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One of the biggest open questions of the 21st century is whether 144,000 different chemicals swirling throughout the world are properly tested and analyzed for toxicity. By almost all accounts, the scale of toxic risk is unknown. This may be the biggest tragedy of all time, a black eye of enormous proportions.
Correspondingly and very likely, not yet 100% proven but probably 99%, as a result of ubiquitous chemical presence, one hundred fifty million (150,000,000) Americans have chronic disease, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, fibromyalgia, cancer, stroke, asthma, cystic fibrosis, obesity, and osteoporosis.1 Why?
According to Dr. Paul Winchester, who discovered the link between chemicals, like pesticides atrazine and glyphosate aka Roundup and epigenetic human alteration, the findings are:
The most important next discovery in all of medicine.2
Dr. Winchester was one of the researchers/authors of “Atrazine Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Disease, Lean Phenotype and Sperm Epimutation Pathology Biomarkers,” PLOS, published September 20, 2017.
The grisly underlying message of that study is as clear as a bell: Chemicals found far and wide throughout America alter human hormones as well as human DNA, which passes along generation-to-generation known as transgenerational inheritance.
Frankly, nothing more should need to be said to spur outrage and pissed-off people all across the land because, if that seminal study is correct in its analysis that chemicals mess up/distort/disrupt human hormones and alter human DNA in a destructive manner, then the streets of America should be filled with people wielding pots and pans, probably pitchforks, and ready for the fight of a lifetime because, by any account, there has been massive failure of ethical standards and regulations of chemicals for decades and decades. Who’s to blame?
The primary targets are (1) the EPA and (2) FDA and (3) pesticide/chemical manufacturers, like Monsanto, and ultimately the U.S. Congress.
The chemicals in the aforementioned study include the herbicide atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the country and commonly detected in drinking water. The study demonstrated that atrazine is an endocrine disruptor that negatively alters human hormonal systems, as chronic diseases overwhelm American society.
The European Union (EU) banned atrazine in 2003 because of persistent groundwater contamination. However, as for the EPA in America, it’s okay, no problem. But, doubtlessly one of those jurisdictions is dead wrong because it’s a black and white matter. Either toxic chemicals horribly messes up DNA and cause chronic diseases or not, no middle ground. As for America, chronic disease is at epidemic levels at 60% of the population. Where, why, and how if not from environmental sources?
Yet, the most disturbing issue is the epigenetic impact, meaning that environmental factors impact the health of people and also their descendants. It stays with and passes along the human genome generation-by-generation-by-generation.
According to Dr. Winchester:
This is a really important concept that is difficult to teach the public, and when I say the public, I include my clinical colleagues.3
Still, atrazine is not the only human hormone-altering chemical in the environment. Dr. Winchester tested nearly 20 different chemicals and all demonstrated epigenetic effects, for example, all of the chemicals reduced fertility, even in the 3rd generation.
Still, why do 150,000,000 Americans have chronic diseases?
Researchers believe that every adult disease extant is linked to epigenetic origins. If confirmed over time with additional research, the study is a blockbuster that goes to the heart of public health and attendant government regulations.
According to Dr. Winchester:
This is a huge thing that is going to change how we understand the origin of disease. But a big part of that is that it will change our interpretation of what chemicals are safe. In medicine I can’t give a drug to somebody unless it has gone through a huge amount of testing. But all these chemicals haven’t gone through anything like that. We’ve been experimented on for the last 70 years, and there’s not one study on multigenerational effects.4
The U.S. Congress passed a new chemical safety law for the first time in 40 years with the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in 2016, but the provisions for regulation are totally overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. For starters, more than 60,000 chemicals came to the market without safety testing, and the burden of proof for regulators previously was so burdensome that the EPA wasn’t able to ban asbestos when necessary.
As for the effectiveness of the new law, consider this statement in the following article, “It Could Take Centuries for EPA to Test all the Unregulated Chemicals Under a New Landmark Bill,” PBS SoCal, June 22, 2016:
The new law requires EPA to test tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals currently on the market, and the roughly 2,000 new chemicals introduced each year, but quite slowly. The EPA will review a minimum of 20 chemicals at a time, and each has a seven-year deadline. Industry may then have five years to comply after the new rule is made. At that pace it could take centuries for the agency to finish its review.
If that’s the best Congress can do to protect its citizens from toxic chemicals, they should be run out of town tarred and feathered on a rail. One more reason to abandon America’s socio-economic-politico scenario; maybe socialism would work better at protecting citizens.
Meantime, children are caught up smack dab in the middle of this 70-year experiment of untested and poorly/ill-tested chemicals.
Roundup (glyphosate) for breakfast? Yes, independent lab tests by Eurofins Analytical Laboratories found hefty doses of the weed-killer Roundup in oat cereals, oatmeal, granola, and snack bars:
EWG tested more than a dozen brands of oat-based foods to give Americans information about dietary exposures that government regulators are keeping secret. In April, internal emails obtained by the nonprofit US Right to Know revealed that the Food and Drug Administration has been testing food for glyphosate for two years and has found ‘a fair amount,’ but the FDA has not released the findings.5
California state scientists and the World Health Organization have linked glyphosate to cancer. Yet, the chemical is pervasively found in products. Yes, on regular ole grocery store shelves.
EWG found the chemical in several cereals such as Back to Nature Classic Granola, Quaker Simply Granola Oats, Honey, Raisins & Almonds, Great Value Original Instant Oatmeal, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Barbara’s Multigrain Spoonfuls Original, Quaker Old Fashioned Oats, etc.
Ironically, they all sound so very very healthy.
Postscript:
Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals…For the first time in the Earth’s history a single species – ourselves – is poisoning the entire planet… It is arguably the most under-rated, under-investigated and poorly understood of all the existential threats that humans face in the twenty-first century.6
*
Notes
- Rand Corporation Review 2017.
- EcoWatch, August 16, 2018.
- EcoWatch.
- EcoWatch.
- Alexis Temkin, Ph.D. Toxicologist, “Breakfast With a Dose of Roundup?” Environmental Working Group (EWG), August 15, 2018.
- Julian Cribb, Surviving the 21st Century, Springer Publishing/Switzerland, p. 106.
Featured image is from CounterPunch.
