Chemical Overload

It seems that everywhere we look there's another warning of something dangerous to us. Alar on apples, hormones in meat, pesticides on our parks, and on and on. That's in addition to the exposures to toxic dumps, like the Stringfellow Acid Pits, cancer causing chemicals in our air, dangers from diesel exhaust, paint fumes, etc. Has it gotten so that everything is dangerous to us?

We didn't use to hear of all these dangers around us. As a child, the worst thing I had to worry about was crossing the street. Now it seems EVERYTHING is toxic. If we start looking more closely, there's a good reason for the perception that toxins are all around us. The fact is - they are!

Just about everything we touch is "new and improved" - "stronger than ever" (Have you read your toothpaste label lately?) Even the most innocent things contain chemical substances for which we have little information about its safety. Unlike prescriptions and medications that must prove they are safe and effective before they enter the market place, chemicals must provide no such proof. It is assumed they are safe until someone, somewhere proves they aren't. This usually happens years later and after thousands of people have been damaged.

In 1940, the entire US economy produced less than 1 million tons of synthetic organic chemicals. By 1987, 125 million tons were produced -- a 12,500 percent increase. Over the last 50 years we have been playing Russian Roulette, allowing more and more man- made chemicals into our environment with little or no information about their safety.

More is not better

As of December 1994, there were 13,407,968 chemicals and chemical mixtures listed with the Chemical Abstract Service (GAS, 1995). Yet a study by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) states there is adequate information on toxicity to evaluate public health hazards for less than 2% of these chemicals. Despite this lack of knowledge we continue to blindly produce more than 6410 brand new compounds each year.

With all those millions of chemicals, industry is required to report environmental releases of only 320 chemicals. Even so, the reported toxic chemicals entering the environment each year is staggering: 3.39 billion pounds in 1991 alone. Current estimates put our production of "official" hazardous waste at 1,400 trillion pounds per year. Each year US industries produce an average of 12 pounds of toxic waste per man, woman and child. These massive amounts of chemicals with their unknown health effects are now in the food we eat, air we breathe, water we drink, homes we live in, and places we work.

Killing Legally with Chemicals

If so little is known about chemicals, how can agencies say a facility is safe? - one might ask. Well, they can't!

Decision makers, in order to look like they're evaluating public health risks, rely on a process called risk assessment. Risk Assessments take a series of assumptions, combined with the little data known about health impacts (while pretending to know all ), fit them into a magic formula, and produce a number that is supposed to determine the risk posed from exposure.

There are many limitations to risk assessments:

1) they assume the person being exposed is a healthy adult male of 180 pounds - even though we know children, those with chronic illnesses, the elderly and pregnant women are more susceptible to chemical impacts;

2) they analyze one chemical at a time, ignoring that we are bombarded with thousands of chemicals (and facilities) creating cumulative (adding together) and synergistic (combining to create new) effects.

3) they only focus on cancer - not other health problems like respiratory problems, heart problems, reproductive disorders, etc.

In other words, assumptions are made that we live in a vacuum and will only be exposed over our lifetime to this one chemical from this one facility and there will be no accidents or illegal exposures. A risk assessment is a sophisticated process of guesswork that's passed off as scientific fact to arrive at an "acceptable risk".

Bill Ruckleshaus former EPA Administrator (and now CEO of BR the giant garbage company), once said, "A risk assessment is like a captured spy--if you torture it enough it will tell you anything." Precisely the problem. Risk assessments are easily manipulated because there is no scientific fact to them. It's all guesswork.

Let's look at what they mean by "acceptable risk". What are we talking about when we say 1 in a million or 1 in 1,000? It means that in order for a facility to operate or pollution to exist, 1 person in a million will die from cancer. Through this process, government grants a permit that makes it legal to kill! The "kill rate" goes up if there is an accident or illegal release. That permit becomes a "license to kill" like some sick James Bond movie--Monsanto 007.

Of course they never put it in those terms. They never put a face on the person that will get cancer or even acknowledge that that's what they are talking about. It's sanitized in a flurry of numbers. They rationalize it all. "It's progress", "It has to go somewhere", It provides jobs", "It's the price we pay for living in a modern society". But what the decision makers means is that it's the price someone else pays, for the polluting sources are never near the decision-makers' homes. Can you imagine Supervisor John Tavaglione having AutoNation near his home? Or Governor Wilson siting a nuclear waste dump near his? Or President Bush near the Von Roll/WTI incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio? Of course not!! Those "choice" locations are left for poor communities and people of color.

Is there an alternative idea for guiding decisions?

Yes, the Precautionary Principle.

The Precautionary Principle

A new principle for guiding human activities, to prevent harm to the environment and to human health has been emerging during the past 10 years. It's called the "precautionary principle".

Advanced by an international group of scientists, government officials, lawyers, and labor and grassroots activist (including Professors Carl Cranor of University of California at Riverside (UCR) and Biologist Florence Robinson, of Southern University in Louisiana and a former member of the Center's Board of Directors) it is based on the old adage, "Better safe than sorry". In other words, if an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. The burden of proof then would lie with the proponent of an activity, rather than the public. Before we put another chemical into society make sure it is safe. If there's any question, don't do it!

At a meeting earlier this year, the group issued this consensus statement:

"The release and use of toxic substances, the exploitation of resources, and physical alterations of the environment have had substantial unintended consequences affecting human health and the environment."

"We believe there is compelling evidence that damage to humans and the worldwide environment is of such magnitude and seriousness that new principles for conducting human activities are necessary."

"While we realize that human activities may involve hazards, people must proceed more carefully than has been the case in recent history. Corporations, government entities, organizations, communities, scientists and other individuals must adopt a precautionary approach to all human endeavors."

The Rising Rates of Health Problems--Is there a Toxic Connection?
by Stephen Lester

Why does it seem like almost everyone you know has someone in their family with cancer? Why are more and more children born with birth defects or developing cancer at a young age? When you talk with your doctor about these problems or call the American Cancer Society they will quote you statistics that say that currently 1 in 3 people in the U.S. will develop cancer and that 1 in 4 will die from it. The state and federal health agencies will use these same statistics to tell you that the cancer rates you see in your community are "normal" and that you should not be concerned.

Cancer

What has gone wrong with our way of thinking when it is considered "normal" that 1 in 3 people get cancer? IT IS NOT NORMAL!! Cancer is not a natural disease and even if it were, it wouldn’t be "normal" for cancer to claim the lives of 25% of the population.

There are reasons why so many people are getting cancer and it's not because people are living longer or because of better diagnostic methods. Cigarette smoking (lung cancer), exposure to sunlight (skin cancer), fat consumption and work place exposures are among these causes. Another significant factor is exposure to chemicals in our environment, in our food, and in our communities. We are now seeing the predicted increase in cancer from the increasingly widespread use of chemicals. Age adjusted cancer rates (meaning that the increased number of elderly people has been taken into account) are increasing substantially. In the 1960s, the overall cancer incidence rate was 1 in 6 for the general U.S. population; now in the 1990s, it is 1 in 3.

In men, prostate cancer increased 66% during this period and only part of this increase can be explained by better diagnosis. However, testicular cancer increased 34% and there has been no change in diagnostic methods. These two cancers in particular could be related to exposure to chemicals like dioxin. Other cancer rates that increased included non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (60%), melanoma (67%), and liver cancer (33%).

In women, cancer rates also have increased, including breast cancer (30%), lung cancer (65%), melanoma (42%), Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (35%), kidney cancer (39%), and liver cancer (25%).

Other Health Problems

The incidence of asthma has also dramatically increased by 66% since 1980 according to the National Institute of Health. Childhood asthma is a significant portion of this increase. More children suffer from asthma than any other chronic disease. An estimated 3.7 million children have asthma.

The number of people with diabetes has increased almost 50% since 1983. Since 1958 the rate has tripled. Some of the increase is due to the population getting older and over-weight but a portion is "inexplicable".

A committee of the National Academy of Sciences reported in 1987 that an estimated 15-20% of the population have "heightened sensitivity to chemicals". This chemical sensitivity is a reaction with a set of reoccurring symptoms to the exposure of toxic chemicals at levels that are not "expected" to cause a reaction. The committee also reported that exposure to toxic chemicals plays a role in the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's diseases seen in the past 50 years and that asthma, systemic lupus, and neurological disorders can be caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. The statistics make one thing extremely clear -- more people than ever are developing and suffering from some form of chemical sensitivity.