Pollution of the People

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15856 Pollution of the People Stacy

Malkan, Multinational Monitor

May 8, 2003Viewed on May 9, 2003

 

Chemical contamination of water, air and food supplies has been documented for

decades, but only recently have scientists begun to uncover details about the

industrial pollution of a much more intimate site: our bodies.

 

It should come as no surprise that industrial chemicals are running through our

veins. Industry reported dumping 7.1 billion pounds of hazardous compounds into

the air and water in the United States in the year 2000, according to the most

recent Toxic Release Inventory, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

program that tracks only a subset of industries.

 

But not until recently, with advances in the technology of biomonitoring, have

scientists been able to accurately measure the actual levels of chemicals in

people's bodies.

 

Now, with the recent release of the largest-ever biomonitoring study by the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a new peer-reviewed study

by independent researchers, scientists know more than they ever have about a new

evolutionary phenomenon: the universal chemical body burden of people.

 

" This is irrefutable proof that humans carry around scores of industrial

chemicals, most of which have never been tested for human health effects, " says

Jane Houlihan, vice president of research at the Washington D.C.-based

Environmental Working Group (EWG), and lead author of one of the studies.

 

Most of these chemicals did not exist in the environment, let alone in human

bodies, just 75 years ago.

 

The $450-billion chemical industry has responded with assurances that the mere

presence of chemicals in people is no proof of harm, but critics say the human

population is the unwitting test subject of a dangerous and unprecedented

chemical experiment.

 

Chemical Load

 

The new CDC National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,

released in January, is the largest set of body burden data ever collected in

the U.S. and the first time chemical exposure by age, race and sex has been

analyzed on a national scale. CDC tested the blood and urine of a nationally

representative group of Americans for the presence of 116 toxic chemicals -- all

of which were found in people.

 

" This report is by far the most extensive assessment ever made of the exposure

in the U.S. population to environmental chemicals, " says CDC Deputy Director Dr.

David Fleming. " It's a quantum leap forward in providing objective scientific

information about what's getting into people's bodies and how much. "

 

Public health experts say one of the most disturbing findings is that children

had higher body burdens than adults of some of the most toxic chemicals,

including lead, tobacco smoke and organophosphate pesticides.

 

" This is a concern because of the potential of toxic chemicals to interfere with

development, " says Dr. Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official and a professor at

the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

 

Children had double the level of adults of the pesticide chlorpyrifos (known as

Dursban) -- a chemical that animal studies indicate has long-term effects on

brain development if exposure occurs early in life. Dursban was the most widely

used insecticide in the United States until the EPA banned its use in households

a year ago, although some uses remain legal. Other organophosphate pesticides,

also linked to neurological and nervous system damage in animal studies, remain

in widespread use.

 

Children were also disproportionately exposed to some of the most toxic

phthalates, the CDC found. Phthalates -- a class of industrial chemicals used in

polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, cosmetics and other consumer products -- cause

a spectrum of health effects in animal studies, including damage to the liver,

kidneys, lungs and the reproductive system, particularly the testes of

developing males.

 

CDC also identified some spikes among ethnic populations. The insecticide DDT,

banned in the 1970s in the United States, was found in Mexican Americans at

triple the levels present in the general population.

 

CDC found mercury at the highest levels in African-American women of

childbearing age, and the study confirmed that 5 to 10 percent of all U.S. women

of childbearing age already have enough mercury in their bodies to pose a risk

of neurological damage to their developing babies.

 

CDC plans to release more body burden data every two years, including more

information about potential sources of mercury, phthalates and other chemicals

of particular concern.

 

A Closer Look

 

If the CDC report provides a panoramic view of the body burden of the U.S.

population, another new study by the Environmental Working Group released in

January offers a close-up snapshot at what individuals are carrying around in

their bodies.

 

EWG looked for 210 chemicals in nine people and created a personal body burden

profile for each -- putting a human face, as well as a corporate face, on the

problem.

 

Using peer-reviewed studies and various government health assessments, the

report links the chemicals to potential health effects and found that, on

average, each person's body had 50 or more chemicals that are linked to cancer

in humans or lab animals, considered toxic to the brain and nervous system,

associated with birth defects or abnormal development, or known to interfere

with the hormone system.

 

The report also connected the chemicals to 11,700 consumer products, and to 164

past and current manufacturers.

 

So the study showed, for example, that Andrea Martin, 56, of Sausalito,

California, contained at least 95 toxic chemicals in her body at the time of the

test, which she likely ingested from scores of consumer products that are

manufactured by Shell, Union Carbide, Exxon, Dow and Monsanto, among others.

 

" I was shocked at the breadth and variety of the number of chemicals. I was

outraged to find out that without my permission, without my knowledge, my body

was accumulating this toxic mixture, " Martin says.

 

Martin appeared in a full-page ad announcing the body burden report that ran in

the New York Times in January. Her photo was stamped with the headline:

" Warning: Andrea Martin contains 59 cancer causing industrial chemicals. "

 

She also happens to have cancer. At 42, Martin was diagnosed with an advanced

case of breast cancer, underwent aggressive treatment and later contracted

cancer in the other breast. A year ago, she was diagnosed with a large malignant

brain tumor.

 

" My body biology is susceptible to cancer, " Martin surmises. She has been asked

if she thinks her chemical body burden caused the disease. " No one can say for

sure, but no one can say it hasn't either, " she says. " We deserve to know what

toxins are in our bodies. We have a right to know what health effects these

chemicals have. "

 

The Unknown and the Chemophiles

 

Unfortunately, for everything scientists now know about which chemicals are in

the environment and in people, there is much more they don't know about the

effects on human health.

 

" Just because a chemical can be measured doesn't mean it causes disease, " says

Dr. Richard Jackson, director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental

Health. The new CDC data offers " no new health effects information, no new

understanding of the health effects from chemicals, " Jackson says. " But it moves

the science forward to increase this understanding. "

 

The majority of people in the United States mistakenly believe that the

government tests chemicals used in consumer products to make sure they are safe,

according to an opinion poll recently conducted by the Washington Toxics

Coalition.

 

The chemical industry also makes public claims to that effect. " Chemicals are

evaluated by government scientists before being used, and there are precautions

in place to help keep us safe from both natural toxins and modern chemicals, "

said a statement of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the trade group for

the biggest chemical manufacturers, issued in response to the CDC study.

 

However, most of the 75,000-plus chemicals in use today have never been

evaluated for health effects. Most industrial chemicals in use today are

regulated by the minimal health and safety standards of the Toxic Substances

Control Act (TSCA), which assumes chemicals are safe until they are proven

hazardous. TSCA does not require chemical companies to conduct health or safety

studies prior to putting a chemical on the market, or to monitor chemicals once

they are in use.

 

EWG accuses the chemical industry of creating the lax regulatory situation.

" Chemical companies are pressuring our elected leaders to restrict new research

and block common sense safeguards, " says the New York Times ad paid for by the

environmental group.

 

The ACC blasted the ad as an attempt to " put bogus words in the mouths of the

men and women who make essential and life-saving products that we rely on every

day " and said that " chemical makers support additional government research and

also are spending millions of dollars every year in collaboration with

government scientists on research into the relationship between chemicals and

health. "

 

Industry points to its voluntary efforts to improve health and safety

performance, and says that significant reductions in chemical releases have

occurred under the Responsible Care program, a voluntary program established by

the ACC in 1988 in response to criticism of industry's environmental record.

 

But a recent study by Duke University associate professor Michael Lenox found

that some members of Responsible Care are releasing more toxic substances into

the environment than non-members, prompting Lenox to criticize the voluntary

program as a failure.

 

In responding to the CDC report, industry has focused on the small levels of

chemicals detected by biomonitoring. " It is remarkable that modern chemistry

allows CDC scientists to measure incredibly small amounts of certain nutrients,

natural food chemicals and modern chemicals in our bodies, " says the ACC.

 

Elizabeth Whelan, president of the industry-funded American Council on Science

and Health (ACSH), counsels that people " should remember the basic tenet of

toxicology -- the dose makes the poison " -- a phrase used often by industry to

make the point that small doses are not harmful.

 

The EWG report points out that science has evolved considerably since that

phrase was coined in the sixteenth century. " Toxic effects don't require high

doses, " says EWG's Houlihan. For instance, low doses of lead or mercury at

specific stages of fetal development or infancy have been shown to cause

permanent health problems.

 

Much of the evidence of the toxicity associated with the chemicals detected by

the body burden reports comes from animal studies. And many of the same health

effects turning up in the animal studies are also on the rise in the human

population.

 

The probability that a U.S. resident will develop some type of cancer at some

point in his or her lifetime is now 1 in 2 for men, and 1 in 3 for women,

according to the American Cancer Society. Many forms of cancer are on the rise

in humans, including breast, prostate and testicular cancers, according to the

National Cancer Institute.

 

Reproductive system defects and major nervous system disorders are also

increasing in humans. Hypospadias, a birth defect of the penis, doubled in the

United States between 1970 and 1993 and is now estimated to affect one of every

125 male babies born. Reported cases of autism are now almost 10 times higher

than in the mid-1980s, according to some recent studies.

 

For all those diseases, there is data that either suggests or demonstrates that

environmental factors may be contributing to the increase, and chemical

exposures may be part of that picture, scientists say.

 

" There is an epidemic of breast cancer and there is an epidemic of many chronic

diseases in this country and the question is, what is the contribution of this

body burden that we are all bearing? " asks Michael Lerner, one of the EWG test

subjects and the founder of Commonweal.

 

Industry counters the health worries with accusations that " chemophobics " are

using the CDC study to further a political agenda.

 

Steven Milloy, frequent defender of the chemical industry and columnist for

FoxNews.com, accused environmentalists of using the information in the CDC

report to " terrorize us with yet another junk science-fueled campaign intended

to advance their mindless anti-chemical agenda. "

 

Industry defenders say that people should feel reassured by the information

released by CDC. " Thanks to the CDC report, we're now more certain than ever

that the synthetic chemical amounts we are routinely subjected to are trivial.

We ought to feel safer than ever, " said Todd Seavey of ACSH.

 

But industry critics question why industry has the right to contaminate people

with products that may be harmful, and say industry should be held liable for

chemical trespass.

 

" If somebody comes onto my land, it's trespassing, but companies can put 85

toxic substances into my body without my permission and tell me there is nothing

I can do about it. That can't be right, " says Charlotte Brody, RN, 54, director

of the Washington, D.C.-based environmental group Health Care Without Harm and

one of the nine subjects tested for the EWG report.

 

" Outright banning works "

 

Two encouraging findings in the CDC report point toward at least one solution to

the toxic body burden in humans. The levels of cotinine (a marker for tobacco

smoke) decreased in children by 58 percent, while exposure to unsafe levels of

lead declined among children under age 5 from 4.4 percent to 2.2 percent --

although there is debate over whether any level of lead is really safe.

 

The CDC also reported decreasing levels in the general population of DDT and

PCBs, two substances banned in the 1970s.

 

" It appears that regulation, and in fact outright elimination or banning,

works, " says Dr. Peter Orris, director of the Occupational Health Services

Institute at the University of Illinois. " These are all examples of regulatory

action on the part of the government which we not only can applaud, but we now

have data indicating that this works and is an effective means of social

policy. "

 

Orris says the CDC data should help set priorities for public health action.

 

" We need to move ahead, rapidly ahead, with mercury and other regulations, " he

says, including ratification of the Stockholm Treaty on Persistent Organic

Pollutants (POPS). " These problems are global and not local. " The United States

has yet to ratify the POPS Treaty, an international agreement to ban 12 of the

most harmful pollutants based on their known human health effects.

 

EWG recommends reform of TSCA, which the environmental group says is " so

fundamentally broken that the statute needs to be rewritten. " The group

recommends that the chemical industry be made to disclose all internal studies

about the environmental fate, human contamination and health effects of

chemicals, and to thoroughly test all chemicals found in humans " for their

health effects in low-dose, womb-to-tomb, multi-generational studies " focused on

known target organs.

 

The CDC will, at least, continue to provide scientists and activists with more

information about the extent of human contamination for years to come. The

agency's $6.5-million biomonitoring study is " budgeted to continue at the same

rate every two years into the indefinite future, " says the agency's Pirkle.

 

The CDC plans to add new chemicals, and solicit input from other government

agencies, environmental groups and industry about how to make the data more

useful.

 

In the meantime, many activists say there is enough information available now to

warrant regulations to protect people, particularly children, from industrial

chemicals.

 

" We need to change the way of manufacturing products, shifting from protection

that industry gets to protection of the consumer, " says test subject Martin. She

advocates for a " better safe than sorry " approach that requires manufacturers to

test for safety before they are allowed to introduce chemicals into commerce.

 

" The fact that we are walking toxic dumps is literally the result of decisions

made long ago and is not an inevitability of modern life, " she says. " If there

is intelligence to come up with new chemicals and come up with modern

conveniences, the same intelligence exists to make it safe. "

 

The European Union is making progress on reducing the body burden. See Stacy

Malkan's Progress on Phthlates for more information.

 

Stacy Malkan is the communications director for Health Care Without Harm.

 

 

 

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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