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Our Disposable Society by S.
Suzanne Fisher, © 1999 Throw aways, cast offs, disposable –
are terms we would use for trash or waste, right? We certainly would not use
these terms to describe our friends, our families, our loved ones or
ourselves. However, large corporations, hand in hand with our government, are
now telling us that many of us in our society are disposable. In our world, the ‘quick fix’ has
become the preferred method of dealing with things. We spray away odors,
bugs, weeds, and anything else that bothers us. Our penchant for haste and
ease has led us to want increasingly more products we can use in this manner.
Moreover, our government and industry have tacitly formed a partnership to
bring them to us, many times without prior studies to determine the hazards
posed by these timesaving products. Throughout the past twenty years,
many pesticides in particular (a term that includes herbicides) have been
developed to replace the DDT and dioxin-related ones that caused so many past
environmental problems. The newer pesticides are supposedly safer, but are
they? We assume that our government would not allow products to be sold that
were hazardous to society. But, is our assumption correct? We depend on our governmental
agencies to protect us from products that are harmful. But the misshapen and
deformed thalidomide babies born in the seventies showed us that these
agencies are not as watchful as we would like them to be. Nor do most of them
have the regulatory authority to adequately protect the American public. The watchdog for pesticides, the
Environmental Protection Agency, is a case in point. The EPA and the chemical
industries have a revolving door, through which chemical industry executives
go to work at the EPA, and EPA employees are hired by the chemical industry.
The pesticide-producing chemical companies are huge contributors to
Presidential and congressional campaigns. Any incentive to toughen laws on
pesticides to adequately protect the public from their potential harm is lost
in these massive contributions. Many EPA employees are dedicated to their
jobs and concerned about the effect of pesticides on humans and the planet we
inhabit. Their job of protecting the public, however, is complicated by the
lack of adequate laws and regulations. These regulations include the one
that allows pesticides to be registered by the EPA (and offered for sale)
after manufacturers supply information on the toxicity of the active
ingredient. Unfortunately, there have been many instances in which the
toxicity information supplied to the EPA was wholly or partially fraudulent.
Most people assume that the EPA tests these products when they are submitted
for registration. The EPA not only does not test pesticides, it does not even
have a system for ensuring that the tests that are done by the manufacturers
are accurate. Registration of pesticides is based solely on the test data
submitted for the active ingredient. The active ingredient, however, is
only one part of the full pesticide toxicity. Pesticides contain inert
ingredients (surfactants, stabilizers, etc.) that in many cases are much more
toxic to humans (and other animals) than the active ingredient. Some pesticides
have even been found to contain toxic waste. Since the full formulation of
the pesticide is never tested, the synergy between the inerts and the active
ingredient (which can be even more toxic than the inerts and active
ingredients separately) remains unknown. The full formulation of a pesticide
is only tested after it causes poisoning incidents, and by then it is too
late to protect the public. Therefore, what we end up with on the
market are pesticides whose actual formula has not been tested. These
products are then used around the chronically ill. They are used in homes and
in yards where children (whose detoxification systems are still forming) live
and play. They are used in nursing homes where the elderly (whose bodies
cannot withstand environmental toxins due to lowered detoxification
capacities) live. Only after illnesses begin to develop in people who use (or
are exposed to) the products are medical studies begun to identify and
quantify the problems caused by these pesticides. Before that, they are
presumed safe by the public because they are registered with the EPA. However, the EPA is the first to say
that no pesticide is "safe." In the EPA's registration process,
they require a designation for each pesticide called the ‘LD50.’ LD50 stands
for ‘Lethal Dose 50,’ or according to the EPA, "the dose at which 50% of
the animals died." According to the EPA, the "lower the LD 50, the
more toxic the compound. " There are oral, inhalation, and dermal LD50
studies for pesticides. These studies are performed on laboratory rats,
rabbits, and sometimes guinea pigs. A better overview of what the term
'LD50' means can be found at
Alberta Agriculture
Food and Rural Development: LD50 values are used to rate the toxicity of the
pesticides. The LD50 is an abbreviation for the dose (expressed in milligrams
per kilogram of body weight of the test animal) that is lethal to 50 per cent
of the group of test animals. For example, if a pesticide has an oral LD50
value of 10 mg/kg, and the test animals each weigh 1 kg, 50 per cent of the
animals would die of poisoning if each ate 10 mg of the pesticide. The LD50 values for pesticides are
developed using healthy adult animals. (There is still doubt about whether
data from rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs can be reliably extrapolated to
humans.) However, most toxicologists would agree that there are three groups
of people who are more vulnerable to the effects of pesticide overexposure:
children, the elderly, and chronically ill persons. Recent studies have also
shown that a growing fetus is far more susceptible to pesticide damage than
previously thought. Using just the first three groups
(children, chronically ill, and elderly) leads us to a startling discovery -
a whopping 59.07% of Americans fall into the category of being more
vulnerable to overexposure to pesticides. Since pesticides are now touted as
a panacea for everything from fleas to weeds, they can be found everywhere.
Schools spray on a weekly basis in cafeterias, and almost as frequently in
other school areas. Public buildings usually have a maintenance contract with
a pesticide contractor. Lawns are ChemLawned, TruGreened, and zapped with
RoundUp everywhere from parks to golf courses to homes. Therefore, the underlying message
here is a very profound one. Persons with chronic illnesses, children and the
elderly are disposable commodities insofar as our government and the chemical
companies are concerned. Recent research has also shown that
women, because of their much higher estrogen production, are far more
susceptible to the ravages of pesticides than men. Many pesticides have been
found to be estrogenic, meaning that the pesticides link with estrogen receptors
to disrupt many bodily functions. According to the U. S. Bureau of the
Census' 1998 estimates, women comprise 51% of the American population. So,
does that mean that women are disposable too? What we are left with when we have
removed the chronically ill of both sexes, healthy women, children and the
elderly is that the only non-disposable category left is healthy males. Is
this truly the message we want to offer the citizens of this country? Is it
the way we want our nation represented to the world? Even more important, is
this the message we want to give to the next generation? The
chart shows the numbers of persons
estimated by the Center for Disease Control to have chronic illnesses that
are widely accepted by the medical community. Census figures are from the US
Census Bureau's estimated 1998 population figures. Isn't it time we changed this message
and stopped operating by Risk Factors? The Risk Factor method of doing
business presumes that a certain number of persons will be harmed by a
product. If the alleged positive benefit value to society from the product
outweighs the possible law suits generated by persons harmed by the product,
then the product is okayed for sale. In other words, the Risk Factor means some people may be
maimed or killed by
using the product in the manner suggested by the manufacturer. The people who
are maimed or killed are the losers in the Risk Factor gamble. But, we who
are not maimed or killed truly the winners? How can we continue to justify
progress at all costs? We, as a nation, a culture, a world need to recognize
that without public demand for this type of product, it would not be
created or marketed. So,
the next time you reach for that bug killer or weed killer, please remember - you could end up being part of
the Disposable Society yourself - the key word here is "killer." In
the Risk Factor game of chance, it could well be your number that comes up.
The Toxicity of RoundUp Herbicide |