A toxic life: We're polluted from head to toe.

[Jagannath Chatterjee]

A toxic life

We're polluted from head to toe and though scientists can now measure minute amounts of chemicals in our bodies, no one knows the long-term health effects

Apr. 21, 2006. 06:08 AM

NANCY J. WHITE

LIFE WRITER

Sarah Winterton is many things: a 45-year-old mother of three teenagers, a Toronto resident, a program director — and a toxic chemical dump.

Blood and urine samples show that her body is home to 16 respiratory and 38 reproductive toxins, 19 chemicals that disrupt hormones and 27 carcinogens. Stored in her body are traces of heavy metals, such as lead, arsenic and uranium, and chemicals used in pesticides, flame retardants and stain repellents. DDE and DDT, DMTP, HCB, PBDE 47 and 99, PCBs and PFOS — this is just a taste of the alphabet soup swishing through her.

She wonders about the air she breathes, the tinned food she buys, the chemically protected mattress she sleeps on. "There are likely thousands more chemicals in me," she says. "It's not a great picture to have of yourself."

But it's as common as a snapshot.

Studies of volunteers in Europe, the U.S. and Canada show the same results. Coursing through our bodies is a complex chemical cocktail, the by-product of a modern life of industrial emissions, treated food and endless consumer products — microwave bags, fast food wrappers, nail polish, computer casings — laced with synthetic substances.

"We are the guinea pigs in the largest uncontrolled science experiment in history," says Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.

 

Entire article at:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1145569812202&call_pageid=968332188492

 

ANTI - VACCINE ACTIVISTS READ THIS:

But even with a safe threshold, there's not a simple formula. Some chemicals are quickly excreted, while others persist and accumulate. There's the individual factor. "Everyone has different susceptibilities, driven by their genetics," says Houlihan. And the timing of exposure counts. Humans are more vulnerable in the womb and during early childhood and puberty.

And there's the great unknown variable: the synergy of the soup. Could the sum of all the synthetic chemicals in our bodies be more toxic than the parts? "That's extremely important and largely unresolved," says Wigle.

 

Just what we have been arguing about the chemical soup that is vaccines.

"Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." -  Aurobindo.

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