I recently read an article regarding Public Health Measures on banning bisphenol-A, or BPA, from use. BPA is a toxic chemical that has been in the news lately because of reported adverse (negative) health effects in both children and adults. It is found everywhere plastics are; particularly liners of water bottles, baby cups, soft plastic toys, etc.
In the article, the American Chemistry Council (whose member companies create the bulk of the 1,500 new, synthetic, never-before-seen-on-planet-Earth chemicals introduced into our lives each year), thinks that worrying about BPA is unnecessary, as is any effort to ban the chemical from use, as is being done in Europe right now...
"The American Chemistry Council thinks all the fuss is premature... 'Based on the science, an international panel of experts organized by the World Health Organization recently concluded that public health measures on BPA are premature.' " In other words, the ACC thinks we should just keep using these chemicals regardless of whether we have data that they are safe or not. The assumption is that until we have die-hard proof that these chemicals are dangerous for the majority of the human population, we should just keep using them as we have been for years.
Wouldn't a more prudent, and common sense approach be to recognize that there is not enough scientific data showing BPA and triclosan are SAFE, and to have NOT BEGUN using them in the first place until there was die-hard proof that they are safe? The industries creating these chemical compounds seem to think using our bodies and our children's bodies in ongoing toxicity experiments is just fine. How many people will needlessly suffer in the decades of untested chemical use in the meantime? Why is the burden of proof left on the human population of brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and grandchildren? Why must the answer come from waiting until we develop disease over the course of years or decades?
There exists a philosophy of "better living through chemistry" that began in the 1950s and has continued through today in many aspects of our collective culture. Synthetic plastic products, synthetic clothing material, synthetic fabric for automobiles, flame-retardants in carpeting and upholstery... Indeed, technology is a tool that has moved our culture forward in innovative and important ways. We take for granted how much of our lives depend on chemical-based, technological advances, and many of these are beneficial and have the capacity to save lives. But technology must remain the tool that we as humans use, and not the other way around. When we start assuming that we can create chemical compounds that are totally unique and not known in the natural world, we cannot assume that they are safe. We cannot assume that we can put these chemicals in our foods (through genetic modification), in our bodies (through food processing, plastics containers, water bottles), on our bodies (in health and beauty products absorbed through our pores), and they will magically be assimilated without having some accumulative deleterious affect. The President's Cancer Panel recently made a huge step in acknowledging that environmental toxins and chemicals play a much bigger role in the development of disease than previously thought. They actually officially recommend that we avoid unnecessary exposure to pollutants and chemicals in our food, air, land, and water!
Whatever you do consistently over time has either a positive or negative affect on your body, your mind, and on your health and well-being. If you minimize your intake and exposure to toxic chemicals, move your body, eat whole, natural, organic food, & surround yourself with a supportive and loving social circle, you will be driven toward a state of health, growth, and evolution. This is true 100% of the time.
But if you trust that synthetic, unnatural chemical compounds are safe without having been tested for synergistic negative health effects over years; if you live a sedentary life, eat processed food, stay consistently stressed-out and surround yourself with an indifferent and unsupportive social circle, you will be driven toward a state of decreased cellular health, increased dysfunction and disease, and an early death. This is true 100% of the time!
With the exception of life-saving drugs and critical new technological advances, we as a culture should not be afraid to slow down; to embrace the fact that not all chemical or technological advances are good or necessary; and to assume that any toxin, chemical, or new piece of technology has the capacity to do harm on a grand scale.
In the words of esteemed naturalist Aldo Leopold, "An action is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of a living community and wrong when it tends to do otherwise." We can only truly do this when, with every action we take personally and collectively, we take into consideration the generations that come decades after us.
