Believe it or not we are now on blog assignment #8 for my
Environmental Science class. This assignment had us read an article and reflect
on it. The article in question is “Regulating toxic chemicals: Do we know
enough about chemical risks?” and if you would like to read it too here is the
link: (http://faculty.rcc.edu/huff/FALL%202012/enviromental%20sci/blog%20assignemnts/RegulatingToxicChemicals.pdf)
After reading the article we were to either focus on one
issue raised by it or just do an overall reflection of the whole article.
Personally I went for the single issue, and the one that really caught my eye
was the part that highlighted the fact that all human bodies today carry trace
amount of chemicals. Now, there’s really no way of getting away from these
chemicals because they enter our bodies in numerous ways starting from when we
are a fetus into adulthood. Exposure can happen just about anywhere, as we
inhale pollutants that are in the air, ingest chemical additives and residue
from pesticides when we consume food and drink. Now, the issue with chemicals
invading our bodies is that they can cause cancer, birth defects, development problems
and other serious health impacts that are unknown at the time. This development
is very troubling because it seems as though there is nothing we can do to get
away from these chemicals entering our body, we can just try to reduce the
amount that enters. In a related article
I read (linked below) I found out that “environmental and lifestyle factors are
key determinants of human disease—accounting for perhaps 75% of most cancers”(ncbi).
This is a scary number and I think that while lifestyle factors are included,
environmental factors still have a huge impact. This brings me to the last
point which is whether or not the precautionary principle is something we
should be following when it comes to chemical regulations. I believe as a
country we should, because it is better to be cautious then to wait and see how
these chemicals will affect us in the long run. The dangers are real, and a lot
of the time we won’t know any adverse effects until it is too late. We are
witnessing this today with studies that have found out that chemicals used
20-30 years ago are now dangerous. Don’t be a guinea pig anymore, demand
stricter regulations that are more serious about human health.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC344268/
This is a graph that illustrates the increase of chemicals that we have discovered/monitored in the human body, known as Biomonitoring. As you can see it is a very drastic increase. To read more about this follow the source below.
Source: http://www.mackinac.org/9247
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