Deadly Deceit
CHAPTER 10
Suffer The Little Children
Gail Bynum, Ph.D
Since the flawed Ohio study in 1985, there has never
been another EPA documented epidemiological study on the
health effects of residents exposed to sewage sludge.
However, there have been many instances of damage to human
health which EPA refused to even acknowledge or to conduct an
epidemiological study as was the case with the residents of
Almaden, Islip, South Bronx, Franklin, Lynden, etc.
If the EPA/WEF Biosolids 2000 campaign for farmer and
public acceptance of the land application of sewage sludge by
the year 2000 suceeds, there will be many many more instances
of people being harmed from exposure to land application of
sewage sludge or the composting and pelletizing of sewage
sludge all over the United States and the world. You or your
family could be one of those whose health is affected if you
had the misfortune to be exposed to the pollutants in sewage
sludge. Although we are all potential victims of the land
application of sewage sludge, it is the children who will
suffer the most from exposure to the pollutants in it as
happened in the South Bronx.
On October 3, 1997, EPA published in the Federal
Register, Vol. 62, No. 192 its "Review and Evaluation of
EPA Standards Regarding Children's Health Protection from
Environmental Risks" in which it stated its "commitment to
protect children from environmental health risks". In the
report the EPA explained why children are more vulnerable
than adults to the effects from exposure to pollutants.
According to the report:
Children's exposures to lead, pesticides, PCBs, and
toxic air pollutants are widespread. Compared to adults,
children are particularly vulnerable and at increased
risk from many environmental threats in four ways: (1)
Children's organ systems are still developing--including
rapid changes in growth and development, immature body
organs and tissues, and weaker immune systems--which
makes them more susceptible to environmental hazards;
(2) pound-for-pound, children breathe more air, drink
more water and eat more food than adults; 3) children's
exposures to toxins are farther enhanced by their normal
hand-to-mouth activity; and (4) children have more
future years of life than adults and are more
susceptible to chronic, multi-stage diseases such as
cancer or neurodegenerative disease that may be
triggered by early exposures. Environmental health
hazards that threaten children range from air pollution
that triggers asthma attacks and lead-based paint in
older housing, to treatment resistant microbes in
drinking water and persistent industrial chemicals that
may cause cancer to induce reproductive or developmental
changes.
The purpose of the review and evaluation was to fulfill
the mandate in President Clinton's Executive order 13045,
Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and
Safety Risks, which directed each federal agency "to set as
high priority the identification and assessment of
environmental health risks and safety risks that may
disproportionately affect children". The agency also has to
"ensure that its policies, programs, activities, and
standards address disproportionate risks to children that
result from environmental health risks or safety risks." (p.
51854)
To fulfill this requirement, EPA will select five
existing health and environmental protection standards for
review and reevaluation to determine if they sufficiently
protect children's health. It does not intend to "review
recently promulgated standards as part of this effort." The
Part 503 Sludge Rule is not one of the five.
Although EPA claims it is committed to ensure that
children receive the protection they need and deserve, and
help fulfill our nation's obligation--to protect future
generations, it is openly promoting the practice of land
disposal of sewage sludge that has already harmed some
children and will ensure that more children will suffer
adverse health effects from their exposure to the dangerous
constituents (pathogens, toxic heavy metals, and organic
chemicals) in the sludge.
According to Ms. X, the teacher from the South Bronx,
they were anything but protective of the children there. She
related to me the unconsciousnable behavior of the EPA who
was sent to investigate the situation there. She said that
it was obvious from the beginning that EPA wasn't there out
of genuine concern for the health of the children, but to
point the finger of blame away from the pelletizing plant,
who just happened to be one of the stakeholders in EPA/WEF
biosolids promotion plan.
Using the "blame the victim tactic" they said the cause
of all the adverse health effects the children were suffering
was from rat feces and cockroach feces found in their own
homes. Ms. X said what they did next was despicable. They had
devised a questionnaire that the children were given at
school to take home for their parents to fill out. In this
questionnaire the parents were asked if there dwellings were
rat-infested and cockroach-infested. She said this is a poor
section--there probably isn't a dwelling in the whole area
that isn't rat-infested or cochroach-infested.
To entice the children to make sure their parents would
fill out the questionnaire, with the rat and cockroach
infestation questions, that would substantiate their findings
that the cause was rat feces and cockroach feces, they were
to receive a free t-shirt. Whatsmore any teacher who had a
100 percent return rate received $100. This agency in their
role as a promoter of biosolids (sludge) would go to any
lengths--even bribing little children--to protect one of
their polluting partners.
There is one thing wrong with EPA's findings. They have
ignored the faculty who also exhibit some of the same
symptoms as the children. According to the New York Post
article of February 13, 1996, the Jewish teachers in the
school, who live in the suburbs, are suffering from asthma
and respiratory problems too. Evidently EPA purposefully
ignored the report of the tests run at PS 48 in the South
Bronx prepared for the American Journal syndicated TV show
aired on February 28, 1996 which documented air pollution in
the school. The preliminary screening report on the indoor
air quality of the school was prepared by Environmental
Medicine and Engineering of Phoenix, Arizona. When EME
examined the elements in the dust samples there, they found
the particulate (average inside air in particles per cubic
foot of air) was very high:
Particulate size 0.5 micron level was 187,880. The
recommended level was 30,000--6.26 times higher than
recommended level!
Particulate size 5.0 micron level was 8,366. The
recommended level was 1200--6.9 times higher than
recommended level!
Eleven heavy metals in the dust samples exceeded the
recommended values. Lead (Pb) was 30.5 times higher than
recommended, Cadmium (Cd) was 24 times higher, Nickel (Ni)
was 9.2 times higher, Cobalt (Co) was 1.7 times higher, Zinc
(Zn) was 1150 times higher, Arsenic (Ar) was 2.5 times
higher, Iron (FE) was 4.1 times higher, Selenium was 4.3
times higher, Beryllium (Br) was 4.6 times higher, Barium
(Ba) was 43.3 times higher, and Copper (Cu) was 8.8 times
higher.
When the symptoms that these various metals are capable of
causing, which were referenced in Heavy Metals and Potential
Health Effects from U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of June
1990, were compared with the actual symptoms exhibited by the
children at PS 48 there was a definite correlation between
the two.
Respiratory symptoms
Cadmium causes pulmonary edema {an abnormal accumulation of
fluid in the lungs, resulting in swelling} and dyspnea
{shortness of breath}.
Barium causes upper respiratory irritation.
Cobalt decreases pulmonary function.
Beryllium affects the respiratory system.
Titanium Dust causes a slight lung fibrosis.
Nosebleeds
Arsenic causes ulceration of nasal septum.
Copper causes irritation of the nasal mucus membrane.
Selenium and Zinc cause irritation of the nose.
Burning Eyes
Selenium causes irritation of the eyes as does Vanadium dust
and Conjunctivitis (inflammation of the membrane of the
eyelids}
Coughing
Cobalt causes coughing as does Zinc. Zinc also cause copius
sputum.
Sore Throats
Selenium and Zinc both cause irritation of the throat.
Weakness
Lead and Beryllium cause weakness and fatigue.
The report states that "EPA identified five agents in
contaminated dust that are carcinogenic when inhaled
(Arsenic, Beryllium, Cadmium, Chromium, and Nickel (FR 54-
Page 5777)."
It is the children who have suffered, are suffering, and
will continue to suffer the most from the actions or
inactions of this agency. The EPA review and evaluation
report, also described the environmental health hazards faced
by children, particularly from organic chemicals. According
to the EPA report:
However, children today face hazards in the environment
that were neither known nor suspected only a few decades
ago. At least 75,000 new synthetic chemical compounds
have been developed and introduced into commerce, fewer
than half of these compounds have been tested for their
potential toxicity to humans, and fewer still have been
assessed for their specific toxicity to children. (FR
Vol. 62, No. 192, October 3, 1997, p. 51854)
Knowing the hazard children face from these organic
chemicals, why has the EPA deleted them from any regulation
in Part 503 sludge rule? Why has the EPA narrowed their list
of organic chemicals for consideration in Round Two of the
Part 503 sludge rule to only PCBs, dioxins, and furans when
there are other organic chemicals that could also be causing
harm?
Apparently EPA believes that if it does not have the
data to prove a chemical will kill you, it can safely
expose you and the children to the chemicals. In the Federal
Register/Vol. 58, No, 32/ Friday, February 19, 1993/Rules
and Regulations, p. 9384, EPA says:
There are other pollutants that may have not been
recommended for study because EPA lacked sufficient data
regarding the risk they presented...However, it must be
recognized that the decision to regulate some pollutants
and not others was in part based on the availability of
information on the pollutants...the decision not to
regulate does not necessarily mean that the unregulated
pollutants may not threaten public health and the
environment."
One of the criticisms of the Cornell scientists was the
EPA's rationale for not developing standards for some
pollutants because of lack of data to complete a risk
assessment. They say "Lack of adequate data is a serious
limitation to the usefulness of risk assessment, but
ignorance is not a solution to uncertainty." (p. 23)
According to them "The risks posed by some of these suggest a
need for further study and regulation. Currently, EPA has
eliminated them from consideration in Round 2 of regulation
development and proposes no further research." (p. 23)
In The Gazette, Montreal, Tuesday, June 30, 1998 was a
picture of 5 pregnant Greenpeace members leading a
demonstration denouncing the persistent organic pollutants
(POPs) that have been found in the fetus. The picture was
accompanied by an article by Basem Boshra entitled
"Protesters Decry Poison For Fetus." Jack Weinberg, team
leader for Greenpeace International, spoke out against the
dangers to the fetus through exposure in the womb to organic
chemicals at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
conference in Montreal, Canada, which was set up to negotiate
a legally binding treaty by the year 2000 to control
production of 12 persistent organic chemicals (POPs) which
include pesticides like chlordane and DDT and industrial
chemicals like PCBs and dioxin. Representatives of more than
100 governments and 60 non-governmental organizations,
scientists and representatives of chemical industries
attended the conference.
One of the most deadly pollutants, Dioxin, was one of
those not regulated by the EPA. In a letter regarding the
continued dioxin pollution of our country, with its
astonishing figures on childhood cancers, Lois Gibbs of CCHW/
Center for Health, Environment and Justice, calls for
President Clinton and Vice-President Gore to press EPA to
release the finished dioxin reassessment to the public,
calling 'childhood cancer' the symptom of the larger
poisoning of the American people. The cancer figures she
quoted in the letter were released by the National Cancer
Institute and the Center for Disease Control. They showed
increased rates in certain cancers between 1975 and 1995 in
children from 0-4 years and in children 15-19 years.
In children from age 0-4 years:
10% increase in leukemia
32% increase in kidney, and renal pelvis cancer
37% increase in soft tissue cancers
53% increase in brain and nervous system cancers
In Children between ages 15-19
29% increase in thryoid
128% increase in Non-Hodgkins lymphoma
78% increase in ovarian cancer
65% increase in testis cancer
39% increase in bone and joint cancers
The Environmental Research Foundation in their
newsletter, Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly, of October
20, 1994 featured a report by the National Cancer Advisory
Board. The NCAB in their report on cancer had done a
turnabout from their previous position on environmental
causes of cancer, namely from exposure to chemicals. Before
1994, the official position of the NCAB was that as chemicals
were the cause of only a small percentage of cancers, it
wasn't worth the time or money to investigate them. The NCAB
stated in the report that "The elimination or reduction of
exposure to carcinogenic agents is a priority in the
prevention of cancer. We are just beginning to understand
the full range of health effects resulting from the exposure
to occupational and environmental agents and factors." (p.
B-6)
In an article "Environment and Cancer: Who Are
Susceptible?" in Science in November 7, 1997, Frederica P.
Perera from Division of Environmental Health Sciences,
Columbia University School of Public Health states that
environmental factors play a role in most human cancers.
According to Perera, only about 5% of all cancer is caused by
genetic factors the rest are caused "by external
`environmental' factors that act in conjunction with both
genetic and acquired susceptibility." (p. 1068)
She says that "experimental and epidemiologic data indicate
that, because of differential exposure or physiological
immaturity, infants and children have greater risks than
adults from a number of environmental toxicants." She adds:
The underlying mechanisms may include increased
absorption and retention of toxicants, reduced
detoxification and repair, the higher rate of cell
proliferation during the early stages of development,
and the fact that cancers initiated in the womb and in
the early years have the opportunity to develop over
many decades. (p. 1071)
Immune System Impairment
According to Perera, (1997) one of the factors that
increases susceptibility to environmental carcinogens is
impairment of the immune system. Our bodies major defense
against disease is a healthy immune system. The immune
system is a complex set of specialized cells (T Cells, B
cells, killer T cells, and B and T memory cells) that defend
the body against attack by "foreign invaders" like bacteria,
viruses and chemicals.
The immune system springs into action as soon as helper
T cells patrolling the bloodstream signal the presence of an
invading bacteria, or virus or chemical substance.
Once the T cells spot an invader a, "foreign body", they
alert other cells-the B cells and killer T cells. While the B
cells are producing antibodies, the killer T cells are
disrupting the takeover of the cell by the invader by
sacrificing the cells already invaded in order to destroy it.
Once the invader is destroyed, armies of the T and B cells,
the memory cells, stay behind ready to more quickly spot the
same invader if it should try to again invade the body.
"The importance of the T-helper cells has been vividly
demonstrated recently by the arrival of the AIDs virus, which
knocks out these key cells, thereby making the body incapable
of mounting a coordinated immune response," say Theo Colborn,
Diane Dumanoski and John Meyers, authors of Our Stolen
Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence and
Survival? (1996) The devastation of the T-helper cells
allows all kinds of invaders from cancers to fungus to run
amok, which is why AIDS patients typically battle one disease
after another," they say. (pp. 62-3)
J. Raloff cited a report by the World Resource Institute
(WRI) in an article entitled "Pesticides May Challenge Human
Immunity" in Science News, Vol. 149 on May 9, 1996 which
showed that many pesticides appear capable of compromising
the immune system. The WRI researchers, Robert Repetto and
Sanjay Baliga, came to this conclusion," she says, "after
they surveyed the scientific literature on the immunotoxicity
of widely used pesticides. Raloff, quotes Alfred Munson of
the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond who noted that
"Other reports have linked pesticides to immune system
problems, but `this certainly is the most comprehensive one'.
(p. 149)
In addition to pesticides, other chemicals that suppress
the immune system are the chlorohydrocarbons, especially the
dioxin TCDD. The 1994 draft of the EPA reassessment of dioxin
study shows that dioxin, especially TCDD, attacks the immune
system by reducing the number of T cells and B cells that
fight off invaders. According to the document, immune
suppression begins in the womb. The draft states that
"Furthermore, because TCDD alters the normal differentiation
of immune system cells, the human embryo may be very
susceptible to long-term impairment of immune function from
utero effects of TCDD on developing immune tissue." (p. 9)
Because of their prenatal exposure, which can weaken the
immune system, children may be less able to fight off disease
than their parents whose exposure to chemicals was limited to
their adulthood. While a healthy immune system is able to
ward off cancers and other infectious diseases, a damaged
immune system falls prey to them.
Endocrine-Disruptors
Chemicals not only cause havoc by suppressing the immune
system making our bodies less resistant to disease but they
also disrupt the endocrine system by interfering with the
body's hormonal system. In a special Science News Anniversary
Supplement in 1997, Janet Raloff wrote in her article, "A New
World of Pollutant Effects, that a "newly recognized
environmental threat to health and reproduction has
mushroomed into public prominence. Bearing the clumsy moniker
'endocrine disrupters' these pollutants--including PCBs, DDT-
breakdown products, dioxin, and certain plasticizers--can
mimic or block the action of natural hormones" (p. S 19).
When Dr. Theo Colburn, senior scientist at the World
Wildlife Fund, working on a project to assess the
environmental health of the Great Lakes, reviewed over 2000
scientific papers and five hundred government documents, she
made the startling discovery that all the birth defects,
sexual abnormalities and reproductive failure in wildlife
that had been occurring in different parts of the world could
be traced to one source--the synthetic chemicals that
mimicked hormones. In 1996, Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, an
environmental journalist, and John Peterson Myers, an
environmental scientist, wrote Our Stolen Future, in which
they presented compelling scientific evidence linking
synthetic chemical mimicking hormones to sexual
abnormalities, behavioral abnormalities, reproductive failure
and loss of young in wildlife and laboratory animals.
Hormones are chemical messengers that are produced and
released into the blood stream by the endocrine glands (e.g.,
adrenal glands, ovaries, pancreas, parathyroid, pituitary,
testicles, thymus and thyroid). For every hormone there is a
receptor to receive the message. Hormones bind to their
receptors and once they are joined, they move into the
nucleus of the cell to activate genes there to produce a
biological response.
Hormones are important in the growth and development of
living things. "Genes may be the keyboard, but hormones
present during development compose the tune", Colborn et al
say. (p. 40). They cite the work of Dr. Frederick vom Saal,
a biologist from the University of Missouri to demonstrate
that it takes only a very small amount of hormones to "change
the tune".
In his experiments with mice, vom Saal found that
exposure to even minuscule amounts of the male hormone,
testosterone, resulted in behavioral changes in female mice.
Female mice, who in their prenatal life were wedged between
male mice and exposed to testosterone secreted by the males'
testicles a week before birth, exhibited masculine
behavior--rattling their tails, chasing and biting. These
aggressive female mice differed from their passive sisters in
several ways. They matured later and came into heat less
often producing less offspring and were viewed as less
attractive by male mice.
To illustrate how infinitesimally small amounts of
hormones it takes, Colborn et al compared a parts per
trillion of the potent female estrogen hormone, estradiol, to
a "drop of gin in a train of tank cars full of tonic. One
drop in 660 tank cars would be one part in a trillion; such a
train would be six miles long." (p. 40)
While some hormones guide the sexual development of the
fetus, others orchestrate the growth of other systems in the
fetus such as the immune system and nervous system. "They
also 'permanently 'organize' or program cells, organs, the
brain, and behavior before birth, in many ways setting the
individual's course for an entire lifetime," Colborn et al
say. (pp. 39-40) These authors stress that normal
development of all living things "depends on getting the
right hormone message in the right amount to the right place
at the right time." (p. 46) "As this elaborate chemical
ballet rushes forward at a dizzying pace, everything hinges
on timing and proper cues. If something disrupts the cues
during a critical period of development, it can have serious
lifelong consequences for the offspring", they say. (p. 46)
These authors warn of the dire consequences that can
result if there is any interference with the hormonal message
as was the case with diethylstilbestrol (DES). DES, a
synthetic chemical that acted in the body like natural
estrogen, was widely prescribed in the 1940s and 1950s to
pregnant women to prevent miscarriages and premature birth.
Women who had untroubled pregnancies were even given it "as
if it were a vitamin that could improve on nature." (p. 48)
The market for DES eventually expanded to include other
uses such as suppression of milk production following
childbirth, alleviation of menopausal symptoms (hot flashes),
treatment of prostrate cancer, and gonorrhea in children, and
a "morning after" contraceptive." It was used by farmers as
an "additive to animal feed or in neck or ear implants
because it speeded the fattening of chickens, cows, and other
livestock." (p. 48)
The drug had been given to women for over thirty years
before any harmful effects were discovered. The adverse
effects were not showing up in the women who took the pill
but in their offspring. Daughters born to women who took DES
suffered from reproductive tract deformities and clear-cell
vaginal cancer and cervical cancer.
The link between the drug and the medical problems
suffered by the daughters came to light when a cluster of
cancer cases showed up at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Young women between the ages of 15 and 22 were being
diagnosed with clear-cell cancer of the vagina, an extremely
rare cancer, that usually never showed up in younger women.
In 1971, Dr. Howard Ulfelder, a professor of gynecology
at Harvard Medical School, and David Poskanzer, a medical
epidemiologist, made the connection between the DES taken by
their mothers and the development of cancer by the daughters.
In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine,
they reported that seven of the eight young women with clear-
cell cancer of the vagina had mothers who took DES the first
three months of pregnancy.
"This tragic and unintended experiment", Colburn et al
say, "demonstrated that chemicals could cross the placenta,
disrupt the development of the baby, and have serious effects
that might not be evident until decades later." (p. 66)
They add:
Again and again, the DES experience brought home the
common fate of mice and men. Rodent and humans exposed
to DES in the womb suffer identical damage to the
genitals and the reproductive tract, a parallel that
also holds true not just for mammals but for many other
animal types as well...regardless of whether the
offspring is a human or a deer mouse, a whale or a bat,
hormones regulate its development in fundamentally the
same way. (p. 66)
Like DES, certain synthetic chemicals mimic estrogen,
the female hormone. Others mimic androgen, the male hormone
and still others interfere with other systems (e.g., immune
or thyroid). Not all of these chemicals are hormone mimickers
which bind to the receptor like natural hormones and produce
a response. Some are hormone blockers which, although they
bind to the receptors, do not produce a response; they block
the chemical message instead. When mother rats were exposed
to the hormone blocker, Vinclozolin, a fungicide in wide use,
the result was feminized male rats. The fungicide blocks the
receptor and prevents testosterone signals necessary for male
sexual development from getting through. Although they are
male, (XY chromosome, testicles in the abdomen instead of
ovaries), these feminized rats look like females, act and
think like females and have external female genitals. When
there is any interference with the male hormone,
testosterone, sexual abnormalities occur such as small
penises and undescended testicles.
The neurological effects exhibited by Linda Zander's
grand-children are similar to the effects reported in studies
of laboratory animals and in epidemiological studies of
children exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Hyperactivity has shown up in laboratory animals (mice, rats
and monkeys) that were exposed to PCBs
Colborn et al (1996) cite several studies that have
investigated the neurological effects on children who were
exposed in the womb through their mother to contaminants.
One of these was a longterm study of children born to mothers
in Taiwan who in 1979 had consumed cooking oil which was
accidentally contaminated with high levels of PCBs and
furans. Of the 128 children studied, some were in the womb
during the time their mothers actually consumed the
contaminated oil, and others were conceived and born after
the period of contamination--their exposure came from
residual contamination within their mothers.
When a series of examinations and tests were conducted
on these children between 1985 and 1992 by researchers headed
by Yue-Liang L. Guo of Taiwan's Department of Occupational
and Environmental Health, they found that the children were
suffering from an array of problems, both physical and
neurological. When some of these children approached puberty,
researchers noted abnormal sexual development in the males--
the boys have significantly shorter penises than unexposed
boys of the same age. The researchers also found that these
Taiwanese children show permanent impairment in both their
motor and mental abilities. Behavioral problems including
higher than normal levels of activity, were also noted. Tests
have repeatedly shown signs of retarded development. These
children scored five points lower on intelligent tests than
similar unexposed children. Guo and his colleagues believe
the reason that these children have scored lower on IQ tests
is because they are suffering from attention deficits. They
are unable to think as fast as the unexposed children.
Two studies were conducted in the United States to
attempt to discover whether children suffer neurological
damage after exposure through their mothers to the normal
range of contamination found in the environment. In both
studies, there were signs of impaired neurological
development.
When Sandra and Joseph Jacobson (Wayne State University)
examined the children of mothers, who had eaten contaminated
Great Lakes fish ((PCBs and numerous other chemical
contaminants) six years before they became pregnant, they
found signs of impaired cognitive functioning. PCBs, which
are persistent, had accumulated in the body fat of the
mothers and had been passed on to the babies through the
placenta and through breast milk. Children of mothers who had
not eaten any fish were used as a comparison group. At their
birth, the children of fish-eating mothers were different
from the children of nonfish-eating mothers. The higher the
rate of fish consumed by the mother, the lower the birth
weight and the smaller the head circumference of the baby.
When a series of tests were done at birth and at intervals
afterward, there was evidence of neurological impairment.
Of the more than 300 children tested in their study,
those with fisheating mothers, who had eaten greater
quantities of fish, showed, as newborns, weak reflexes and
more jerky, unbalanced movements. When they tested them later
at seven months of age, the researchers found signs of
impaired cognitive function. Tests of these children again at
four years of age revealed that the children of mothers with
the highest PCB levels had lower scores in both verbal and
memory tests than other children.
In the second study, which was done in North Carolina,
neurological tests were done on 866 infants. Their
performance on the tests were compared with the levels of
PCBs which were detected in their mother's breast milk. This
was an indication of exposure in the womb as well as after
their birth. The infants, who were exposed to higher levels
of PCBs through their mothers, showed weaker reflexes. When
follow-up studies were done on them at six and twelve months
of age, they still performed poorly on tests of gross and
fine motor coordination.
A team of psychologists and a physician at the State
University of New York at Oswego are extending the Jacobson's
research on the difference between children of fisheating
mothers and nonfish-eating mothers. They are comparing the
children of mothers who ate Lake Ontario fish with children
of mothers who didn't. In addition to the human study, a
study will be done by Helen Daly on rats who are being fed
fish from Lake Ontario.
"If the human and rat studies find the same changes in
behavior, it will indicate that the results of rat studies
can be generalized to humans, Colborn et al say." (p. 191)
They report that the initial results of the May 1995 study
show "behavioral and neurological differences in the children
of women who had eaten Lake Ontario fish." They say:
In this new study, babies whose mothers had eaten
surprisingly modest amounts of Lake Ontario fish--the
equivalent of forty pounds or more of salmon over a
lifetime, not just during pregnancy--showed a larger
number of abnormal reflexes, expressing greater
immaturity in a lower autonomic response score and
reacted negatively to repeated disturbances... The
babies of women who had eaten no Lake Ontario fish grew
accustomed, or habituated to the disturbances quickly.
Daly's studies with rats fed Lake Ontario salmon showed
changed behavior similar to that observed in human studies.
While the Jacobsons' study found correlations between
neurological symptoms exhibited by the children and their
exposure to PCBs, Daly thinks that more chemicals are
probably involved in the changes that are being seen by the
Oswego researchers. "Estimates for the number of toxic
chemicals released in the Great Lakes basin range as high as
twenty-eight hundred," Colborn et al report. "How many of
them find their way into the salmon and the people who eat
them is anybody's guess"...it would not be surprising if a
number of chemicals are acting in an additive or synergistic
fashion," they say. (p. 194)
Colborn et al have found that "PCBs and dioxin affect
the thyroid system in diverse, complex, and as yet
incompletely understood ways." (p. 187) They cite the work of
Susan Porterfield, an endocrinologist at the Medical College
of Georgia, who presented evidence that showed "skewed
hormone levels in the womb can cause permanent damage--in
this case, learning disabilities, attention problems, and
hyperactivity". These findings were reported in a June 1994
article in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
In this article, Colburn et al say, Porterfield "outlined her
theory that "very low levels" of PCBs and dioxin--levels well
below those generally recognized as toxic--can alter thyroid
function in the mother and the unborn baby and thereby impair
neurological development." (p. 188)
"Based on the concentrations in breast milk fat of
PCBs" Colburn et al say,"some have estimated that at least
five percent of babies in the United States are exposed to
sufficient levels of contaminants to cause neurological
impairments." Although most of the data on neurological
effects from hormone disruption have concerned PCBs, because
they have been studied more extensively, they are not the
only synthetic chemicals that have targeted the thyroid
system . Colborn et al., point out that "Save for a few
compounds such as PCBs, we know virtually nothing about the
hazards posed to thinking and behavior by the thousands of
synthetic chemicals in commerce." (p. 186) They say what is
known about the few chemicals like PCBs that have been
studied has "alarming implications." According to them:
Both animal experiments and human studies report
behavioral disorders and learning disabilities similar
to those reported with increasing frequency among school
children across the nation. In the United States, an
estimated five to ten percent of school-age children
suffer from a suit of symptoms related to hyperactivity
and attention deficit that make it difficult for them to
pay attention and learn. Countless others experience
learning problems ranging from difficulty with memory to
impaired fine motor skills that make it harder to hold a
pen and learn how to write. (p. 186)
"With the possibility for multiple assaults on the
thyroid system, the hazards to the developing brain may be
considerable," they warn. (p. 188)
The thyroid system is just one of the systems that
synthetic chemicals affect. The immune system and the
reproductive system are also targets. Synthetic chemicals
mimicking sexual hormones can wreak havoc causing sexual
abnormalities in the developing fetus that may not show up
for years. Until puberty, feminized males, who had external
female genitals, and breasts and who had grown up as girls,
never knew they were males. When they were examined by
doctors to determine why they hadn't menstruated, they
discovered that they had testicles in their abdomen instead
of ovaries. These feminized males are extreme cases of
hormone disruption. Small penises and undescended testicles
are found in less severe cases of disruption. Although a Y-
carrying sperm is first to fertilize the egg, this does not
guarantee a boy. If boys are to become boys, male hormones
have to guide the development of the male sexual organs.
In the first six weeks and more the fetus develops a
pair of unisex gonads and two duct systems, the Wolffian--the
male option and the Mullerian--the female option. About the
seventh week the Y chromosome directs the unisex glands to
develop into testicles. These testicles emanate hormone cues
which if disrupted can have dire consequences in the
development of the male. In order to develop the male body,
hormones have to get rid of the Mullerian ducts--the female
option--and ensure that the Wolffian ducts--the male
option--do not automatically disappear as they are programed
to do by the fourteenth week. Without any hormone
instructions, they will wither and disappear.
Although girls sexual development is not as dependent on
hormone messages as boys, the hormone estrogen plays a part
in the proper development and function of the ovaries.
If the liver, which plays a key role in maintaining hormone
balance by breaking down estrogen and other steroid hormones
to allow for their excretion, is impaired, it could lead to
high estrogen levels which could seriously disrupt sexual
development. Synthetic chemicals can disrupt hormones by
impeding normal liver processes. Mice exposed over a long
period of time to low levels of DDT have higher incidences of
liver tumors.
In July of 1991, an international group of scientists,
which included experts in the fields of anthropology,
ecology, comparative endocrinology, histopathology,
immunology, mammalogy, medicine, law, psychiatry,
psychoneuroendocrinology, reproductive physiology,
toxicology, wildlife management, tumor biology, and zoology,
met at Wingspread in Racine, Wisconsin to discuss the
prevalence and effect of endocrine disrupting chemicals in
the environment. In their concensus statement they said we
are certain of the following:
A large number of man-made chemicals that have been
released into the environment as well as a few natural
ones, have the potential to disrupt the endocrine system
of animals, including humans. Among these are the
persistent, bioaccumulative, organohalogen compounds
that include some pesticides (fungicides, herbicides,
and insecticides) and industrial chemicals, other
synthetic products, and some metals.
Many wildlife populations are already affected by these
compounds. The impacts include thyroid dysfunction in
birds and fish, decreased fertility in birds, fish,
shellfish, and mammals; decreased hatching success in
birds, fish, and turtles; metabolic abnormalities in
mammals, defeminization and masculinization of female
fish and birds, and compromised immune systems in birds
and mammals.
The pattern of effects vary among species and among
compounds. Four general points can nonetheless be made:
(1) the chemicals of concern may have entirely different
effects on the embryo, fetus, or perinatal organism than
on the adult; (2) the effects are most often manifested
in offspring, not in the exposed parent; (3) the timing
of exposure in the developing organism is crucial in
determining its character and future potential; and (4)
although critical exposure occurs during embryonic
development, obvious manifestations may not occur until
maturity.
Laboratory studies corroborate the abnormal sexual
development observed in the field and provide biological
mechanisms to explain the observations in wildlife.
Humans have been affected by compounds of this nature,
too. The effect of DES (diethylstilbestrol), a synthetic
therapeutic agent, like many of the compounds mentioned
above, are estrogenic. Daughters born to mothers who
took DES now suffer increased rates of vaginal clear
cell adenocarcinoma, various genital tract
abnormalities, abnormal pregnancies, and some changes in
the immune responses. Both sons and daughters exposed in
utero experience congenital anomalies of their
reproductive system and reduced fertility. The effects
seen in utero DES-exposed humans parallel those found in
contaminated wildlife and laboratory animals, suggesting
that humans may be at risk to the same environmental
hazards as wildlife.
In a footnote they listed the following chemicals
known to disrupt the endocrine system:
DDT and its degradation products, DEHP (di(2-
ethylhexyl)phthalte), dicofol, HCB (hexachlorobenzene),
kelthane, kepone, lindane and other
hexacholrocyclohexane congeners, methoxychlor,
octachlorostyrene, synthetic pyrethroids, triazine
herbicides, EBDC fungicides, certain PCB congeners,
2,3,7,8-TCDD and other dioxins, 2,3,7,8-TCDF and other
furans, cadmium, lead, mercury, tributyltin and other
organo-tin compounds, alkyl phenols, nondegradable
detergents and antioxidants present in modified
polystyrene and PVCs, styrene dimers and trimers, soy
products, and laboratory animal and pet food products
(Cited in Our Stolen Future, 1996, pp. 252-43)
From this formable list of endocrine-disrupting
chemicals only cadmium, lead and mercury were regulated in
the Part 503 sludge rule for land application of sewage
sludge. In spite of the danger to developing fetuses and
children from organic endocrine disrupting chemicals like
dioxin, PCBs, some pesticides, fungicides, phenols, etc.,
they were not even regulated in Part 503 sludge rule for land
application of sewage sludge!
The threat of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (on the
reproductive systems, the immune system, the neurological
system, and the liver) has led the National Science and
Technology Council, which was established by President
Clinton in 1993 to assure that science and technology were
part of National Policy, to make it one of the five priority
issues. President Clinton has allocated $8 million dollars
of new money to fund research on the endocrine disruptors.
One of EPA's assumptions is that most organic chemicals
exist in such low concentrations that they are not considered
to pose a risk to human health and the environment. However,
EPA's own research shows that the most toxic organic
chemicals, the dioxins, particularly the deadly dioxin
2,3,7,8-TCDD, even at very low concentrations can cause
adverse health effects. According to Michael A. Callaghan,
Director of the Exposure Assessment Group in the Office of
Environmental Health Assessment, Research and Development in
EPA's Office of Research and Development, in an article
entitled "Dioxin Pathways: Judging Risk to People" in EPA
Journal, May/June of 1989, "Dioxins, especially, 2,3,7,8-
TCDD, are treated as very potent toxicants that may cause
health effects at quite low levels of exposure." (p. 31)
EPA claims that it has set a standard below which the
risk is so small that from a regulatory point of view there
would be no need to worry about any adverse effects from
exposure to the metals or chemicals--a negligible risk is
usually 1 in a million. The basis for the classical dose-
response curve used today by many regulatory agencies goes
back to the 16th century principle of Paracelsus, a Swiss
physician, in which the "biological response to a foreign
substance increases as the dose becomes greater", say Colborn
et al (p. 205) In other words, things that are not poisonous
in small quantities can be lethal in large doses. According
to them, this dose-response curve does not work with hormone
systems. They explain why by using the working of the
estrogen hormone as an example. They say:
Thus a natural hormone or a chemical imposter can
produce effects at low levels because very few receptors
are needed to trigger a response. In the case of
estrogen, the hormone needs to bind to only one percent
of the receptors contained in a cell to stimulate cell
proliferation. But as the level of hormones or hormone
mimics rises higher and higher, the system eventually
responds by shutting down and showing little or no
response as if to an overload. (p. 206)
No one really knows what safe levels are for many of
these pollutants, let alone what risks may be posed by
multiple compounds acting synergistically. Dioxins are of
special concern because of their pervasiveness, toxicity and
persistence. They are suspected of causing cancer, immune
system impairment, fertility problems, behavioral and
learning disorders, and a range of other health problems.
Like metals they build up in the body's fatty tissue over the
course of a lifetime, and according to EPA documents we carry
a near dangerous amount already in our bodies.
Scientists keep finding significant, often permanent
effects at surprisingly low doses. The danger we face is
not simply death and disease. By disrupting hormones and
development, these synthetic chemicals may be changing
who we become. They may be altering our destinies
Colborn et al warn. (p. 197)
Colburn et al., puts the problem in perspective when
they state, "In truth, no one yet knows how much it takes of
these synthetic hormone-disrupting chemicals to pose a hazard
to humans." They say that "All evidence suggests that it may
take very little if the exposure occurs before birth. In the
case of dioxin at least, the recent studies have shown that
human exposure is sufficient to be of concern." (p. 140
They add:
As Fred vom Saal has discovered, vanishingly small
amounts of free estrogen are capable of altering the
course of development in the womb--as little as one-
tenth of a part per trillion. Given this exquisite
sensitivity, even small amounts of a weak estrogen
mimic--a chemical that is one thousand times less potent
than the estradiol made by the body itself--may
nevertheless spell trouble. (p. 141)
Even more worrisome, scientists are now finding evidence
that hormone-disrupting chemicals can act together and that
small, seemingly insignificant quantities of individual
chemicals can have a major cumulative effect. Ana Soto and
Carlos Sonnenshein have now demonstrated this with breast
cancer cells in cultures. When they exposed the estrogen-
sensitive breast cells individually to small quantities of
ten chemicals known to be estrogen mimics, they found no
significant growth in cells. But the cells showed pronounced
proliferation when these same small quantities of the same
ten chemicals were given together.
In an interview in EPA Journal, (May 1984), Erich
Bretthauer, Director of ORD's Office of Environment Processes
and Effects Research, who coordinates the Office's dioxin
research, said "one form in particular, 2,3,7,8,-
tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) has been shown to
be extremely toxic in animals at very low level and to
persist in the environment. (p. 26)
In the Environmental Research Foundation's weekly
newsletter, Rachel's Hazardous Waste News, in March 21, 1990,
the supreme toxicity of dioxin is shown with a comparison to
a single aspirin tablet. The newsletter states:
One aspirin tablet weighs 5 grains (or 325 milligrams,
or 325 trillion femtograms), so to express one "safe"
lifetime dose of 2,3,7,8-TCDD, you would take a single
aspirin tablet and divide it into 32 million (actually
32,172,218) minuscule pieces. Then one of those tiny
pieces would represent one "safe" lifetime dose of 2,3,
7,8-TCDD.
When the authors of the newsletter compared the
reference dose (where there is suppose to be no adverse
effect) of dioxin which is 0.000,000,001 milligrams per
kilogram of body weight per day with the reference doses for
cadmium and arsenic which is 0.001 mg/kg/day, they found that
dioxin is considered by the EPA to be a million times more
toxic than cadmium and arsenic.
According to Toxics A to Z, for dioxins "quantitative
and widely accepted dose-response information is also
lacking." (p. 297) The guide states "But the minimum dose of
dioxin needed to cause cancer in animals varies by as much as
a factor of 5000 from one species to another, so drawing
conclusions from these studies about the sensitivity of
people is difficult." (p. 297)
When evaluating the organic chemicals for the proposed
Part 503 sludge rule (they were deleted in the final Part
503 sludge rule), EPA evaluated them one chemical at a time
using only one pathway of exposure. The evaluation did not
address multiple exposures from several pathways (e.g.,
(inhalation and ingestion). Nor did the evaluation address
how different organic chemicals interact. So if we accept
EPA's assumption (which we don't) that individually organic
chemicals occur in such low concentrations as not to cause
harm, what happens when these chemicals are mixed together?
Although interactions of chemicals were not addressed in the
Part 503 sludge rule, both Lee M. Thomas, former
Administrator of the EPA, and Dr. Bernard Goldstein,
Assistant Administrator for Research and Development at EPA,
in the 1980s were aware that this was a problem that should
be considered in any evaluation of a chemical. In an article
entitled "Solving Tough Environmental Problems in EPA Journal
(198 ) Thomas stated:
It goes without saying, however, that studying
pollutants individually, though necessary, is hardly
sufficient. We need to analyze entire metropolitan
regions over long periods to determine how pollutants
interact and how various strategies can minimize their
impact.
Dr. Goldstein, when interviewed for an article entitled
"Research at EPA: An Interview with Dr. Bernard Goldstein" in
EPA Journal, (May 1984) said:
We also have to start spending a lot more time and
effort in the area of interactions of pollutants. For
instance, we know that even though we do our research
for the most part with one chemical at a time, in fact
in the real world there are multiple pollutants all
occurring at the same time. Some are in air and some are
in water. (p. 3)
Lead
Neurological damage is not only caused by endocrine-
disrupting chemicals but by some toxic heavy metals, in
particular lead. The children in the South Bronx and the
Zander grand-children suffered damage from exposure to lead.
Children can be exposed to lead through inhalation and
ingestion. A large body of evidence shows that even tiny
doses of lead can have adverse health consequences for
infants and small children. Lead crosses the placenta and
makes the developing fetuses vulnerable to the myriad effects
from lead poisoning. The findings on lead toxicity compiled
by the EPA that were reported in the Federal Register/Vol.
56, No, 110/ Friday, June 7, 1991 showed "when lead is
absorbed by the body, it immediately enters the blood. The
concentration of lead in whole blood has been associated with
a spectrum of pathophysiological conditions." Among these
conditions are:
1) Interference with the production of red blood cells
2) Kidney damage, and impaired reproductive function
3) Impaired cognitive performance of children shown by
IQ tests
4) Delayed neurological and physical development of
children
5) Hyperactivity and decreased attention span of
children
6) Deficits in mental indices of babies with lead
contamination as low as 5-6 micrograms per deciliter
in the umbilical cord blood
7) Low birth weights and decreased gestational age which
interferes with early neurological development
8) Small increases in adult blood pressure has been
associated with as little as 5 micrograms of lead per
deciliter of blood
9) Early childhood growth reductions has been caused by
blood lead concentrations as low as 5 micrograms per
deciliter
According to Dr. Stan Tackett, a leading expert on lead
and its effects on health, particularly of children, one of
the greatest immediate dangers from the contaminant lead is
dust which can be both inhaled and ingested. He says:
One application of sewage sludge to a field places more
lead in the top layer of soil than did 50 years of
driving with leaded gasoline. During dry times, the
dust produced from the field has the same high lead
content as the top layer of soil. Blowing dust enters
homes and settles on floors where babies crawl and on
kitchen counter tops where food is prepared. In wet
times, mud tracked from the field into homes turns to
dust. If the dust is breathed into the lungs, all of
the lead dissolves in the moist lung sacs and is
absorbed into the blood stream. If the lead is ingested
into the stomach with food, water or from dirty fingers,
children absorb about 50 percent of the lead while
adults absorb about 10 percent.
In their research reported in an article in "Childhood
Lead Poisoning" in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nov.
3, 1983, Dr. Eva Charney and Dr. Barry Kessler, (physicians),
Mark Farfel, and David Jackson studied the effectiveness of
dust control factors as an aid in helping to reduce the blood
lead levels in children with Class II or Class III lead
poisoning, because lead-contaminated house dust was believed
to be a significant factor in childhood lead poisoning. They
selected children from a lead poisoning clinic that were
between 15 and 72 months of age with blood lead levels of 30-
49 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (0.30 to 0.49
parts per million) An experimental and control group were set
up. The only difference between the groups was that the
dust-control measures used on the experimental groups were
not done on the control group. When the two groups were
compared, the mean blood-lead level for the experimental
group had dropped in a year while the mean for the control
group showed no change. In fact, two children had increases
in blood lead level. Charney and her co-workers concluded
that although their study demonstrated that the dust-control
measures were effective in reducing lead levels, the need for
the measures should be eliminated by removing the lead from
children's environment. They ended their report with a quote
from researcher J.S.Lin-Fu who said:
The dispersion of lead in our environment is man-made. A
price must be paid for what we have done to our
environment in the past. The crucial question is: shall
we pay it in controlling our environment or shall we pay
in terms of the health of thousands of children in our
lifetime and millions in generations to come."
Urban children are exposed to lead in dust when the
EQ sludge fertilizer, which is in a dried form, is spread on
the lawn and garden and not incorporated into the soil.
According to the EPA, "homeowners fertilizing their lawns are
unlikely to incorporate the sewage sludge product into an
already established lawn. Instead, they would just spread it
on the surface where small children could be exposed." (FR
1993 p. 9296) In addition to inhaling the dust from the
fertilizer, children can also eat the sludged dirt containing
lead or drink lead-contaminated water.
How much sewage sludged-soil do children ingest?
According to Pathway 3 in Part 503, the sewage sludge
ingestion rate used was 0.2 grams (dry weight) per day for
five years. Recent work by E. Stanek and E. Calabrese
reported in the article "Daily Estimates of Soil Ingestion in
Children" in the Environmental Health Perspectives (1995)
suggests that EPA's standards may be based on numbers nine
times less protective than they should be. When they
reanalyzed their classic Amherst soil ingestion data, they
found "the analysis represents 'a striking divergence from
past soil ingestion estimates generated from the same data."
As they note, this new study constitutes "a striking
departure from the recommendations of EPA," and constitutes a
value nearly nine-fold higher than EPA guidelines. "Because soil ingestion
is often a driving factor in the risk
assessment process for contaminated sites," Stanak and
Calabrese conclude, "the implications of the current findings
are likely to be substantial in terms of both estimated human
health risks and in site-remediation costs."
According to Dr. Tackett, "Lead in our environment and
its effect on the minds and bodies of young children was and
continues to be one of the most serious health problems faced
by our society." He says:
The dangers to public health of even low concentrations
of lead, especially to young children, prompted some
divisions of the EPA to take decisive steps to reduce
lead contamination in the environment. Two major
industries, automobile and petroleum, had to completely
revamp their way of doing business. Today, cars use only
non-leaded gasoline and only non-leaded gasoline is sold
by most oil refiners. In June of 1991, EPA announced
very stringent new regulations regarding the allowable
levels of lead in drinking water. The old regulation
allowed 50 parts per billion. EPA declared 5 parts per
billion were too high, and set a goal of "0" lead in
drinking water.
With all the information the EPA has on the harmful
effects of lead, it is incredible that the limit for lead set
by the EPA in their risk assessment for Part 503, which was
200 ppm less than their model recommended, is the same level
that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) deems
dangerous. For the last 30 years, instead of asking how to
prevent lead poisoning, the medical community has taken a
risk assessment approach which first said in 1960 that it was
safe to put 60 micrograms of lead to each deciliter of blood.
In 1975, discovering that 60 micrograms of lead to each
deciliter of blood was not a safe level, the medical
community reduced the 60 mcg/dl of lead to 30 mcg/dl which by
1985 they discovered was also not a safe level further
reducing it to 25 mcg/dL as the safe level. That too turned
out to be wrong. In October 1991, the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention reduced its official
"intervention level" from 25 micrograms of lead per deciliter
of blood (ug/dl) to 10 ug/dl. It was the third such reduction
since 1970. They set this level because it was the level
where the current scientific evidence for damage was
irrefutable.
What happened to the children who had more than 10
mcg/dl of lead in their blood because of the mistakes of the
medical community over the years? The American Academy of
Pediatrics says such losses are permament and they translate
into reduced educational attainment, diminished job
prospects, and reduced earning power. Innocent children had
to pay a high price because risk assessments of the safe
level of lead in the blood was wrong.
When the American Academy of Pediatrics reviewed 18
scientific studies showing that lead diminished a child's
mental abilities, they found that the relationship between
lead levels and IQ deficits were remarkably consistent. Their
findings:
A number of studies have found that for every 10 mcg/dl
increase in blood lead levels, there was a lowering of
mean (average) IQ in children by 4 to 7 points. This
may not sound like a major loss, but an average IQ loss
of 5 points puts 50% more children in the IQ 80
category, which is borderline for normal intelligence.
It also reduces the number of high IQs, for example, one
small group that should have contained 5 children with
IQs of 125 contained none.
Two groups of children in first and second grade--one
with 25 mcg/dl and the other with 35 mcg/dl--were
studied into adulthood. The high-lead group was seven
times as likely not to graduate from high school and six
times as likely to have reading scores two grades below
expected, after adjusting for a number of factors,
including socioeconomic status and parental IQ. The
high-lead children also had higher absenteeism in their
final year of school, lower class rank, poorer
vocabulary and grammatical reasoning scores, longer
reaction times, and poorer hand-eye coordination.
According to Colborn et al., the loss of five points in
IQ could be catastrophic. They say:
With the current average IQ score of 100, a population
of 100 million will have 2.3 million intellectually
gifted people who score above 130. Though it might not
sound like much if the average were to drop just five
points to 95, it would have "staggering" implications,
according to Bernard Weiss, a behavioral toxicologist at
the University of Rochester who has considered the
societal impact of seemingly small losses. Instead of
2.3 million, only 990,000 would score over 130, so this
society would have lost more than half of its high-
powered minds with the capacity to become the most
gifted doctors, scientists, college professors,
inventors, and writers. At the same time this downward
shift would result in a greater number of slow learners
with IQ scores around 70, who would require special
remedial education, an already costly educational
burden, and who may not be able to fill many of the more
highly skilled jobs in a technological society. Given
the daunting array of problems we face as nations and as
a world community, the last thing we can afford is the
loss of human intelligence and problem-solving powers.
(p. 236)
Guinea Pigs
The most frightening implication from these studies on
the effects of synthetic chemicals on children is that before
a child is born his/her future may already have been decided.
Whether a child is retarded, average, or intellectually
gifted depends on whether he/she received the right thyroid
hormone at the right time in the right amount prenatally. If
hormone mimicking synthetic chemicals played havoc with any
of the systems of the developing fetuses, severe life time
consequences would be the result.
If the developing fetus managed to somehow avoid the
damage from endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the womb, and
be born without defects, he/she as growing children still
face other threats--various cancers and harm to the different
bodily systems from exposure to toxic organic chemicals and
heavy metals like lead.
Colburn et al., found from their extensive review of the
scientific literature that when researchers have tried to set
up experimental groups of children who have been contaminated
by pollutants with an uncontaminated group of children, they
were unsuccessful because there were no uncontaminated groups
of children. They say "tragically, no children today are born
chemical free....Even Inuits living a traditional lifestyle
in remote regions of Arctic have not escaped. The pollution
has come to them." (p. 240)
Our children have been and are still guinea pigs in the
world laboratory where scientists are and will be studying
the effects on them from exposure to thousands of toxic
chemicals, such as pesticides, fungicides, PCBs, and dioxins,
that our government has allowed to pollute the air they
breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. Like
trapped rats in a cage, they are helpless to protect
themselves and we have been helpless to protect them against
the onslaught of these toxic chemicals that insidiously
attack their bodily systems (immune, neurological, endocrine
and reproductive) causing irreversible damage and even death.
We have unknowingly allowed our government to make
"guinea pigs" out of our children because we have naively
believed that its environmental protection agency would
protect them from any harm from anything toxic in their
environment. We and our children have been the victims of a
deadly deception at the hands of the very agency that was
instituted to protect public health and the environment.
We have been deceived by their high price PR propaganda
that assured us there would be no adverse health effects from
exposure to the deadly toxic soup in sewage sludge. We have
been lulled into believing that although the toxic heavy
metals and organic chemicals are poisonous at high levels, at
low levels they will pose no danger.
How many of our children must be sacrificed on the alter
of avarice before we put a stop to it. We must no longer
tolerate practices like the land application of sewage sludge
which exposes our children to toxic chemicals and heavy
metals that can permanently damage them, robbing them of a
productive life and a future with promise. We must stop the
assault on their bodily systems before it is too late.
Children must be protected from harm from these deadly
agents. "The magnitude of the damage that has already
occurred should leave any thoughtful person profoundly
shaken," Colburn et al., say (p. 240)
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