Oops, sent an empty message. That five hours of driving today to see my EI
doc obviously has its BIG down sides. . .
This article is interesting since it points out the myriad chemicals in
everyone's body. The down side here is that the author was flip about
it... like "Oh well, I still feel ok so what the hey...". There is a
'poll' you can click on which asks whether you think you can successfully
avoid toxic chemicals. After you say yes or no, you have the option of
explaining your answer in their forum. I posted the following comments:
====================================
Can more be done to restrict the ingestion, inhalation and dermal
absorption of chemicals? YES
HOW? In two simple stages.
1. Offer people the knowledge of what it is they are being exposed to in
the goods and services they actively purchase or are passively
'consuming' by their presence in given areas.
2. Expand our access to toxicological testing services as part of routine
medical protocols so that correlations can be confirmed between
chemicals and disease processes.
What people do not realize is that our access to the basic information of
what chemicals they are exposed to is denied us BY LAW. Trade secret
laws permit products to be sold without any information listed on the
label or even in the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) as to what is in
the product. For example, I have very severe adverse reactions to 'dryer
sheets' used to soften and fragrance clothing processed in the dryer. I
looked at the label and it had no information about the contents of the
sheet other than the name of the material (rayon or polyester - don't
recall) plus 'fragrance', a generic term for any combination of hundreds
of ingredients. It did not list any specific ingredients allowing me to
pin-point the nature of my reaction from my personal knowledge of my own
health.
I called the company which marketed the sheet and they refused to send me
an MSDS sheet or answer my questions about what might be in the
product. When I complained it made me ill, they said my complaints did
not count since I must be sensitive to the product. Sensitive to what
part of the product? They couldn't say.
Only a handful of states in this country allow parents and teachers to be
notified in advance when toxic pesticides are going to be sprayed in the
schoolrooms, cafeterias, lockers, basements etc. Such notification laws
automatically reduce pesticide use since administrators don't like
calling the people who register for this information and publicizing the
use of such chemicals. Nor do they like putting up signs indicating
areas of treatment and re-entry times, inferring these unsafe products
might not actually be safe. However, when children get 'flu', symptoms,
which can be identical to pesticide poisoning, how is a doctor to
diagnose it? A well educated physician asks such questions and can take
note of problems which appear to recur and test for certain toxicological
abnormalities. However, simple notification laws can prevent all of
these ridiculous guessing games.
As one doctor noted,(Sherry Rogers), ". . .a headache is not a sign of an
aspirin deficiency."
Toxicologists can aid persons who show signs of poisoning to test their
homes and offices to find out if this is a possibility. You cannot spend
thousands of dollars looking for a hundred substances in your
bloodstream. You can test your environments to find out if there are
excessive levels of volatile organic compounds or petroleum hydrocarbons
or specific chemicals peculiar to your setting. Pairing those results
with symptoms which persist in those surroundings but improve elsewhere,
can reveal causal relationships in a particular patients and across
populations. Industry won't test their products be we can test them
against our own experiences.
We know that in Europe, many of our products cannot be sold because of
mandatory labelling laws there and restrictions upon many chemicals
allowed in those countries. If you have ever experienced breathing
problems or headaches around new cabinets made of particle board or
plywood; or new insulation in a remodeled home, it is likely from the
formaldehyde emissions. The EPA says 1 part per million is hazardous.
Yet your residence with new carpets and furniture may yield emissions
around or above this level and you won't even know about it.
Urea-formaldehyde blown in insulation was taken off the market some time
ago due to its health effects. But at least it was called by its real
name and consumers could research it at their leisure. How many lives
are damaged because formaldehyde levels were not checked in residences so
affected?
Since 24 million Americans have asthma, we know we are doing something
wrong in our homes and workplaces. It takes labelling and toxicological
testing to confirm relationships between the purchase of goods and
services and their effects upon our health. When you are refused
information about the foods you eat, the clothing you wear (many
finishing chemicals on it), the products you use on and around your body,
the buildings in which you live/work, how can you make anything close to
an informed choice? Capitalism is based upon the assumption that
consumer dollars regulate the marketplace. Dollars reward good vendors
for selling good products and are taken away from bad vendors, who then
go out of business.
If consumers insist upon full disclosure of ingredients, we automatically
take control of the environmental proliferation of toxic
chemicals. Regulation is useful when it is the only way to avoid
contamination - as in avoiding second hand smoke in the workplace.
However, when government will not regulate such matters, the marketplace
is the best way to discourage makers of harmful products to stop selling
them and shift to more benign formulations. This power only works if we
have the information required on the LABELS or by mandatory submission of
fully detailed MSDS sheets upon request.
Barbara Rubin
Fred <***@cox.net> wrote:
Another MCS list I am on mentioned that the latest National Geographic
has a very good article on toxic chemicals. Check out
http://tinyurl.com/kttbu to see the article.
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