Pollution Reaching Unborn Babies
I woke up this morning to find a very disturbing article on pollution waiting for me. I’ve always been sensitive to the quality of the air I breathe, the water I drink, and the general environment around me. Now, however, as I wait eagerly for my son to be born in the next few weeks, I have more serious concerns to think about.
Please review the following article on reuters.com: Unborn Babies Carry Pollutants, Study Finds
What is most disturbing to me is the toxicity of the pollutants they identified, such as mercury:
“Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical-cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests,” the report said.
…Among the chemicals found in the cord blood were methylmercury, produced by coal-fired power plants and certain industrial processes. People can breathe it in or eat it in seafood and it causes brain and nerve damage. Also found were polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are produced by burning gasoline and garbage and which may cause cancer; flame-retardant chemicals called polybrominated dibenzodioxins and furans; and pesticides including DDT and chlordane.
And even more disturbing is the following comment:
“Today, chemicals are being used to make baby bottles, food packaging and other products that have never been fully evaluated for their health effects on children — and some of these chemicals are turning up in our blood,” said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who plans to co-sponsor a bill to require chemical manufacturers to provide data to the EPA on the health affects of their products.
So what have we done on an individual level to contribute to this? How do we move forward? What steps can we take to cease (or dramatically reduce) the level of chemicals we are taking in?
TAGS: Social Enterprise | Pollution | Environment | Pregnancy
This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 2:27 am and is filed under Business Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:58 am
What a disturbing article! While it doesn’t surprise me that a number of pollutants do cross the barrier through the umbilical cord, it was amazing the number of different chemicals that were found.
What also amazes me is that despite all of these chemicals and pollutants that are found in baby’s blood that we don’t have more birth defects and problems that arise from this. Our bodies are incredible machines that apparently can tollerate amazing amounts of abuse before breaking down. Of course I’m not saying that then it’s just fine to keep up this kind of abuse, I’m just pointing out the amazing abilities of the human body. Actually it’s probably a bad thing that our bodies are so tolerant because it allows this kind of stuff to go on.
Being pregnant myself, I often find myself thinking about the things I am consuming and how they will affect my unborn child. I try to eat mostly organic and natural foods in the hopes that I’m not passing on various chemicals and pesticides to my baby’s developing body. Not to say I haven’t had my occasional cravings for deep fried foods or big juicy hamburgers or decided to buy the regular strawberries over the organic becasue of the amazing price difference, but overall, I think if we make an effort to change our own lives, we will be making a bit of a difference. Imagine if everyone started eating only organic foods, the other companies would have to stop using chemicals to produce their food or face going out of business and we would never have to deal with pesticides or growth hormones or any of that stuff again. While ideal thinking of course, I do believe it is possible! We just have to start with ourselves.
July 22nd, 2005 at 12:10 pm
I completely agree. I fully subscribe to the notion that the market creates the reality of the business environment we live in as businesses simply supply our demand. If *everyone* demanded organic food and nothing else, companies would have no choice but to comply. Of course, we would see some serious price spikes and fluctuations, but what’s the tradeoff?