It’s great that I can choose to spend the extra money on Organic food, so that I don’t have any conventionally grown food available in my house and so that every penny I spend on food (which is a high percentage of all my pennies- more like 20%, versus the national average of 9%) But my consumer role still doesn’t allow me to choose only organic air to breathe or tap water to drink or make sure that none of pesticides sprayed by conventional farms doesn’t reach the family and workers of the organic farm I am trying to support. Not to mention the fact that this choice is out of reach of most institutions like hospitals and public schools, both of which feed populations that need healthy food and are often lower-income. And of course we know that families can’t and/or won’t buy organic because of the extra cost.
Given two recent reports about the dangers of pesticides there really shouldn’t be a choice. But that isn’t a guilt trip to people who won’t fork over the cash to pay for safer products. It is to say no one should have to choose not to poison their kids or be forced to bring harmful chemicals into their system because the other options are more affordable.
The recent report by the President’s Cancer Panel reveals, finally, that the most important aspect of the issue of cancer is environmental factors. Factors that are have been grossly underestimated and under-regulated. The Panel’s report is called REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK: What We Can Do Now.
It is almost shocking how straightforward the report is about the harm caused by the chemicals and environmental factors of daily life. We are so used to hearing measured responses to “possible health risks” associated with much of the stuff we are exposed to and taking these risks seriously in a consistent way can even make you feel a bit like a paranoid wing-nut. But now there is enough evidence and acknowledgment of that evidence prove that efforts to avoid plastics and pesticides are not wacky…but there is the disappointment, that yes, it’s as bad (or worse) than you thought. So yes, it’s an overwhelming report, but in all reality it’s a refreshing report because it finally puts these causes of cancer out in the open, and asks that be addressed. It is something that everyone should read which you can do in this pdf.
The report should be read so that as many people as possible know the harm of the exposure to these chemicals so that these chemicals will stopped being used. Rather than having choices about what products we are exposed to, these products, given the evidence, should be banned. Then no one can make the wrong choice.
The Pesticide Action Network sent out an e-mail to ask for support for language in the Safe Chemicals Act that would give EPA more power to regulate persistent chemicals. You can contact your Senator through PAN here.
as this Washington Post report points out:
The panel said the country needs to overhaul existing chemical laws, a conclusion that has been supported by public health groups, environmental advocates, the Obama administration and even the chemical industry.
The current system places the burden on the government to prove that a chemical is unsafe before it can removed from the market. The standards are so high, the government has been unable to ban chemicals such as asbestos, a widely recognized carcinogen that is prohibited in many other countries.
About 80,000 chemicals are in commercial use in the United States, but federal regulators have assessed only about 200 for safety.
Chapter Two of the President’s Cancer Panel Report is “Exposure to Contaminants From Agricultural Sources” It opens with this uplifting observation:
The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals. Many of these chemicals are known or suspected of having either carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting properties. chemicals.
It goes onto explain the dangers of chemical use in agriculture to all of us, most especially the people who get their livelihood from the food system. Unfortunately the consequences of these chemicals are not limited to cancer. The other recent report that reveals the impact conventional agriculture on our bodies and brains is an investigation by a team of scientists from the University of Montreal and Harvard University, published in the journal Pediatrics, which found a connection between exposure pesticides and the presence of symptoms of ADHD. Lead author Maryse F. Bouchard of the University of Montreal Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center says:
Our study found that exposure to organophosphates in developing children might have effects on neural systems and could contribute to ADHD behaviors, such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.
All this brings up that mantra of “Don’t panic, buy Organic”, which is more true than ever before. But again, it raises the issue of why this country has allowed this to be a choice. Sure we’ve carved out a market for those who are willing and able to pay the full cost of sustainably raised food but the remainder is too many people still being exposed to toxins, including those who paid to avoid it. We need to move beyond an organic certification to a certain market and apply those standards to all food. There is not enough evidence to prove that avoiding chemicals and feeding the people of the world are mutually exclusive goals, and remember that saying so sidesteps the issue that conventional farming isn’t feeding the world successfully either.
We are certainly in a better spot politically than we have been before to take these chemicals out of our system, and the more that people are aware of what is causing these diseases and disorders and choose, as much as possible to support practices and products that avoid them the better.
You can read more about the Organophosphate (OP) Pesticides addressed in there study here. You can also take a small action to, again through the Pesticide Action network, sign a petition to the EPA to ban Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate insecticide.
I guess the message for now is, Be optimistic about Organic- choose it until you don’t have to.
I admit that the choice for the video below is weird because Don Imus is not well respected since his many rude remarks, and he and his wife (Deirdre Imus) are friends of Sean Hannity and all their media is through Fox, but that doesn’t change the fact that I agree with Deirdre’s approach and her information and that ultimately she is doing good work on these issues. It’s always good to look at common ground among often divided groups.
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