One Year Later

It has been almost a year since I founded moregreenmoms.  The journey began as a personal quest to be a better mother to my children and I learned that by doing so, I could help others achieve a similar goal.

It’s not that I was a particularly inept mother to begin with, although that may depend on the hour or the day of assessment.  But really the problem was that I was painlessly unaware of the range of potentially harmful agents that were making an unbridled run through my household and attacking from every insidious corner of our lives.

So not only did I become educated about the possible dangers of multiple chemical exposures, I became a vocal advocate against them.  And then I became a little obsessed.  Seriously, I started to fear my own shadow.

I watched my eight-year-old daughter refuse gooey Disney lip gloss for fear of its ingredients.  I listened to my six-year-old son yell out the car window at a person who carelessly flicked a cigarette butt at the curb.  And I found myself in an unnecessary panic after resorting to the Internet to self-diagnose what I was certain was throat cancer this summer.

But luckily I was not sick.  I was exhausted.  Physically, yes.  But really it was the mental drain of focusing on problems of such magnitude and frustration that began to really take their toll.  And I think it began to backfire on the very people I wanted to protect, my kids.

So I took a little break. 

But now I’m back.  And I’ll tell you why. 

Last month, I attended a conference in Pittsburgh sponsored by the Heinz Endowments and the Magee-Womens Hospital entitled Women’s Health and the Environment: New Science, New Solutions.  Established by Teresa Heinz Kerry and her philanthropic organizations 13 years ago, this event was sold-out and it now draws audiences of 2,000 attendees in multiple cities. 

The doctors, scientists, authors and policy makers who serve as speakers and panelists are all thought leaders of our expanding green brain trust.  Many of their books are on my shelves today. 

They are THE people studying cancer proliferation, assessing air quality concerns, inventing cleaner chemistry and treating our increasingly infertile population of young Americans.  They are connecting the dots between our human health and the environment on our collective behalf.

Although their areas of expertise were wide-ranging, they ALL agreed that today’s loose regulation of chemical exposure, whether in our air, food, water or shampoo, is resulting in serious health concerns for our society.  Whether chronic or acute, people are suffering from ills at growing percentages that don’t pace with standard evolutionary expectations. 

There is a focus on finding a cure for diseases such as cancer so survival rates have increased.  But there is comparatively low credence paid to prevention so that incidence levels are spiking and more people are affected.  That includes our children.

In her opening remarks, Teresa Heinz Kerry, referenced the metaphor of a prism as a concept for understanding how medical diagnoses and treatments should ideally be approached.  “The lens that takes a single light and breaks it up into a rainbow of complexities” equates to the belief that the male body functions differently than the female’s; a child’s system is rapidly developing and highly susceptible to interference; nutrition impacts bodily function; elements in our environment can travel into our bloodstream and build up in our bodies; and visits to the doctor may be rare for those who cannot afford healthcare.

She believes, as do I, that ALL of these factors contribute to our general health.  And that it is essential for our medical community to begin integrating these complexities for every patient in order to diagnose an illness, or much better yet, prevent it.

This is not the current model of our healthcare system in America.  It is not the way our doctors are educated in medical school.  And it is not available to most patients unless they are willing to forego insurance to seek integrative care from a private health practice.  Perhaps this model will change as our government of the future crunches the favorable numbers that come from successful prevention, rather than the astronomical costs of saving a person who is already devastatingly sick.

But in the meantime, until we move our legislators down a path of stricter regulatory boundaries for polluters, chemical manufacturers and industrial producers, it is up to us, as citizens, to understand where the greatest potential hazards may lie and help minimize them from our daily contact.

Look at Bisphenol-A (BPA) as a perfect example.  As I’m certain you have read in the papers over the past many months BPA has been identified by scientists to mimic hormones and contaminate humans at the low levels to which they are commonly exposed. 

In fact, the San Jose Mercury News reported in May 2008 that Stanford endocrinologist, David Feldman accidentally discovered in 1993 that estrogenic molecules were leeching from his plastic test tubes.  What alarmed him at the time was that when “BPA was first synthesized it was known to be structurally connected to DES or diethyl-stilbestrol.  And 20 years after mothers had been treated with DES to prevent miscarriages, some of their grown children were developing vaginal cancers from that therapy.”

Feldman then went on to publish and present a paper entitled, “Estrogens in Unexpected Places: Possible implications for Researchers and Consumers.”  His unintended discovery was heeded by other scientists, who continued to study the effects of BPA, especially as it is heated or washed with particular detergents.

Therefore in early animal experiments, researchers have now linked early BPA exposure to miscarriages, prostate cancer, breast cancer, attention disorders, disruption of insulin regulation (a precursor to diabetes), increases in body weight, reduced sperm counts and infertility. 

As a painful reminder, BPA has been a widely used ingredient in plastic baby bottles, water bottles and infant formula can liners.  I would bet that the BPA levels of my first 2 children are shockingly high and I worry every day when I look at my 85-pound six-year-old who plays 4 sports and eats an entirely organic diet at home.  What might be misfiring in his system already?

The overall point is that specific concerns regarding chemicals in pesticides, plasticizers, pharmaceuticals and flame-retardants are no longer just the talk of laboratory professionals and environmental researchers.  These topics are becoming mainstream news.  And it is now our job to do something with this information. 

Therefore I was particularly inspired by what I learned, or in many cases heard more clearly, at this year’s Womens Health and the Environment: New Science, New Solutions conference.  The insights I found particularly relevant to the ongoing moregreenmoms dialogue are included below.

Nancy Nichols, author of The Lake Effect, followed Teresa Heinz Kerry with an incredibly moving speech about how her family’s health was dramatically impacted by the presence of toxic waste sites in Waukegan, Illinois on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Her sister, Sue, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 41 and died three years later.  Ten years after learning that her sister was sick, Nancy herself learned that she had pancreatic cancer.  After years of treatment, she labels herself not a survivor, but a “witness” to the journey that a cancer diagnosis can inspire.

A journalist by profession, Nancy undertook the challenge of understanding the relationship between her family’s health issues and the polluted shores of the Lake she swam in as a child. On one visit “home” again, she found chain-linked fences around a farm that supplied their food, a park where they played and a neighborhood where their friends lived.  All three had been deemed Superfund sites, which are federally administered projects to clean up hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment.

Nancy’s message to our audience was that in writing her book, she found that a powerful set of clues came from people who were willing to talk to her about their own health challenges.  The information allowed her to weave together the likely relationship between a small town of afflicted citizens and years of irresponsibility by polluters protected by a government that turned a blind eye.

“Stories matter,” said Nancy.  And I think she is entirely correct.  We all need to pay attention to the many clues we may stumble upon in our daily lives. 

A panel entitled Air and Water followed, featuring a diverse group of experts who each made brief presentations and then answered questions. 

The first panelist was Dr. Devra Davis, who is the Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  Among her MANY accomplishments, she is author of When Smoke Ran Like Water, www.devradavis.com/books.php, which chronicles the impact of industrial pollution suffered by residents of her hometown, Denora, Pennsylvania.

The air quality was sometimes so toxic that on one day in 1948, 20 people died from the killer smog emitted from their local zinc plant.  This factory sent so many particles in the air that you could not see the town from across the river during certain times of the day.

What Dr. Davis has since studied is how small amounts of pollution over an extended period of time can impact human health.  She used the example of hazy skies in Los Angeles and how people there complain about the paint jobs on their cars.  Well, if the Porsche is taking a beating, what about our bodies?

Her slides explained the essential function of our lungs and what happens to them as a result of chronic exposure to air pollution.  One observation she shared is that polluting particles can attract heavy metals, which increases DNA damage within our bodies.

Interestingly, oxygen from deep breaths helps expel pollutants from our lungs.  That comment inspired an “aha” moment for me by providing explanation of the importance of our breath in activities such as yoga when we work the toxins out of our systems.

Air pollution is ubiquitous, especially for those of us who live in big cities.  As a child, I remember seeing it pile up against the Rocky Mountains when weather conditions shifted in Denver.  But unless the pollution is visible, it can be easy to trivialize its dangers. 

We need to be more aware of the air quality in our communities and conscious of the pollution we not only encounter, but also create every day.

Dr. Claudia Miller followed with an overview of an entirely different category of air quality hazards, which are largely experienced indoors.  A chemical susceptibility and exposure expert, her presentation centered around a syndrome named TILT, which stands for Toxin Induced Loss Tolerance.

Dr. Miller’s example for the audience was the 1988 remodel of the EPA’s headquarters which resulted in countless reports of headaches, irritability, digestive troubles, sore muscles, mood swings, and odor sensitivity suffered by employees working in the new office space.

Essentially, what they discovered was that the materials used for the space had such a toxic soup of chemicals present in the glues, synthetic carpets, particleboard cubicles and paint that when combined with improper ventilation, the air quality was severely compromised.

When this synthetic assault occurs, our bodies do not have the enzymes necessary to detoxify and we feel sick.  Have you ever had a headache from a synthetic smell?  I certainly have.

Essentially humans are not evolved enough to process the massive increase in chemical intake we have faced over the past 40 years.  Therefore the exposures can result in a sensitivity that leads to a loss of tolerance, which in turn triggers symptoms such as those listed above.  Experts now say that indoor air can be more hazardous to us than the pollution we worry about outside.

What often happens to exacerbate the problem is that we attempt to mask the offensive smells with synthetic fragrances like air fresheners or scented candles for example,

Maybe I am on my way to a TILT diagnosis myself.  I literally could not bear to be in the rental car I drove to the conference because the cleaners they used to sanitize it were so overwhelming that I was completely nauseated.  And I don’t know about you, but I can’t even walk by the doorway of a Bath & Body Works store without reeling from the fumes. 

Dr. Miller’s advice was that “the best odor in your house is no odor.”  She admonished that when we smell something, we are breathing in chemicals.  And she said that the first couple of breaths provide us with important information.  Heed the assault before olfactory fatigue sets in and the warning lights extinguish.

Dr. Conrad Volz, spoke next.  He is an exposure scientist at the Center for Environmental Oncology, and some of his work has centered on how toxic metals released by coal-fired electrical plants have impacted our environment.

Because the emissions from these coal-fired entities include mercury, arsenic, cadmium, chromium and selenium, all of these elements are now widely found in our ecosystems and making their way back into our human tissues where they bioaccumulate and have a long-term affect.

What is especially scary is that the fly ash emitted from the factories carries element levels that are magnitudes higher than they are in coal.  But although it can travel across vast geographies, settle on our pastures and collect in our wild life, as well as in humans, fly ash is not considered to be toxic waste. 

The impact of this pollution is DNA damage.  And Dr. Volz has witnessed significant health effects to aquatic animals, water, soil and humans from this form of pollution.  He vehemently asserted that “clean coal” is an oxymoron, as no such technology truly exists. 

In closing, Dr. Volz communicated his fervent hope that we become more willing to apply comparative biology to understand that what is causing conditions such as gender duplicity within fish populations of the Allegheny River is relevant to human health concerns in our increasingly polluted society.

Policymaker and environmental saber rattler, Carolyn Raffensberger, then energized the audience with her calls to action.   In her words, “new science calls for new laws and new institutions,” to offer protections which reflect an ecological understanding of human health.

What she champions above all is that a clean environment should be an inalienable right of all citizens, now and for extended future generations.  Further, she stated that government’s role is to fulfill protection of the Commons as its trustee.  By Commons she means the things which we share as a society such as forests, water and air, which are essential not only to our economy but to our human and planetary health.  

Today, she argued, there is very lax monitoring of these valued, yet vulnerable natural assets, largely due to the relative evisceration of our EPA over the past decade. Therefore she would like to see our leaders designate legal guardians of these resources for future generations. 

Dr. Bruce Hill, a senior scientist for the Clean Air Task Force, was the final speaker on the panel.  His topic was diesel exhaust, which he asserted is one of the most dangerous air pollutants in our environment.  It is a powerful trigger of cardiovascular disease and can be directly attributed to 21,000 deaths per year in our country today.

These polluting particles penetrate our lungs, enter into our bloodstreams and play a role in the growing incidence of heart attacks, strokes, asthma, lung cancer and overall damage to our DNA.  He explained that women and children are particularly susceptible to toxicants from diesel emissions.

So not only is the black soot traveling in our air, often insidious and undetectable to our eyes, it is an incredibly potent heating agent that plays a fierce role in our climate warming trends.  Because these particles are dark-colored, they absorb light like a black top to radiate heat, when they are suspended in air (think L.A. smog blanket), and when they land as a dark layer on white ice (think melting Arctic).

What caught the attention of others at our table was that children are exposed to this pollution in high doses as they ride their school buses each day.  Not only do they breathe in air from the busy roads, but the emissions from their own vehicle also make their way into the bus’ atmosphere.

There is good news, however.  A filter has been designed and is available for the 11 million diesel engines that are on our streets today.  These off-the-shelf products reduce exhaust by 100-1000 times the current output. 

There is an opportunity for us as parents, drivers and citizens to encourage comprehensive state legislation to mandate the retrofit of fleets that serve our schools, our transit and our trash services.  Identical requirements should be crafted for private diesel operators, such as trucking companies.  Funds must be set aside to assist in this effort.  And clean specs must be developed for new fleets as they are manufactured on the mass scale required to provide services to our society.

The panel addressed several questions, but my favorite was this: “If you could do ONE thing to improve the lives of our children, what would it be?”  Here are the answers:

• retrofit every school bus in America with diesel filters;
• create as many school gardens as we can so that our kids can eat green, orange and red vegetables with every meal;
• stop the widespread application of pesticides on our lawns so our kids do not play and crawl in these chemicals;
• teach pregnant mothers more about how they can protect their unborn babies, and their newborns from toxic exposures;
• communicate that skin is our largest organ and a major gateway for hazardous materials to enter our bodies;
• invite our daughters to next year’s conference.

We were then treated to a lovely organic lunch that was served in compostable boxes.  Pitchers of water were on every table and the brief lunch break allowed attendees to buzz a bit about what they had just heard.

“I’m going right home to talk with my kids’ Principal about our buses,” said the woman to my right.  “Did you know about the fish changing sexes in the rivers?” said another.  And “How come more than half the people on this stage have already faced cancer in their lifetime?” wondered one rather awestruck attendee who was experiencing a sort of baptism by fire that morning.

Indeed,

And the best was yet to come.

That is, if you are a chemical exposure junkie like I have become.  Remember, I made a full admission at the beginning of this piece.

The next panel had a bland name, but an action-packed line-up of experts worth our full attention.  The Food and Personal Care Products Panel first featured Charlotte Brody, RN, whose presentation was called New Science, Old Policies: a haiku on how we reward ignorance and punish innovation, is linked here: 

http://www.womenshealthandenvironment.org/article.php?list=type&type=83.

I do recommend a perusal of her slides, but some of the points I noted are that:

• while cancer mortality is declining, incidence is increasing;
• young women and men are losing reproductive capability;
• animal studies are accurately predicting human harm;
• synthetic hormones are sending the wrong signals to the wrong place at the wrong time.

The numbers speak for themselves.  They are becoming increasingly impossible for us to ignore.  While the chemical industry continues to manufacture doubt, it is our responsibility to become more aware of how new science is working to champion the oblivious consumer.

By the way, hello.  We’re all in the same predicament.  And we are each looking for that lifeline to pull us to safe shores.   Today, we will sink if we rely on our government.  So for now, we must ramp up our survival skills and attempt to protect each other. 

Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, the next speaker, is one of the world’s leading authorities on lead and mercury poisoning.  Her expertise in this field eventually segued into studying pathogens in our environment and ultimately the safety requirements of our American food system.

Her talk at the conference was titled, “From Farm to Fork: What are the Problems with food Safety in the U.S.?”  Her opening line, “What’s NOT the matter with food in the United States?

For starters, she explained, neither the FDA nor the USDA has legal authority to order a recall of food items that are suspected to be unhealthy for consumption.  With the exception of infant formula, any recall is voluntary under current American law.

As our imports are increasing, our inspection capacity is decreasing.  The toxicity of our food is mounting, while the gatekeeping efforts decline. 

Because I am a devoted reader of Michael Pollan, I felt rather up to speed on her points and therefore took sparse notes and paid attention to the slides, which I will link when I can source them.  But a few of the overarching themes I noted include:

• be knowledgeable and aware of the food you eat;
• know where your food came from if possible;
• select carefully and support alternative purveyors who champion sustainable and healthy practices;
• help reform the system because it is tragically broken and demands our full attention.

Well, the next speaker is definitely one who is not afraid to follow that advice and roll up her sleeves.  In fact, she and others at her organization have been and essential resource for me as I have endeavored to learn more about the complex and clearly politically charged issues that affect not only every breath we take but every bite we eat.

Jane Houlihan, a leader within the Environmental Working Group, has clearly ignited a crowd before.  She began her talk describing a recent study of 20 teenage girls, ages 14-19, tested randomly across the United States to identify chemical ingredients in one sample each of blood and urine drawn on the same day.

What they found were 16 chemicals from four groups of synthetics including parabens, phthalates, triclosan and musks (fragrance).  What’s more, methylparaben and propylparaben were detected in every single girl, as was triclosan, which is the sanitizing agent found in convenient hand wash products such as Purell.  I have added a link to the EWG site to read more about their recent research:www.ewg.org/reports/teens.

What is important to understand is that all 16 of the chemicals found in their bodies have the capacity to alter hormone levels.  In fact eight of them block estrogen, while the other eight mimic this powerful agent in our systems.  More, five of these chemicals block androgen and one has the capacity to alter thyroid hormones.

What this tells us is that our kids are storing up these toxins in their bodies at a time in their development where critical information may be disrupted by a surge of non-natural hormone-driven activity.  The presence of these disruptive transmission agents is now believed to contribute to breast cancer, in addition to shockingly early puberty rates. 

Because our FDA cannot require cosmetic and personal care companies to test the safety of their products, or establish standards that acknowledge the potential impact of chemical exposures, teenage girls are especially vulnerable to the toxic onslaught that deodorant, make-up, perfume and hair products deliver.  90% of the ingredients they use every day have never been assessed for human safety.

Therefore the advice that Jane Houlihan offered was to:

• go fragrance-free;
• choose products with fewer ingredients;
• use safe sunscreen;
•  and go grey.  

Oh my, I know she’s right, but that last one is a toughie for me!

I’ve referenced the EWG Skin Deep database in many other articles, but it is absolutely worth exploring again and again, www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.

The final speaker in the group was Susan Roberts, who is the Director of the Food & Society Policy Fellows Program.  According to her bio, Susan’s “role is to integrate food, agriculture, health and law by developing strategies for safe, sustainable, just food.”

She explained to us that food is related not only to human consumption, but to sweeping topics such as peak oil (for its growth, processing and transport), global warming, suffering (hunger) and corporate domination over the family farm.

While a greater percentage of the world’s population is starving, the number of overweight children in America has tripled since 1970.  Fully one third of kids in our country are now expected to contract diabetes in their lifetime.  Doesn’t that make you want to take every can of soda off the shelves TODAY? 

We have to help our youth find a healthier existence, but instead, we are allowing them to subsist on fast, empty calories that contribute to bad behavior, lack of focus, lethargic activity levels, allergies, obesity, diabetes and heart disease. 

Ms. Roberts is working to establish a new food system that promotes “good food” that is organic, loaded with nutrients and safe for our consumption.   A resource she recommended to learn more about safe food is www.organic-center.org/science.healthy.php, which has some excellent research and commentary for your further reference.

She also believes that the “good food” must be “green” in that it has a low environmental impact during production and transport, and that wastes from the industry are recycled.  In addition, it must be “fair” and workers who grow, package and deliver our food must be treated with respect for their own health and welfare. 

Last, in the revised system, “good food” must be affordable and accessible.  An idea that received a rousing round of applause was that we should consider authoring an economic strategy to make “junk food cost a lot more, and healthy food cost less.” 

And where should we start?  “School food,” she believes.  That is an easy to do for all parents – get involved in the lunch programs in your community.  Teaching kids about good nutrition is a HUGE win in the war against the future ills they will encounter.

The last presentation of the day was by Diane MacEachern, author of a fabulous book called The Big Green Purse.  On her fantastic Web site, www.biggreenpurse.com  she has compiled great resources for items we all need to purchase for our households, including a popular question I receive all the time, the best kids lunch boxes!

Diane’s assertion is that while we can’t shop our way to a sustainable future, we can certainly drive the market in that direction.  Women in America collectively earn more than $2.5 billion per day and we influence 85% of all purchases in our households.  That includes 81% of groceries.

An idea she floated was to assign ourselves the title of Chief Environmental Officer in our households and begin to make decisions with an eye toward sustainability and restraint when we are tempted to overfill our carts at Wal-Mart and Target.  Buying fewer of the “wrong” products is just as important as raising demand for the “right” ones.

She believes, as do I, that it will become increasingly easy for us to source items that have been produced locally, fairly, and responsibly if we demand them in the marketplace.  I don’t know about your home town grocery chain, but our organics selection at Safeway is exploding!  That is not because it is less expensive or easier to source those products – it is because market share is precious and it is shifting as consumers become more aware of the costs associated with eating “bad” food.

After this final presentation, Teresa Heinz Kerry delivered an inspiring close to the day.  In exchange for the wealth of knowledge that her organization so enthusiastically provided, all she asked in return was for all of us to pay more attention.

Pay attention to what scientists are revealing in headlines each day.  Pay attention to the stories we hear from those afflicted with disease or illness.  Pay attention to what we eat and drink and breathe and smell.  Pay attention to the ingredients on the labels of items we purchase every day.  

She knows that if we begin to pay more attention, we will begin to truly understand where the many land mines of environmental health are buried in the synthetic green pastures of today's America.

And only then will we begin to demand not only a healthier existence today, but a more genuine and committed effort to focus on a future that protects the world our children will inherit.

So I am happily back at my keyboard.  There is so much to learn, so much to solve, so much to discuss, so much to innovate and so much to change when it comes to our environmental health.  

My worry and exhaustion have transformed back to the inspiration and hope that fueled the first steps of my journey one year ago.  Now that I've taken that deep breath, I'm ready to march forward again.

The gorgeous words of Robert Frost come to mind as I close today, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  But I have promises to keep.  And miles to go before I sleep,  and miles to go before I sleep."