Digest Number 953

[Guest guest]

Here is something that is not mentioned in the article and it really should

be. The terrible disposable diapers that most people' use for their babies

contain Dioxin. It is exposed to the tender skin of newborns. Baby skin

absorbs more of that stuff than adults does and we keep them in the Dioxin

nearly 24/7.

 

We do have options as parents to avoid these chemicals with our precious

babies. You can use cloth diapers. They have come a long way from what they

used to be. They also save you lots of money even if you buy the most

expensive cloth diapers. Or you can do what a lot of countries do , it is

called Elimination Communication . That is a very gentle way of helping very

young infants to use the potty. They can actually tell you , in their way,

when they have to go. You can use this method along with cloth diapers.

 

As for the ladies who wear disposable pads and tampons that has Dioxin,

You have several options.

 

You can order Sea Pearls (a reusable tampon), cloth pads, or get something

called THe Keeper or the Diva Cup.

The keeper or Diva Cup looks like a tiny toilet plunger that is soft and it

catches a womans monthly flow. There are other that cater to

all of these needs if you want information.

 

It is not just what we ingest. I personally use the keeper and use cloth

diapers and they are both easy to do. I also use the Elimination

Communication methods but I started later at 14 months with my daughter .

EC is easier and more effective if you start before 5 or 6 months old.

 

April

 

 

 

Reproductive Rights Fight Moves to Environment

 

http://www.womensenews.com/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1498/context/archive

 

 

 

September 13, 2003

 

 

Reproductive Rights Fight Moves to Environment Run 08/24/03By Cynthia

L. Cooper and Margie Kelly

As more research links environmental toxins to fertility problems,

reproductive-health advocates are expanding their fight and taking aim at

industrial polluters.

 

 

(WOMENSENEWS)--Monique Harden reviewed a list of the toxic chemicals that

research scientists identified in her body and found an astonishing brew: to

be exact, 77 industry-made chemicals.

 

An attorney and environmental activist in New Orleans, Harden volunteered

for a " body burden " sampling to be taken of her blood and urine. It was for

a study on chemical contamination conducted by Mount Sinai School of

Medicine in New York, in collaboration with the Environmental Working Group,

a Washington, D.C., nonprofit research group and Commonweal, a health and

research institute in Bolinas, Calif.

 

Harden came away from the experience with an awful question on her mind. " I

have chemicals in my body that can damage my ability to reproduce, " she

said. " Will I be able to have healthy children? "

 

This question is stirring women's health advocates who are connecting the

dots between environmental and reproductive health.

California Governor Signs Chemicals Ban

Concern about chemical harm to women and their developing fetuses led

California Assemblymember and Majority Leader Wilma Chan, a Democrat from

Oakland, to introduce last February the first legislation to ban

polybrominated diphenyl ethers--PBDEs--used in upholstery and plastic

casings to retard fire. The ban was signed on August 9 by Gov. Gray Davis

and will take effect five years from now.

 

Chan was prompted by a 2001 report by the California Office of Environmental

Health Hazard Assessment, which found that small amounts of PDBEs can pass

to a fetus through the placenta, causing nervous system damage, brain

impairment or thyroid hormone imbalance. " Large numbers of women may carry

these chemicals in their bodies and pass them on, " said Chan.

 

The California Manufacturers and Technology Association, a trade group in

Sacramento, dropped its opposition after Chan specifically designated in the

bill the two PBDE compounds that harm human health, said Gino deCaro,

association spokesperson. Conservative lawmakers continued their opposition,

objecting to increased regulation by the government.

 

" I found it totally ironic that conservative legislators are concerned with

harm to the fetus when it deals with abortion, but not when the health of

the future baby is concerned, " said Chan.

Emerging Science Links Chemicals to Fertility Problems

Emerging science in the past 10 years is linking tiny amounts of synthetic

chemicals to infertility, early puberty, lowered sperm counts and other

disruptions of normal childbearing and child development, according to Karen

L. Perry, deputy director of the Environment and Health Program of

Physicians for Social Responsibility, a public policy group in Washington,

D.C.

 

The suspect chemicals are diverse, but share a knack for accumulating in the

body and interfering with normal hormonal signaling, a central building

block to healthy reproductive function, said Perry. The harm from chemicals

in an adult's body may cause developmental problems or reproductive

dysfunction in the next generation, she noted.

 

Out of the 87,000 synthetic chemicals that U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency says have been released into the environment through manufacturing or

waste disposal, 200 have been identified as hormone-disrupters, according to

Dr. Theo Colborn, senior project scientist at the World Wildlife Fund.

 

Groundbreaking analysis of fish and bird studies by Colborn, appearing in

" Our Stolen Future, " a 1996 book that she co-authored, first drew attention

to the potential dangers to humans. Since then, research has exploded. Tens

of thousands of studies have been conducted, said Colborn, who adds 500 new

studies to her database each month. Tulane University opened a center

devoted to the topic; courses are included on most campuses; specialized

journals have emerged.

 

Chemicals with hormone-disrupting properties (alternatively known as

endocrine-disrupters or reproductive toxins) cause a syndrome like that

triggered by diesthylstibestrol or DES, a medication prescribed to pregnant

women in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent miscarriages, said Perry.

 

As adults, the daughters of many women who took DES were unable to bear

children of their own, and sons suffered impaired reproductive capacities,

as well, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

" There are a lot of chemicals out there like DES that can get into the womb

and change how the cells have to split or move about and interfere with the

basic construction of the body. These are more subtle effects than what are

commonly thought of as birth defects, " said Colborn.

 

Many chemicals, including organochlorines--a vast category of toxic

chemicals used in plastics, paper, pesticides and industrial chemicals--and

pthalates--a softening agent commonly used in toys and beauty products--may

harm women's and men's reproductive abilities, according to Physicians for

Social Responsibility.

A New Twist to Reproductive Rights

Women's activists are now extending their concern about reproductive

decisions, including the right to bear a child, to the environment. " Who

decides whether babies are born full of toxics? " said Charlotte Brody,

founder and executive director of Health Care Without Harm, a Washington,

D.C., nonprofit group that campaigns for environmentally responsible health

care.

 

A recent analysis of reducing the dangers from the toxic chemical dioxin in

the food chain was commissioned by the Bush administration and released by

the Washington, D.C., Institute of Medicine of The National Academies in

July.

 

Recognizing that fetuses and breastfeeding infants are at particular risk,

the report urges girls and women to drink low-fat milk and trim fat from

beef throughout their pre-pregnancy lives, rather than challenging the

sources of dioxin in the food chain, such as the prolific use of animal feed

coated with dioxin-laced fat.

 

Dr. Robert Lawrence, chair of the institute's research committee, agrees

that dioxin is dangerous. But, he said, " You can't outright ban the use of

11 billion pounds of fat in animal food a year because of practical

realities of political pressure from the meat council. Under our

recommendations, women are the beneficiaries because they have an added

incentive to modify their diets. "

 

Brody, however, bridles at the idea that women have anything to gain from

the current situation. Dioxin is a proven toxin, she said. " Suggesting that

toxic problems can be eliminated through lifestyle choices is a fantasy. It

builds guilt in women and removes responsibility from where it belongs: with

corporations that make toxic chemicals and from governments that regulate

them. "

 

C.T. Howlett, Jr., council executive director of Chlorine Chemistry Council,

a business association based in Arlington, Va., said dioxin intakes for the

average person have been studied and shown to be safe. " From a regulatory

perspective, the dioxin intake level of the average U.S. resident is below

tolerable levels set by several respected public health agencies using

adequate safety factors, " he said. " And according to a recent report by the

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, actual blood levels of

dioxin in the average U.S. resident are below the level of analytical

detection. " None of the studies that he cited, however, consider the

potential damage to a developing fetus or the harm of small amounts of

dioxin on the reproductive system.

Solutions in Changing Chemical Release Standards

Valerie deFillipo, a senior director in the Washington, D.C., office of the

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is not so calm about the

situation. She predicts that hormone-disrupting chemicals will become a

major reproductive concern in coming decades.

 

But, she said, solutions must come from those who introduce the products to

the environment and that women shouldn't be expected to adapt their behavior

to the threat.

 

" The danger is if the issue gets distorted in some way so that it restricts

the freedom of pregnant women, " she says, " simply because they ingest what

all of us are ingesting. "

 

One solution--recommended by Physicians for Social Responsibility and

others--calls for removing chemicals from use until they are proven to be

safe and harmless at low-level exposure, an approach used in Sweden. In

June, San Francisco adopted this " precautionary principle, " the first U.S.

political entity to do so, as a framework for developing laws to protect

public health and the environment.

 

Still stunned by her " body burden, " Monique Harden agrees with the

precautionary principle. " We need to get this stuff out of the environment, "

she said, " and out of products. Period. It's not just me who is

contaminated. We've all got a body burden of chemicals and none of us asked

for it. "

 

Cynthia L. Cooper is a journalist in New York. Margie Kelly is a writer in

Eugene, Oregon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information:

Health Care Without Harm:

http://www.noharm.org

 

Our Stolen Future Information Center:

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org

 

Environmental Working Group:

http://www.ewg.org/

 

 

 

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