The American Medical Association estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 people will die unnecessarily every decade because of our government’s failure to respond quickly enough to the harsh EPA rollbacks that occurred during the Trump administration. Things are getting better but not quickly enough.
For example, just a few days ago The Guardian uncovered documents about the pesticide industry’s efforts to hide the toxic effects of the herbicide Paraquat when it was found to cause Parkinson’s Disease. During the years Paraquat was owned by the Swiss company, Sygenta, the policy was to “Deny Everything!”.
When Sygenta sold it to Chevron, they suggested that customers avoid exposure because the product was indeed toxic (one teaspoonful taken orally will kill you in 30 days), but to this day they deny that it causes Parkinson’s. In the meantime, Paraquat is banned in the European Union, the UK and China even though it is manufactured there and shipped to the U.S., where Parkinson’s Disease has been on the rise for the past four decades. Farmers still literally bathe in the mist and we are bringing it home into our corn and soybean products.
So, if we talk a lot about chemicals found in our food, in our air, and in our water, we also wonder what we can do. The total number of chemicals is mind boggling: we intentionally add 2,500 chemicals to our food as additives, preservatives, and coloring agents. These are the “GRAS” chemicals (“Generally Recognized as Safe”). But then, 12,000 more chemicals find their way into our food supply by processing, packaging, pesticide residues, and medications given to animals.
Over 700 chemicals have been found in drinking water, and don’t even ask about air, especially in urban areas and near factories, or what we inhale from our furniture, auto fumes, sprayed herbicides and pesticides, plastics, treated wood, and formaldehyde in everything from flooring to pillows to mouthwash to furniture polish. In addition, we’re seeing more problems with naturally occurring toxins, like mold biotoxins--people getting sick from water damaged buildings.
What to do about it...
