h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OTTAWA (CP) - 'The average Canadian has more than hockey in his blood; there are also flame retardants, stain removers, heavy metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, says an environmental group.'

JTG,

Canadians are not alone. The UK and most of Europe, and possibly the rest of the world is the same. I had my blood tested and had 27 of the offending chemicals in my blood, in sufficiently worrying quantities to be recorded. This, in spite of spending my life doing my best to avoid chemicals!!

Tests on families and individuals have been carried out here and throughout Europe for WWF with some worrying results. In our tests some of the younger people were carrying heavier loads than the older ones.

Do you have a link for the Canadian results?

Websailor

Yikes, that's scary stuff! The mad thing is that it's just the sort of thing that many of us are conscious of at some level yet choose to ignore.

I go to work on the shore of Lake Ontario, where there is often a haze of air pollution visible around the horizon, especially at sunrise, like a very badly stained toilet bowl. Naturally, the pollution can't be seen close up; but it's sobering to think of someone on the other side of the lake looking at the stained air we are breathing.

I just read about this study on MSN news. Here is a link to the website:

http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/toxicnation/home.php

Thanks for the link, it was MOST interesting. It appears to me that the Canadians studied had higher levels of chemicals in general than those studied here. The chemicals tested for were, I think, similar. It rather bears out (excuse the pun!) the results shown in Polar Bears, and Inuits, that nowhere is safe.

I was particularly interested in one participant who lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I have a friend. She said that Malathion was sprayed all over Winnipeg, against the risk of the West Nile virus. The results showed up in heavy concentrations in her blood. The city was sprayed in spite of advice from Toronto not to do so.

It is very clear that no-one has escaped contamination even when doing everything possible to protect themselves against chemicals. What I am doing at this precise moment - computer use etc. - exposes me to flame retardents and heaven knows what else!

If I can find the link to our results I will pop in later and give it to you. It is strange that no-one else has responded to this thread. Are we all burying our heads in the sand (contaminated, of course!)?

Websailor

JTG,

These links are the ones I was talking about. I was part of the first group of 155. Though not shown personally as only two or so were shown from each area, my results are in the overal group results. I found the link below these on babies and new mothers the most worrying. The families link also shows that younger people are often carrying heavier loads of chemicals than older people.

http://www.wwf.org.uk/chemicals/biotour.asp

http://www.wwf.org.uk/chemicals/biotourfam.asp

Websailor

Thanks. That's very interesting, and quite alarming. It's disturbing to read that the younger members of the families studied are often more contaminated than the older generation.

It seems mad that people should poison themselves and their environment with products like artificial musks, which the survey says are persistent in the environment and known to pose health risks. It might be difficult to get by without things containig PCV, for example, but surely we can get rid of poisonous scents.

Winnipeg has sprayed malathion before to control equine encephalitis, which is also transmitted by mosquitos. I think the use of insecticides has been widespread in response to the west nile disease panic. In the past, Winninpeg (and presumably other cities) have sprayed from the air, using aircraft; but there is a lot of pesticide application that goes on quietly all the time to control a range of things.

I saw a program on television quite recently which described how pesticides such as DDT are still more of a problem than people in general tend to imagine. Apart from the persistence of these chemicals in our immediate environment, a lot of them are still in use in poorer countries, where, of course, very much of our fresh vegetables and fruit comes from.

It's interesting, I think, that our bodies are similar to the natural enviornment inasmuch as we become contaminated by chemicals, some of which persist longer than others. Some things we naturally manage to rid ourselves of over time. Other things continue to accumulate until they become destructive. It all goes to show, I think, how mad it is to think of ourselves as existing somehow separate from the natural world.

Yes, it is incredible how many people think that "people are more important than the environment". I am afraid that beggars belief.

I was quite surprised to see our levels of contamination, particularly as we are a small compact country with a long heritage of heavy industry.

It just shows how true it is that a mother dumps her load of chemicals on her offspring, which they then add to in their lifetime, which is no doubt why the younger have higher levels.

One of the participants in our study styled us as "walking chemical dumps" which is just about right.

At least if we begin to learn what substances are a problem, and what products they appear in, we can perhaps make some sensible choices which will limit and perhaps reduce our exposure.

I have to say I am very glad I don't live in Winnipeg. I was quite envious of the beautiful scenery around there, but no more! Such blanket spraying "in case" seems to me to be more a panic reaction, and the need to be seen to do something, which councils and govts. seem prone to do, no matter where you live.

Websailor

The thread isn't being ignored - not by me at least. It's just such a big subject, so depressing and (as you say) head-burying.

These are things that a few people have been saying for a long time. No wonder there are so many more cancers, skin diseases, lung diseases and unspecific illnesses like ME.

I have no answers, only continued concerns ... which is why I've lurked. Until now.

Fb

Fb, I would think your lifestyle and beliefs will have helped keep you with low results. I think everyone should get tested if they get the chance. We shall never eliminate everything that is already there, but we can reduce future exposure.

Plus, what you are doing now, aiming to lose weight, will reduce your load, as chemicals sit, and multiply in your fatty tissue - so that lands me right in it!!!! Blubber carries it all

It isn't worth getting depressed about, but the knowledge gives you a better chance. As y ou are also furnishing a new home, it might be wise to take a closer look at what you are buying too. Flame retardants etc. sound a good thing to have till you learn more about them.

(that's probably not good for us either) - Oh

Websailor

It's overwhelming isn't it? I'm certain that there are a whole heap more chemicals going round the atmosphere - indoors and out - which nobody is prepared to acknowledge are harmful. Yet.

It's obvious that the human race is not only messing up the planet for all life, but is steadily poisoning itself. That is such a self-evident fact that I find myself in the depths of gloom that people, generally, turn their minds away from it.

And to be the one on the soapbox, standing up there, being counted? It's just not me I want a quiet life. An unremarkable life. But I do want a life, so I make personal and professional choices that enable me to be as chemical free as possible.

I am selfish, but at least I recognise it.

Fb

Don't forget radiation!

A public health group is seeking baby teeth from Pennsylvania kids born in the late 1970s and early 1980s to look for Strontium-90 in the teeth as a result of the Three Mile Island accident.

Details at www.radiation.org and click on 'Tooth Fairy Project'.

I'll be watching this one with interest since I was a schoolboy at the time of the accident.

And the Chernobyl fall out is turning up in the dental records of people from western UK - the Lake District and SW Scotland in particular

The air is definitely cleaner in the southern hemisphere, but that gives people here a false sense of security I'm afraid.

Hi, everybody. Sorry for wandering off like that. This is a pretty heavy topic, but the news headline sort of tickled my funny bone... it must be the chemicals.

Read a good book on the subject ages ago, in another life... 'The Sheep Look Up', or something like that. Depressing.

I don't do much spraying anymore, mainly because there are too many restrictions, but also because I never really liked having to do it. I used to joke that I dreaded being poisoned by cholinesterase inhibibiting pesticides, and finding surrounded by a cheering crowd which mistakes my convulsions for break dancing.

... Not very funny, now that I come to think of it.