"The Problems Presented are Really Big"

I started out this week by responding to a question from one of KMO's listeners who heard me speak on his C-Realm podcast. (See Plastic Problems to read the original post.) I wanted to finish up this particular thread by following up on some other things that that listener said in their email:

"Great show, but as always, I feel like I am caught in the system, not
that I am suffering right now, but yeah I drive a long commute everyday with only me in the car (unless you count all my podcast world friends in there with me!) I do have a nice vegetable garden, but it isn't a significant part of the grocery tally. The problems presented really are big problems when so much of what keeps us going, literally week to week, is on a fine margin as it is."

First, I applaud your gardening. I think that growing at least a small part of your own food — be it just some herbs on a windowsill and a small garden in the summer — is truly one of the best things people can do to help themselves and the planet. In her wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver and her husband, Steven Hopp, calculated that if each person in America ate just one local meal per week, we would save a million barrels of oil per week. That is huge, and by growing even a small garden, you really are making a difference!

As to commuting, most of us have to spend a lot of time in the car. That is the nature of modern life. But there are some things you can do easily to reduce the impact of your commute.

Most importantly (and totally inexpensive): Check the air pressure in your tires! Most people don't ever do this; in fact, I just read in ODE magazine that "at least half of all motorists are estimated to be driving on soft tires."

When tires are inflated below recommended air pressure levels, fuel economy is reduced up to three percent, and tires wear out faster.

At the gas station, don't put in extra after the pump automatically stops. Here's what EPA has to say about this practice:

Topping off the gas tank can result in your paying for gasoline that is fed back into the station's tanks because your gas tank is full. The gas nozzle automatically clicks off when your gas tank is full. In areas of ozone nonattainment, gas station pumps are equipped with vapor recovery systems that feed back gas vapors into their tanks to prevent vapors from escaping into the air and contributing to air pollution. Any additional gas you try to pump into your tank may be drawn into the vapor line and fed back into the station’s storage tanks. And, you need extra room in your gas tank to allow the gasoline to expand. If you top off your tank, the extra gas may evaporate into your vehicle’s vapor collection system. That system may become fouled and will not work properly causing your vehicle to run poorly and have high gas emissions.

Finally, check your air filter. Simply replacing a dirty air filter can boost fuel efficiency by up to ten percent!

These small maintenance jobs, which are often ignored and overlooked in our rushed lives, produce great bonuses for you and the environment! They reduce emissions, and save money. That's good news.

The Problems Presented are really big

I started out this week by responding to a question from one of KMO's listeners who heard me speak on his C-Realm podcast. (See Plastic Problems to read the original post.) I wanted to finally follow up on something else that listener said in their email. He or she said:

"Great show, but as always, I feel like I am caught in the system, not
that I am suffering right now, but yeah I drive a long commute everyday with only me in the car (unless you count all my podcast world friends in there with me!) I do have a nice vegetable garden, but it isn't a significant part of the grocery tally. The problems presented really are big problems when so much of what keeps us going, literally week to week, is on a fine margin as it is."

First, I think that growing at least a small part of your own food — be it just some herbs on a windowsill and a small garden in the summer, perhaps a couple tomato plants and some salad greens — is truly the best thing people can do to help themselves and the planet. In her wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver and her husband, Steven Hopp, calculated that if each person in America ate just one local meal per week, we would save a million barrels of oil per week. That is huge, and by growing even a small garden, you really are making a difference!

As to

Plastic Problems Part 2

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is now used to line food cans — even when the food inside is certified organic. In fact, a series of independent tests performed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) showed that "over half of 97 cans of name-brand fruit, vegetables, soda, and other commonly eaten canned goods" contained BPA, including in acidic products, such as tomatoes, and fatty foods, such as infant formula. Acidic foods or high fat foods tend to leach out more of these chemicals than other foods stored in the same type of container. BPA is not only implicated in infertility and birth defects, but also in breast and prostrate cancer.

A couple of EWG's findings:

Of all foods tested, chicken soup, infant formula, and ravioli had BPA levels of highest concern. Just one to three servings of foods with these concentrations could expose a woman or child to BPA at levels that caused serious adverse effects in animal tests.

For 1 in 10 cans of all food tested, and 1 in 3 cans of infant formula, a single serving contained enough BPA to expose a woman or infant to BPA levels more than 200 times the government's traditional safe level of exposure for industrial chemicals.

And, more on phthalates: These chemicals are widely found in personal care products, ranging from cleansers and soaps to cosmetics and perfumes. In this use, they are intended to keep products going on smooth. But, some people suspect that phthalates in these products are a major source of phthalate exposure for women, and in August, 2005, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published research showing that phthalate exposures in pregnant women correlated to a decrease in "anogenital distance" their in baby boys. The amount of phthalates these women showed was equal to the amount regularly found in about 25% of our population! Anogenital distance is the space between the anus and the genetalia, and though these baby boys appeared fairly normal, decreases in anogenital distance are associated with a number of male sexual development problems later in life.

What can you do? Well, when it comes to cans, if you open one and see that white plastic coating lining it, immediately call the manufacturer's 800-number customer service line and tell them you don't want to buy products that come in cans lined with bisphenol-A containing plastic. And, again, when possible, purchase products that are packaged in glass or unlined cans.

As for phthalates and personal care products, check the Skin Deep database that EWG has developed to learn about what the personal-care products you use have in them, and then select the safest alternatives listed on the Skin Deep database.

Plastic Problems

Recently I did a two-part podcast with KMO at C-Realm on backyard poultry and toxic burden. During the interview I mentioned some of the potential health issues associated with plastic water bottles. I particularly mentioned bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in hard plastics, such as the polycarbonate water bottles that so many people carry today.

BPA is an endocrine disrupting chemical, implicated in a variety of things that are troubling us. The evidence is especially strong that it causes fetal toxicity, which can result in either miscarriage or still birth. It's also connected with reduced conception, usually caused by low sperm counts or abnormal sperm production in men and/or menstrual disorders in women, and several developmental disorders and birth defects. Two that I heard a lot about while attending a conference* this year are chryptorchism (undescended testicles), and hypospadia, a condition in which the opening in the penis is along the shaft, rather than at the tip. Hypospadia, the now the second most common congenital birth defect, having increased in frequency 300% in just the last 30 years.



After hearing the podcast, one of KMO's listeners sent an email asking, "So does this go for all plastic water bottles (like the kind used for mountain bikes too?) I also send my kids to school with water bottles, so I wonder what a good substitute for those would be. I guess metal since glass could get broken."

I decided to answer the listener's question here:

First, as far as BPA goes, it is in polycarbonate plastics (which has a number 7 in the recycle mark). That includes most of the plastic water bottles like bikers use. The other common plastic bottles (that soda, juice, and water usually come in) are a softer plastic than polycarbonate. Known as PETE (for polyethylene terephthalate, and recognized by number 1 in the recycle mark), these plastics don't contain BPA, but do contain phthalates, another plasticisizing chemical that is associated with many of the same problems as BPA.

What can you do? Reduce your exposures to these chemicals (and especially your children's exposures). How? Start by choosing glass and steel when those options are available. For example, for hot or cold drinks that you carry with you, try stainless steel containers that aren't resin coated on the inside. Check Kleen Kanteen.

Some years ago, I also consciously switched from using plastic for most food storage, to using lots more glass for food storage. Ball jars (the canning jars of yore) are great for storing left overs of all kinds in the fridge — you can see what's in them, and they really do seal well. The tops can be reused hundreds of times when the food is in the fridge (unlike when they are actually used for canning purposes). I use them for storing almost every kind of food imaginable, including cheese, meat, and raw veggies. If you look in my fridge, about the only plastic you normally see is bread in its plastic bag.

Coming tomorrow: Part 2 of what you can do to reduce exposures!

* The conference was co-sponsored by the Collaborative on Health and Environment and the School of Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco. The Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health, was held in January, 2007 at UCSF.

Apple a Day

Most everyone knows the old adage, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and now scientists have shown that there's more truth to the statement than you might think. I just read an interesting article that reported on a recent study published in the journal Thorax that show that the children of women who ate apples frequently during pregnancy had fewer asthma-related wheezing incidents, and that the children of women who ate plenty of fish during pregnancy had less trouble with eczema.

One thing about the article that stuck with me was a quote attributed to the scientists who did the study: "The advantages of studying foods are that they contain a mixture of micronutrients that may contribute more than the sum of their parts, and that associations with micronutrients that may be currently unrecognised or not easily quantifiable can be examined." Real foods do contain micronutrients that are simply missing from the processed products that line store shelves.

Hillary and Health Care

So, Hillary is getting on the bandwagon for national health insurance requirements. I don't know whether her idea can do anything to help with the health-care crisis in this country, though from what I've read the mandatory requirement for citizens to purchase health insurance has become an untenable boondoggle in the states that have tried it. But what I do know is that Hillary and our other elected leaders need to pursue legislation that would help to keep us all healthier in the first place. We need our elected officials to step up and provide some kind of minimum protections for us, and for future generations similar to the protections against environmental toxins being implemented in Europe, Japan, Canada, and even China and Mexico!

What's that buzz?

I first became aware of electro-magnetic fields (ELF) when Ken and I ran a dairy farm in Minnesota. At that time, there was very little information outside of the dairy industry about this topic, but a number of dairy farmers were complaining that ELFs in their barns (caused by stray voltage traveling through the ground from transformer stations) were responsible for herd health problems and reduced milk production. Not surprisingly, they were initially told by the electric utilities that they were crackpots. But over a decade or so, a strong body of evidence came along to suggest that they weren't crackpots, and now indications are mounting that ELFs are a concern not only for cows, but also for people. A new report, A Rationale for a Biologically-based Public Exposure Standard for Electromagnetic Fields, discusses the evidence and suggests public-health policies that should be implemented.

According to the report's introduction, "You cannot see it, taste it or smell it, but it is one of the most pervasive environmental exposures in industrialized countries today."

The report's authors — respected scientists and physicians — say, "In today’s world, everyone is exposed to two types of ELFs: (1) extremely low frequency ELFs from electrical and electronic appliances and power lines and (2) radiofrequency radiation (RF) from wireless devices such as cell phones and cordless phones, cellular antennas and towers, and broadcast transmission towers.

Here are just a handful of their findings:

• There is little doubt that exposure to ELF causes childhood leukemia.


• There is some evidence that other childhood cancers may be related to ELF
  exposure but not enough studies have been done.


• People who have used a cell phone for ten years or more have higher rates of malignant brain tumor and acoustic neuromas. It is worse if the cell phone has been used primarily on one side of the head.


• People who have used a cordless phone for ten years or more have higher rates of malignant brain tumor and acoustic neuromas.


• The current standard for exposure to the emissions of cell phones and cordless phones is not safe considering studies reporting long-term brain tumor and acoustic neuroma risks.


• Studies of human breast cancer cells and some animal studies show that ELF is likely to be a risk factor for breast cancer.


• Alzheimer’s disease is a disease of the nervous system. There is strong evidence that long-term exposure to ELF is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.


• There is little doubt that electromagnetic fields emitted by cell phones and cell phone use affect electrical activity of the brain.


• The consequence of prolonged exposures to children, whose nervous systems continue to develop until late adolescence, is unknown at this time. This could have serious implications to adult health and functioning in society if years of exposure of the young to both ELF and RF result in diminished capacity for thinking, judgment, memory, learning, and control over behavior.


• The effects of long-term exposure to wireless technologies including emissions from cell phones and other personal devices, and from whole-body exposure to RF transmissions from cell towers and antennas is simply not known yet with certainty. However, the body of evidence at hand suggests that bioeffects and health impacts can and do occur at exquisitely low exposure levels: levels that can be thousands of times below public safety limits.


• There is substantial evidence that ELF and RF can cause inflammatory reactions, allergy reactions and change normal immune function at levels allowed by current public safety standards.


• Medical conditions are successfully treated using EMFs at levels below current public safety standards, proving another way that the body recognizes and responds to low-intensity EMF signals. Otherwise, these medical treatments could not work. The FDA has approved EMFs medical treatment devices, so is clearly aware of this paradox. No one would recommend that drugs used in medical treatments and prevention of disease be randomly given to the public, especially to children. Yet, random and involuntary exposures to EMFs occur all the time in daily life.


• There are many credible anecdotal reports of unwellness and illness in the vicinity of wireless transmitters (wireless voice and data communication antennas) at lower levels. Effects include sleep disruption, impairment of memory and concentration, fatigue, headache, skin disorders, visual symptoms (floaters), nausea, loss of appetite, tinnitus, and cardiac problems (racing heartbeat), There are some credible articles from researchers reporting that cell tower -level RF
  exposures (estimated to be between 0.01 and 0.5 μW/cm2) produce ill-effects in populations living up to several hundred meters from wireless antenna sites.

What steps can you take to protect yourself? First, go back to an old-fashioned corded phone for regular use, and use a corded earplug for your cell phone. Disconnect in-home wireless transmitters for routine use (hook your computer to the internet via a wire), and if you have kids in school, encourage your school board to use wired alternatives also.

Exposed by Mark Schapiro

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I changed servers for my website, and had technological challenges getting the blog migrated.

I just finished reading Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power by Mark Schapiro (Chelsea Green, September, 2007) and would recommend it to others. Schapiro not only looks at how chemicals are affecting our health, but also how the United States’ failure to maintain our world leadership in the environmental arena is now costing us economically as well. In particular, he looks at how the Eurpean Union’s environmental initiatives are changing the world stage and impacting the decision making at key US industries, including electronics, chemical production, and consumer products manufacturers.

Schapiro also looks at how our head-in-the-sand approach to environmental protection is now leaving us vulnerable to becoming the world’s dumping ground for seriously nasty chemicals that are outlawed in other countries. For example, he points to data that shows China "exports five hundred million dollars a year of processed wood to the United States that has been treated with formaldehyde, a binder in plywood and other home- and office-construction materials. Formaldehyde is a 'known carcinogen,' according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and a contributor to asthma in young children and respiratory problems in adults, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. In the spring of 2006 a timber company in Oregon, Columbia Forest Products, conducted tests on imported Chinese birch planks that it purchased at a Home Depot (such tests are not done by the U.S. government, thus our primary information on such matters comes from the private sector or NGOs [nongovernmental organizations, or nonprofits]). The company discovered levels of formaldehyde far in excess of the permissible levels in Europe or Japan."

He makes a pervasive argument that "US economic influence is quietly fading as its political and corporate leaders fall out of step with the forces of global integration that they once avidly pressed upon the world."

In spite of tougher regulations, the twelve-member Eurozone (the historic core of the EU) is outpacing us economically. The Eurozone 2.7% growth in 2006 compared to our own 2.2% growth. We need leaders who will help keep us safe, and by doing so, help protect our economic status and world leadership.