Toxic cocktail in our blood

[Incognito]

Disturbing, yes?

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994412

excerpt:

A cocktail of potentially harmful man-made chemicals has been found in the blood of every person tested in a new UK study.

The 155 volunteers, including EU environment commissioner Margot Wallström, were tested for gender-bending PCBs, flame retardants and organophosphates.

The study, commissioned by the environmental group WWF, focussed on 77 chemicals known to be "very persistent" in the environment and to accumulate in people's bodies. It is one of the most comprehensive studies to date.

The findings are "disturbing", says Matthew Wilkinson, lead author of the report and WWF UK toxics policy officer. "Every single person we monitored had a range of these chemicals."

Disturbing to see that DDT and it's breakdown products was found among them - especially considering how long ago that was banned in the UK.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Living in a farming area as I do, I hate to even think about all the crap that's sitting in my system just waiting to make me ill. And that isn't even to mention what I picked up as a child, living near a facility that tested rocket engines and had an early experimental nuclear reactor. Oh, and then there was the vacation my parents took me on to southern Utah when I was about two and they were still doing atmospheric nuclear tests next door in Nevada (the area we visited was right in the path of prevailing winds and, thus, fallout).

Well, I'm probably doomed.

Good thing I refuse to worry about it, since I can't do anything about it, anyway, at this point. Not to sound cavailer about what can be cleaned up from the past and prevented now and in the future. But, at this point I'd be stupid to just sit and worry about what I've been exposed to in the past, I think.

 

[Brian G Turner]

That is probably a very good idea.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Scary.

Even though DDT is banned in Western countries, companies like Bayer continue to blisfully produce it in places like India, where environmental laws have a long way to go. It's a crying shame. Sometimes I worry about the stuff that must be in the veggies I keep eating, and it seems that all I can do about it is sign these endless Greenpeace petitions that never do seem to result in anything.

 

[Incognito]

Keep with the Greenpeace petitions - that's the one way the masses can exert power proper.

Not yet joined Greenpeace - only have a Direct Debit for Oxfam at the moment, but as soon as I have a paid income I'll be happy to join a swathe of groups - Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Amnesty International, WWF, etc. I may not agree with everything these groups proclaim, but they provide a very necessary balance to the political pressures incurred by corporate economics.