of
groundwater and entire communities. Poisoning the air and surface of
earth is bad enough, but it's going to take divine intervention to
decontaminate aquifers.
3. Immediate
living environment-
The products and materials involved in the constant personal living
space of individuals. Basically, this would be the home, car, and work
or school and the "local neighborhood/ microclimate of our personal
living areas" The problems here are the smells that so many love for
all the wrong reasons. The smells of "success"- new car smells, new
cabinets smells, new carpet, new microfiber plush upholstery, new
corporate office cubicle, new refrigerator, new paint---formaldehyde,
and pthalates, pthalates, and more pthalates. There's a lot to be said
(in the health department) about driving an older car that's outgassed
significantly. I believe the same could be said for living in an older
stucco house made of concrete block and real wood lumber (not glue-lam
and plywood), with an interior of traditional plaster walls and tile
floors. That's all pretty inert stuff. The old cabinets are probably
made of solid wood, and the floors too. A whole different reality from
the laminate cabinets, formica-topped pressboard countertops, and
MDF/laminate floors of modern houses. The modern "wood" floors are
essentially sawdust held together with an enormous amount of
formaldehyde glue. Oh...., then they put a thin veneer of real wood on
top to hide the toxic innards. Then everyone who doesn't know any better
says, "Look at my new cherry cabinets and walnut floor!" Yup. Duped. It
cost a buck less a square foot- and contributed to the $15K bill for
chemotherapy.
People are having problems some serious McMansion problems around here.
FOOD.....WATER.......ENVIRONMENT
There's only so much that can be done without being totally neurotic. That only makes life more difficult.
Nevertheless, minimizing exposure to
unnecessary
(hard to define) chemical exposure is an excellent idea. Living with
the problem of chemical sensitivities is terribly debilitating; it makes
lot of normal activities practically impossible. Research tends to
indicate that the condition often develops after an acute (intense)
exposure at a specific time.
Cancer, on the other hand is
specifically called out as a result of handling chemicals (just read the
back of your paint and solvent cans.)
Do what you can to avoid developing the condition of chemical sensitivities by limiting your exposure to chemicals!!
Read labels. Don't just dismiss what they say.
Think
about what you are absorbing through your skin, what you are eating,
what your liver and kidneys have to filter out of you afterward.
There
is no doubt that chemistry has advanced the capabilities of mankind
enormously in the past century. Is it better living through chemistry?
Yeah.
probably. The fault is not in technology and the scientific advancement
that we have experienced. It is in the greedy commercial world's
exploitation of that technology in a way that harms people. To go
further, fault can be directed at the governments of the world who have
failed their subjects by allowing the products of those commercial
interests to repeatedly harm people. The history books are written. I've
read a few of them. Man has dominated man to his injury.
Chemicals
are everywhere! But we can use good judgement and take simple,
practical steps to guard ourselves against excessive exposure and health
risks.
Prevent unnecessary injury to yourself-
research what is actually in that lotion before you go spreading it all
over your beautiful body every day. Just because it says "all-natural"
on the label does not mean it's not toxic- that's just what the company
is trying to infer by a clever slogan; a slogan that has been the source
of much litigation and legislation. Take the principle in the last
sentence and apply it to your daily life. Just because people say
something doesn't mean it is true.
Especially suspect are those saying things in order to market products.
"The inexperienced one puts faith in every word but the shrewd one considers his steps carefully."
Consider your use of chemicals carefully, your life will be better for it.
May it be a long and healthy one!
