Canada - Hopeless
WELL, WELL, WELL
Connie Howard / health@vueweekly.com
POPs, PCPs, VOCs, DDT ... WTF?
Hap-hap-happy news again: safety restrictions for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins, PCPs and DDT have in the past been set depending on how they accumulate in fish, but new research shows we are just puttting our heads in the sand about a bunch of them. An estimated 3000 organic chemicals currently being used in Canada have been busy accumulating much further up the food chain, in birds and mammals, becoming more distilled and potent with each step up the ladder. And they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon—as their name suggests, they persist.
And apparently so do trans fats, though not for the same reason. While it has been recommended that food manufacturers leave them behind, it is right now still very optional, and despite an abundance of “trans fat free” labels on products, they happily continue to find homes in commercially baked goods, liquid coffee whiteners, microwave popcorn, margarines and, of course, fast food—a kid’s fries at Burger King has five times the recommended limit, a McDonald’s apple pie seven times.
Nor will pesticides be going anywhere anytime soon—our government has been unwilling to regulate their use, even though they are killing us. Besides the birth defects, nerve damage, cancer and endocrine disruption they are causing, pesticides cause over 6000 poisonings each year in Canada. Symptoms range from the mild (watery eyes or skin rashes) to the very serious (seizures and respiratory failure).
If this kind of safety record were true of, say, natural health products, would they still be allowed? It is more than a little ironic that the government reluctant to regulate an industry that clearly causes harm seems quite happy to spend a lot of energy regulating natural health products that actually counter some of the poison we’re eating and drinking and inhaling every day.
It’s hard to keep them all straight without getting dizzy. POPs, PCPs, VOCs—that last one stands for volatile organic compounds. VOCs are as obnoxious as the rest of them, and we’re exposed to a multitude of these every day, everywhere. Things like paint and gas and newsprint (sorry) and carpeting and upholstery and glue and perfume and exhaust and air fresheners and new plastics and electronics and household cleaners just keep a constant level of chemical “humidity” going for us. Here, too, symptoms range from the mild (eye and nose and throat irritation) to the somewhat more attention-getting (headaches, nausea and vomiting) to the very serious (cancer, and liver, kidney and nervous system damage).
Then there’s the fluoride in our apparently safer-than-bottled-water city water supply, and of course in drinks made with fluoridated water which include not only soft drinks but also healthful and assumed-safe juices and baby formulas. Flouride prevents tooth decay, true, but wouldn’t it be enough to keep it in our toothpaste? High levels, besides discolouring the teeth we’re trying to preserve, increases our risk of osteoporosis and broken bones, hyperactivity disorders, eczema, altered thyroid function and bone cancer.
And we need to decide yet again whether or not to drink milk. It turns out that estrogens in milk are 100 000 times more potent than environmental estrogens, and modern milk supplies—coming from cows that are milked almost year-round, are almost always pregnant and are delivering something like 30 times the level of estrogen non-pregnant cows do—are linked to hormone-dependent testicular, prostate, ovarian and breast cancers. Skim milk could be an option (hormones are fat-soluble and therefore less concentrate in skim milk) but the butterfat found in whole milk fat is essential to the absorption of the calcium and vitamins in milk ... so that leaves organic milk, maybe?
Not that we need to worry about any of this, of course. We don’t really know with any proven scientific certainty what harm any of these things cause, and it’s definitely not possible to live without non-stick frying pans, super-softened clothes, accelerated and processed-to-death milk, stain-resistant furniture and carpet-like lawns.
Besides, asthma and ADHD are treatable, and we’re going to find a cure for cancer with our pink ribbons, and chronically irritated eyes or sinuses are a minor price to pay for modern life, and multiple chemical sensitivity isn’t a real disease, remember?
Connie Howard / health@vueweekly.com
POPs, PCPs, VOCs, DDT ... WTF?
Hap-hap-happy news again: safety restrictions for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as dioxins, PCPs and DDT have in the past been set depending on how they accumulate in fish, but new research shows we are just puttting our heads in the sand about a bunch of them. An estimated 3000 organic chemicals currently being used in Canada have been busy accumulating much further up the food chain, in birds and mammals, becoming more distilled and potent with each step up the ladder. And they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon—as their name suggests, they persist.
And apparently so do trans fats, though not for the same reason. While it has been recommended that food manufacturers leave them behind, it is right now still very optional, and despite an abundance of “trans fat free” labels on products, they happily continue to find homes in commercially baked goods, liquid coffee whiteners, microwave popcorn, margarines and, of course, fast food—a kid’s fries at Burger King has five times the recommended limit, a McDonald’s apple pie seven times.
Nor will pesticides be going anywhere anytime soon—our government has been unwilling to regulate their use, even though they are killing us. Besides the birth defects, nerve damage, cancer and endocrine disruption they are causing, pesticides cause over 6000 poisonings each year in Canada. Symptoms range from the mild (watery eyes or skin rashes) to the very serious (seizures and respiratory failure).
If this kind of safety record were true of, say, natural health products, would they still be allowed? It is more than a little ironic that the government reluctant to regulate an industry that clearly causes harm seems quite happy to spend a lot of energy regulating natural health products that actually counter some of the poison we’re eating and drinking and inhaling every day.
It’s hard to keep them all straight without getting dizzy. POPs, PCPs, VOCs—that last one stands for volatile organic compounds. VOCs are as obnoxious as the rest of them, and we’re exposed to a multitude of these every day, everywhere. Things like paint and gas and newsprint (sorry) and carpeting and upholstery and glue and perfume and exhaust and air fresheners and new plastics and electronics and household cleaners just keep a constant level of chemical “humidity” going for us. Here, too, symptoms range from the mild (eye and nose and throat irritation) to the somewhat more attention-getting (headaches, nausea and vomiting) to the very serious (cancer, and liver, kidney and nervous system damage).
Then there’s the fluoride in our apparently safer-than-bottled-water city water supply, and of course in drinks made with fluoridated water which include not only soft drinks but also healthful and assumed-safe juices and baby formulas. Flouride prevents tooth decay, true, but wouldn’t it be enough to keep it in our toothpaste? High levels, besides discolouring the teeth we’re trying to preserve, increases our risk of osteoporosis and broken bones, hyperactivity disorders, eczema, altered thyroid function and bone cancer.
And we need to decide yet again whether or not to drink milk. It turns out that estrogens in milk are 100 000 times more potent than environmental estrogens, and modern milk supplies—coming from cows that are milked almost year-round, are almost always pregnant and are delivering something like 30 times the level of estrogen non-pregnant cows do—are linked to hormone-dependent testicular, prostate, ovarian and breast cancers. Skim milk could be an option (hormones are fat-soluble and therefore less concentrate in skim milk) but the butterfat found in whole milk fat is essential to the absorption of the calcium and vitamins in milk ... so that leaves organic milk, maybe?
Not that we need to worry about any of this, of course. We don’t really know with any proven scientific certainty what harm any of these things cause, and it’s definitely not possible to live without non-stick frying pans, super-softened clothes, accelerated and processed-to-death milk, stain-resistant furniture and carpet-like lawns.
Besides, asthma and ADHD are treatable, and we’re going to find a cure for cancer with our pink ribbons, and chronically irritated eyes or sinuses are a minor price to pay for modern life, and multiple chemical sensitivity isn’t a real disease, remember?
posted by Bill at
9:51 AM
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