Watch this video on the body burden--the industrial chemicals building up in our bodies--presented by Kenneth Cook, executive director of the Environmental Working Group.Read this article, Cosmetic Wars.
Many individuals these days are concerned with their personal health and the health of their immediate family. This concern with personal health has provided the impetus to eat organic food. Focusing on the personal, however, may mean we ignore the disproportionate exposure some people face because of their work. Agricultural laborers and nearby communities face pesticide exposure. People who live near military installations, petrochemical facilities, nuclear dumps or manufacturing facilities face dangers because of their proximity or location relative to wind or water patterns. There are links being made between obesity, hermaphroditism and cancers due to exposure to certain chemicals. The North Pole's large carnivores (polar bears, humans) are the endpoint for many industrial chemicals due to bioaccumulation.
Look at one of the following and discuss what the group is doing to address body burden. For full credit: 1) do a post and reply to another peer 2) discuss an aspect of the podcast 3) discuss an aspect from Cosmetic Wars and 4) Discuss what you've learned from one of the links below. If I can't tell from your post that you've done the work, I cannot give you full credit.
Alaska Community Action on Toxics
Long time activist on the dangers of living downstream Susan Steingraber
Chemical Body Burden
Center for Health, Environment and Justice (Love Canal)
Washington Toxics coalition
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production
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Optional: PBS' Bill Moyers on Body Burden, National Geographic Troubled Water about hermaphroditic frogs (from atrazine)
I feel that when it comes to toxicology most people fear the big names on the list radiation, lead, mercury, DDT, etc. the problem being that chemicals that can adversely affect ones are far to numerous to list. They are also, largely ignored and at times barely tested at all on the effects to one's health. Testing products on animals was the subject being addressed in the Cosmetics war which brought up the point of saying that although it seems cruel at times it would still have longstanding benefits to humans and other animals. The point was also made to suggest that what makes their life any worse than the animals living in the slaughter farms where they are born and live in utter hell until they're miserable demise. The point the author wishes to make is that although it is wrong to test products on animals its the only method we currently have that can be used to test product safety. Going back to what I was originally talking about though Kenneth Cook talks about the contaminants and toxins that we can currently be exposed to as a result of simply living the lives we have and drink water, eat food, use products but the main way we are initially exposed to chemicals is in the womb. It is insane to think that when are we the most vulnerable and when we would think that our parents are the defensive of us is when we are the most exposed. Chemical companies argue that what we exposed to very low dosages but Kenneth argues that actually low dosages do matter and can adversely affect our health. He then begins to list how the rise in many diseases especially in children is evident in that. So, going back to the previous entry the author would suggest we test more the affects of these chemicals while Kenneth says we update our laws and research. The Chemical Body Burden is a site created to inform about the buildup of toxins that begins before we are even born and with this information it wishes to lead us to understand the size of the damage the world we lived has caused. All of these are urging that we do something about the chemical happy world that we live in because at the rate we're going the effects might be too high to ever reverse.
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