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Canadian Children are Toxic Waste Dumps Tyler Morency - Vue Weekly VIA theFilter.ca June 16, 2006 Related - Study find pollutants in Canadian blood samples A cocktail of toxic chemicals have been found in the bodies of children across Canada, according to a study released Jun 1 by the non-profit organization Environmental Defence. The study, called “Polluted Children, Toxic Nation,” discovered a number of toxic chemicals that have been linked with neurological, reproductive and hormonal damage in both the adults and children who participated. A number of the chemicals have been banned for the entire lifetime of the younger subjects. “The most shocking result is that in many cases kids had higher levels of toxins than their parents did,” says Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defense. “The obvious implication of that is that this whole idea that pollution is getting better in our country is complete nonsense.” The study tested five Canadian families for 68 chemicals. The participants’ age ranged from 10 years to 66 years. It found that 48 of the 68 chemicals tested for were in the participants’ bodies including pesticides, PCBs, mercury and lead. Smith says that many of the toxic substances found in the studies’ subjects are banned in several states in the US and throughout the European Union. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that unless our federal government gets its act in gear, Canada is going to become a toxic waste dumping ground for chemicals that are illegal to sell in other parts of the world,” Smith says. “We are just that far behind international standards.” Smith says while many people see the effects of air pollution in the environment, they don’t necessarily see the effects of toxic substances inside themselves. “I think it comes as a shock to many people to realize that now the pollution is so bad that it’s actually seeped into their bodies,” Smith says. “And has actually, to a greater extent, seeped into the bodies of our kids. “We can make choices as consumers to limit exposure to our families. We can choose more organic foods. We can choose non-toxic cleaning products,” Smith says. “But at the end of the day, there is only so much we can do as individuals and so that’s why we need to demand clearly, loudly, that the government—the federal government especially—fulfil its responsibility to us.” Article Posted at www.KnowledgeDrivenRevolution.com Exposure to toxic chemicals can come from a variety of places, including everyday household goods like frying pans, vinyl shower curtains and crystalware. It’s a disturbing thought that many seemingly innocuous items could be the harbinger of chemical contamination—even the livingroom sofa is a potential health risk, if it has been treated with a fire-resistant coating. Fire retardant particles will often separate from the material it was applied to and float around in the air before landing somewhere else. “Flame retardants were designed in a laboratory specifically to be impervious to natural breakdown processes,” Smith says. “They don’t break down in sunlight, they don’t break down in stomach acids. They were designed to be indestructible. So, big surprise, they end up in our bodies, they accumulate over time, and we can’t get rid of them.” Fire retardants are made from the chemical compound polybrominated diphenyl ether or PBDEs. The United Nations Environmental Program has rated the compound as a “persistent organic pollutant” since 1995. Despite this, many goods on the Canadian market are still treated with the compound. It is difficult for medical science to measure the cumulative impact of toxic chemicals in the human body and the environment at large, but Smith says there is no safe level of chemicals in the body. “For many of these chemicals on an individual basis, we don’t know how safe they are. They’ve never been safety tested. And there is no accepted safe level,” Smith says. “For the toxic mixture—the dozens and dozens of chemicals that we found all at once in these various levels—certainly it’s the case there is no research at all on the impact of all these things being in our bodies, all at once, all of the time.” Despite the health risks of toxic chemicals to the public, the Canadian regulatory system often lags behind says Fe de Leon, a researcher with the Canadian Environmental Law Association. “By the time you make any sort of linkages around suspicion of toxicity of those chemicals, it’s way too late,” de Leon says. “We’ve been exposed. We’re finding it in our bodies, our tissues. Certainly the regulatory framework hasn’t been working fast enough.” On May 26, 2006, the federal government announced that it would review 4 000 chemicals believed pose a danger to Canadians. These chemicals have been in use in the commercial market for decades in some cases. “People should start getting concerned, obviously, because there’s a level of protection that you can take personally, but exposure to chemicals is very much unmanageable,” de Leon says. “You are exposed to these chemicals on a day to day basis whether you like it or not.” About KDR \| \| Home \| \| Weekly Features Archive	Weekly Weekly Features Archive
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Canadian Children are Toxic Waste Dumps

Tyler Morency - Vue Weekly VIA theFilter.ca
June 16, 2006

Health Related - Study find pollutants in Canadian blood samples

A cocktail of toxic chemicals have been found in the bodies of children across Canada, according to a study released Jun 1 by the non-profit organization Environmental Defence.

The study, called “Polluted Children, Toxic Nation,” discovered a number of toxic chemicals that have been linked with neurological, reproductive and hormonal damage in both the adults and children who participated.

A number of the chemicals have been banned for the entire lifetime of the younger subjects.

“The most shocking result is that in many cases kids had higher levels of toxins than their parents did,” says Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defense. “The obvious implication of that is that this whole idea that pollution is getting better in our country is complete nonsense.”

The study tested five Canadian families for 68 chemicals. The participants’ age ranged from 10 years to 66 years. It found that 48 of the 68 chemicals tested for were in the participants’ bodies including pesticides, PCBs, mercury and lead.

Smith says that many of the toxic substances found in the studies’ subjects are banned in several states in the US and throughout the European Union.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that unless our federal government gets its act in gear, Canada is going to become a toxic waste dumping ground for chemicals that are illegal to sell in other parts of the world,” Smith says. “We are just that far behind international standards.”

Smith says while many people see the effects of air pollution in the environment, they don’t necessarily see the effects of toxic substances inside themselves.

“I think it comes as a shock to many people to realize that now the pollution is so bad that it’s actually seeped into their bodies,” Smith says. “And has actually, to a greater extent, seeped into the bodies of our kids.

“We can make choices as consumers to limit exposure to our families. We can choose more organic foods. We can choose non-toxic cleaning products,” Smith says. “But at the end of the day, there is only so much we can do as individuals and so that’s why we need to demand clearly, loudly, that the government—the federal government especially—fulfil its responsibility to us.”

Article Posted at www.KnowledgeDrivenRevolution.com

Exposure to toxic chemicals can come from a variety of places, including everyday household goods like frying pans, vinyl shower curtains and crystalware. It’s a disturbing thought that many seemingly innocuous items could be the harbinger of chemical contamination—even the livingroom sofa is a potential health risk, if it has been treated with a fire-resistant coating. Fire retardant particles will often separate from the material it was applied to and float around in the air before landing somewhere else.

“Flame retardants were designed in a laboratory specifically to be impervious to natural breakdown processes,” Smith says. “They don’t break down in sunlight, they don’t break down in stomach acids. They were designed to be indestructible. So, big surprise, they end up in our bodies, they accumulate over time, and we can’t get rid of them.”

Fire retardants are made from the chemical compound polybrominated diphenyl ether or PBDEs. The United Nations Environmental Program has rated the compound as a “persistent organic pollutant” since 1995. Despite this, many goods on the Canadian market are still treated with the compound.

It is difficult for medical science to measure the cumulative impact of toxic chemicals in the human body and the environment at large, but Smith says there is no safe level of chemicals in the body.

“For many of these chemicals on an individual basis, we don’t know how safe they are. They’ve never been safety tested. And there is no accepted safe level,” Smith says. “For the toxic mixture—the dozens and dozens of chemicals that we found all at once in these various levels—certainly it’s the case there is no research at all on the impact of all these things being in our bodies, all at once, all of the time.”

Despite the health risks of toxic chemicals to the public, the Canadian regulatory system often lags behind says Fe de Leon, a researcher with the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

“By the time you make any sort of linkages around suspicion of toxicity of those chemicals, it’s way too late,” de Leon says. “We’ve been exposed. We’re finding it in our bodies, our tissues. Certainly the regulatory framework hasn’t been working fast enough.”

On May 26, 2006, the federal government announced that it would review 4 000 chemicals believed pose a danger to Canadians. These chemicals have been in use in the commercial market for decades in some cases.

“People should start getting concerned, obviously, because there’s a level of protection that you can take personally, but exposure to chemicals is very much unmanageable,” de Leon says. “You are exposed to these chemicals on a day to day basis whether you like it or not.”

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