DDT

Gardasil and the American Bald Eagle – What Would Rachel Carson Do?

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What would Rachel Carson Do

A mated pair of bald eagles twenty yards above me both tip their wings and set a synchronized dive wing-tip to wing-tip toward me. The Willamette River and the Oregon City’s Willamette Falls are the sources of interest for these youngsters. The raptors are giving me pause and hope – a certain sanity floods my head seeing things in balance, nature in action over a plugged-up Interstate 205, the gas guzzlers of the elite and the endless serpent of 18-wheelers looking like a monster to these eagles. These birds’ orange-yellow beaks and pitch-black body feathers remind me of this big web of life that is continually being disrupted, torn apart, and obliterated by the master species’ addiction to oil, chemicals, and industrial-strength-and-sized unnatural interventions.

Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about Rachel Carson (Silent Spring, 1962) and her efforts to preserve the integrity of natural ecosystems from industrialized greed. I am reminded of all those foggers tooling through neighborhoods with DDT gas spewing out and kids chasing after in the vortex of the poison. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, synthesized in 1886, was deemed perfectly safe to life and limb by a battalion of scientists and medical impresarios backed by the likes of Monsanto. Carson, a biologist by trade, understood the dangers of these chemicals and fought arduously to inform the public. Through a series of letters and short chapters published first in the New Yorker and then compiled into the now landmark book Silent Spring, Carson’s efforts ultimately resulted in the banning of DDT but not before she was thoroughly castigated in the press.

For her robust scientific skepticism of the safety of all those government-approved and scientifically-proven chemicals polluting the landscape, she endured endless personal attacks. For me and countless other ecologists, Carson is the mother of the environmental movement. One such attack demonstrates the misogyny and scientific-technology chauvinism of her time:

Miss Rachel Carson’s reference to the selfishness of insecticide manufacturers probably reflects her Communist sympathies, like a lot of our writers these days. We can live without birds and animals, but, as the current market slump shows, we cannot live without business. As for insects, isn’t it just like a woman to be scared to death of a few little bugs! As long as we have the H-bomb everything will be O.K.—Letter to the editor of the New Yorker, 1962

Though tame by comparison to the vitriol of 21st century social media attacks, the playbook remains much the same, and sadly, so too are the battles. Fifty years after Rachel Carson felt the sting of the attacks on her character and intellect, we are still fighting against these chemical companies, only now we fight from multiple fronts. The same companies polluting our ecosystem, our rivers, streams, lakes and ground soil, pollute our bodies.

Poisons, and now the slide into poisoned and colonized minds, have taken me from my birth in 1957 to a truly Kafkaesque carnival show of incompetence, perverted power, and inverse logic at all levels of the societal ladder. I questioned the safety of Gardasil and was fired from a non-profit for doing so. My story is all over the internet, and that’s fine. See “Social Worker Helping Troubled Teens Loses Job for Questioning Gardasil Vaccine During Planned Parenthood Required Training”. This sort of cause célèbre doesn’t pay the mortgage and doesn’t restore my character and professional standing that have been sullied by the events of recent weeks, but it does, open a door to a perspective once blocked from view.

Call it the Pandora’s Box opening up, or the tip of the iceberg surfacing. Since the forced paid leave and then the sacking, I have delved into the nefarious connections between non-profits and their funding agencies. What I found was disturbing and points to a much larger problem, a forced collusion between medical marketing, non-profits, foundations and scientists, a relationship that demands acquiescence or risks the loss of funding. While I have long understood that money influences decision-making, the extent to which profits are blocking questions about medication safety from being asked is unprecedented. The implications are frightening. This collusion is forcing people, cultures and their ecologies to bear the burden of illness, disease, cancers, ecocide and inter-generational hardships because of greed, galvanized through the adoption of a wholly market-driven science.

Amidst this unholy trinity of ideology-economics-politics, I cannot help but wonder, what would Rachel Carson do? She would write, of course. She would write passionately and clearly not to the institutions capitalism is beholden to, but to us, the people most affected by these decisions. I will do the same.

It is common practice among these chemical companies to attack prominent scientists who speak out against their products. This is a well-known part of the chemical industry playbook, dating back to the battles against DDT and refined by the tobacco industry. To censure unknown, low level employees of non-profits, however, speaks to a new level of message control, one, even I, an old journalist, educator and environmental activist, find surprising. I think you will too.

Over the coming weeks, I will publish a series of articles exploring the influence of pharmaceutical funding to non-profits on the messaging and marketing of health related information. As you read these posts, we encourage you to look at your own circumstances and ask yourself how what you know or think you know about a given chemical might be influenced by corporate interests. If you work at non-profit tasked with disseminating health or environmental information, how are questions of efficacy and product safety dealt with? Are there certain topics that cannot be broached, even by lower level employees? Has anyone been terminated for asking the wrong questions? Then ask yourself, “What would Rachel Carson do?” and consider sharing your story with us.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This article was published originally on November 7, 2017.

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Walking the Wrack Line: Poisonous Potatoes

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poisonous potatoes

The wrack line is that “line” of organic material that ends up on beaches when tides go back out. It is a biologically important micro-ecosystem of seaweeds, crustaceans, shells, decaying birds and fish and mammals. When I need to think, I walk the wrack line. The idea for this environmental series comes from those walks; walks that for the past two years have conjured up all sorts of topics for me. Many are worthy of many books. It is a simple walk I conduct on a calm, mostly sandy, and driftwood-strewn beach in Central Oregon. The solitude allows some of my own decades studying environmental harms to both animals and plants to filter through my thoughts. For this short essay, the topic is conventionally grown potatoes, which are now grown largely as a monoculture product and have been found to contain 35 separate toxic chemicals.

The Potato Monoculture

I was just talking with an 80-year-old woman whose father’s side of the family, all 56 of them, were murdered in Germany’s death camps. She grew up in Chile, and alas, ended up Oregon. She is working on stopping the aerial spraying of 2-4-D and other weedicides onto the clear-cuts. She remarked at how insane the world is with so much lack of common sense and connecting of the dots when it comes to our factory/industrial food systems. She held up a potato:

“How did it ever become normal to use poisons on our food? Poisons that have a direct vector not just to your gut and mine, but to the developing guts and brains of fetuses?”

Oh, that potato! Originally from Peru, the potato has crossed oceans and ended up in every part of the globe.

Only two things in this world are too serious to be jested on, potatoes and matrimony.
—Irish saying.

Now, they are genetically engineered,  and part of the monoculture that triggered the Great Famine, also called the Irish Potato Famine. Then, the Irish used a single breed of potato called the Irish Lumper. It was vulnerable to a fungus to which the breed had no resistance. Other cultures, farming practices over come this vulnerability by growing many different variety of each crop. The Peruvians, for example, grow many hundreds of varieties. The diversity of breed/varieties is what keeps a single fungus or other pests from decimating a food stock.

potatoes

In the US, however, we grow only few varieties of potatoes, making them sensitive to all sorts of microbial threats and because we rely so heavily on chemical solutions for these threats, we have decimated the soils in which these crops grow. Many of the problems with conventional potatoes are tied to the fact the soil has been so eroded and robbed of nutrients, that there are no natural fungi or bacteria left. This means that ungodly amounts of chemical fertilizers have to be applied each season to contain the growth of super predator weeds and microorganisms. Each year, the amount of chemicals required increases.

But it’s the pesticides, man! Leave my spuds alone.

Just how many chemicals are there in a conventionally grown potato? According to the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program, conventionally grown potatoes carry 35 different pesticides. As is true of many of the plastic compounds, these pesticides have some lethal side effects:

One herbicide, chlorpropham, is used to stop the growth of weeds and to inhibit potatoes sprouting. Chlorpropham is found on up to 80 percent of all conventionally-grown potatoes. According to the Extension Toxicology Network, this poison is toxic to honey bees. In labs, tests bare out the effects of chronic exposure to the herbicide where the animals show “retarded growth, increased liver, kidney and spleen weights, congestion of the spleen, and death.”

Poison Potatoes

All those poisons, then, are integrated into the spud. As a root vegetable, potatoes absorb all of the pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides sprayed above the ground, which eventually spread into the soil. There are many insider testimonies from potato farmers — Jeff Moyer, CEO at the Rodale Institute and former chair of the National Organic Standards Board, says,

I’ve talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals.

The potato is a great example of an industrial system gone crazy. Terms like Frankenfoods, fishy tomatoes and assassin seeds are not benign. Imagine, the now defunct DNA Plant Technology of Oakland, California, developed the gene therapy (sic) of inserting a fish gene into a tomato. It was the gene that helps a flounder survive in frigid waters. This “anti-freeze” fish gene was spliced into tomato cells to enhance the plant’s resistance to cold.

Monsanto, developers of the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, also developed the gene technology to create suicide seeds. Of all wonderfully bad things, they call this technology: Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), but it’s more commonly referred to as terminator technology or suicide seeds. This keeps farmers from saving seeds from a Monsanto crop, as the genetic alterations either activate or deactivate some genes only in response to certain stimuli. The second generation of seeds is infertile.

Roundup is what is sprayed all over our Oregon forests when clear cuts raze stands of trees – to keep opportunistic and invasive brush and other tree species, from overtaking the sawed over hills and valleys. (The Intercept)

The history and politics are not lost on people like my Chilean friend — Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the two largest producers of Agent Orange, a fifty-fifty mix of the n-butyl esters 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) known for a long list of neurological symptoms and physiological malformities found not only in those exposed but in their offspring; effects that were denied and ignored by both the manufacturer and the government, for decades.

Industrial Foods

The potato is just one food crop. Every conventionally grown crop contains multiple chemical pesticides and herbicides. There are many groups looking into industrial vegetables and fruits, but they all have their own version of the Dirty Dozen.  The dirty dozen are the twelve most chemically laden fruits and vegetables for that year. These foods should be purchased organic when possible. Here, another group’s dirty dozen with some specifics connected to each food.

  • Apples – at least 99 % have residue
  • Strawberries – contained 13 different pesticides each
  • Grapes- contained 15 different pesticides
  • Celery- 13 different pesticides per sample
  • Peaches
  • Spinach
  • Sweet Bell Peppers
  • Imported Nectarines – every sample tested positive for pesticides
  • Cucumbers
  • Cherry Tomatoes – contained 13 different pesticides each
  • Imported Snap Peas – contained 13 different pesticides each
  • Potatoes – had more pesticides by weight than any other food

Remember, there are literally dozens of active ingredients in one type of herbicide. There are hundreds and sometimes thousands of chemicals in a scoop or pint of poison used in industrial agriculture. There are no studies on how any of these chemical interact with each other as they bioaccumulate in the soils, plants, animals or in us. There are no studies on how two, three, or four different chemicals might interact in the lab or in life, let alone 10, 15, or 35 as in the case of the potato. Although industry boasts the safety of these chemicals, no one with a modicum of common sense believes them, unless they choose too. As I walk the wrack line, I cannot help but agreeing with my Chilean friend. The world is insane to believe that it is normal to poison our food.

When we look at what is truly sustainable, the only real model that has worked over long periods of time is the natural world. – Biomimicry Institute founder, Janine Benyus.

To Learn More:

The Future of Food

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter. 

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A Global Contamination: Persistent Organic Pollutants

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For personal reasons, I have been investigating environmental toxins and their effects on hormonal, neurological and reproductive health. The bioaccumulation of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) within our bodies and the proliferation of POPs across the entire planet is frightening, but like most, I was not aware of the dangers. Despite the abundance of research linking POPs to many of the health epidemics we face here in the United States, such as Type II Diabetes and obesity, the public’s attention has not been directed to this man-made creation. Here is some of the research I found on persistent organic pollutants and what is being done to control our exposure to them.

What are Persistent Organic Pollutants?

Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs, are a number of organic (mostly man-made) compounds resistant to degradation by natural environmental processes. A number of POPs became widely utilized during the increase in industrial production post-World War II, a time when thousands of chemicals were introduced into commercial use. Many of these chemicals were proven effective in pest and disease control, crop production, manufacturing and industrial processes. Also in existence are a number of POPs which are “unintentionally produced chemicals” as the result of combustion (e.g., trash burning or municipal/medical waste incineration).

Why are Persistent Organic Pollutants So Bad?

Since they cannot be broken down via natural degradation in the environment, they are transported by wind and water. POPs are known for bioaccumulation in human and animal tissue and have become a part of the food chain, affecting all life on earth. Isolated communities, such as indigenous populations in the Arctic Circle, have a particularly high exposure risk to POPs.  POPs have been linked to disruption of our endocrine, reproductive and immune systems, neurological problems, diabetes, obesity and cancer. According to The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the international community has been calling for “urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate releases of these chemicals.” A number of POPs are compounds the reader may be familiar with, such as DDT, PCBs, and HCH.

“The Dirty Dozen” and the Stockholm Convention

Coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), The Stockholm Convention serves as “a global legally-binding instrument for targeting persistent organic pollutants.” The purpose of the Convention is to direct us toward a future free of POPs and re-shape the global economy in order to eliminate reliance on such dangerous pollutants.

The Convention initially identified twelve POPs (“The Dirty Dozen”) considered to be the most detrimental to the well-being of humans, animals and the environment. This measure created a system that allows for a greater number of chemicals to be identified as “unacceptably hazardous.” In accordance with the Convention, governments are obliged to eliminate or reduce the introduction of POPs into the environment. Such is done by channeling resources into “cleaning up existing stockpiles and dumps of POPs that litter the world’s landscapes.” The Convention was ratified May 17, 2004, with 150 signatory countries. As of February 20, 2013, Afghanistan acceded to the Convention as its 179th party. According to Kyoto Energy, the Convention aims to prohibit the production of POPs, with the exception of equipment currently in use; they have set a deadline for the elimination of the remaining usage for 2025.

Destroying and Transforming POPs in the Environment

The UNIDO website suggests that POPs stockpiles “must be destroyed in a manner which does not further degrade the environment by generating or releasing POPs.” The Convention calls for community participation, safety of the community, full disclosure of information, monitoring and release of data.

Details regarding the destruction process on the UNIDO website are vague; they suggest that traditional methods use “landfilling, ground storage, deepwell injection and combustion by open burning, incineration or in cement kilns or metal furnaces.” UNIDO stresses that there are “serious limitations” to the “normal incineration process,” considering that incineration can lead to the creation of dioxins, PCBs and HCBs. The quantities of POPs are rather difficult to estimate; almost no inventory exists. Kyoto Energy estimates that one million tons of PCBs and 100,000 tons of obsolete pesticides exist within countries that are not member to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Are We Burying POPs for Future Generations?

Many of these methods do not entirely eliminate the problem. Rather, we are, quite literally, burying them for future generations to deal with – if we don’t burn this stuff and release it into the atmosphere first.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) suggests that high temperature incinerators, incineration in cement kilns and chemical treatment are proven methods of destruction. There is no evidence of this being true, and most research indicates that POPs are created as a result of incineration.  

A number of countries have continued to produce POPs such as DDT, with a staggering 3,314 tons (7,306,119 pounds) produced globally in 2009. On the bright side, this signifies a 43% reduction in DDT production from 2007. Considering the stability of POPs (i.e., resistant to degradation), it’s difficult to imagine any concerted effort can “undo” the damage that has already been dealt to the planet, especially since a number of POPs like DDT continue to be produced and exported in such exorbitant quantities.

It’s time to rethink our reliance on dangerous chemicals and the industries that use them. Though, many of these chemicals were developed before we understood their dangers, now that we know, it is difficult to support their continued use. With all of the advances in science, one would think we could design better, safer tools for industry, than the non-degradable, persistent organic pollutants we have now.

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100 Toxic Chemicals Found in Pregnant Women

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Environmental toxins are everywhere. Not a day goes by that some report doesn’t warn us about this pesticide or that plastic or the host of toxic chemicals floating in the atmosphere. One has to wonder how we survive the toxic soup that has become our environment; but somehow we do – well, mostly.  The rate of cancers, immune, endocrine and a myriad of other diseases are on the rise. Though experts argue about direct links between specific chemicals and diseases (correlation does not equal causation), no one can argue that bathing in a chemical cocktail is healthy. Yet that is exactly what we do and when we become pregnant so do our babies.

As part of the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), 163 toxic chemicals from 12 chemical classes were measured from the blood, urine and serum of a representative group of 268 pregnant women. The results were not good. Researchers found widespread exposure to many toxic chemicals. Exposure to several classes of toxic chemicals were detected in 99–100% of the pregnant women tested including:

  • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – are used as coolants and lubricants in electrical systems. Though no longer produced in the US, PCBs are still present in the environment, mostly in contaminated streams and rivers. Eating contaminated food (fish, meat or dairy) is the primary source of exposure. PCBs are also found in old (>30 years) fluorescent lights, refrigerators and TVs. PCBs are carcinogenic and exposure during pregnancy can cause developmental delays in infants and children.
  • Organochlorine pesticides – DDT and other pesticides (mosquito control) used in US from 1940-1960s. Many, though not all, are banned in the US. Organochlorines are neurotoxic and cause reproductive failure in animals.
  •  Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) – are used to create stain and water resistant fabrics such as StainmasterTM, ScotchgardTM, TeflonTM and represent one of the most pervasively present chemical toxins today. PFCs do not appear to break down in the environment – ever, are linked liver and bladder cancer and cross the placental barrier. PFCs are linked to developmental and reproductive toxicity.
  • Phenols  –  are pervasive in the environment, found the resin in plywood, automotive and construction materials, the effluent of oil refineries and in the manufacturing of plastics (bisphenol A – BPA). Phenols are also found in a of medical products such as: mouthwashes, toothache drops, throat lozenges, analgesic rubs, and antiseptic lotions and tobacco. According to the EPA, no human studies have been done to determine the developmental or reproductive affects of phenol exposure, though animal research suggests phenols are weak carcinogens. Research on bisphenol A clearly suggests it is a highly estrogenic endocrine disruptor. Research on a class of phenolic compounds used oil refinery effluent that often leaches into nearby water supplies, reduces thyroid functioning in fish who swim in those streams.
  • Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) – are flame retardants that appear to be highly environmentally persistent – they don’t degrade – and have bio-accumulative affects that can be toxic to humans and the environment.  PDBEs were only recently phased out of use in 2004. Exposure comes through eating foods grown in contaminated soils. The toxins can cross the placental barrier and are passed through breast milk. Though human research is still limited, PDBEs are thyroid toxic in rodents.
  • Phthalates, are pervasive in our environment from vinyls and plastics, to pesticides and solvents. Phthalates are present in most cosmetics and perfumes, though because of a loophole in the regulations phthalates are not often listed in the ingredients. They are also used in the coatings of many medications.  Phthalates are endocrine disruptors and can cause congenital abnormalities in offspring of women who have been exposed.
  • Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) represent a group of over 100 different chemicals emitted when burning coal, oil and gas, garbage, tobacco and even  charbroiled meat.  Exposure comes from breathing, except in the case of charbroiled meats. Don’t burn the steak the bar-b-que!
  • Perchlorate or rocket fuel disrupts iodide uptake into the thyroid gland.

Though individually and with high enough exposure any one of these chemicals can have serious reproductive consequences. It is unclear, however, what chronic, lower level exposure to multiple chemicals would do, and yet that is exactly what most women face. How many products from the above list have you been exposed to?   Chances are, most of them.

 

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