Click here to add text.
MY RANT
June 2010
Archive MY Rant
The Saga of Synthetics
In last month’s rant I discussed a lifestyle paradox that exists in this country, in which people are genuinely concerned about their health, and yet don’t think twice about using synthetic chemicals that clearly endanger their health. The situation has baffled me for decades, and trying to understand it requires a look at the history and use of synthetic chemicals, as well as the industrial powers that produce them.
So just how did the use of synthetic chemicals become so widespread? In a word -- war.
At the end of World War II, the government and its contractors, who together had been busy making bombs for years, suddenly found themselves without any customers and a huge surplus of the principal ingredient used to make bombs – ammonium nitrate. Government agronomists determined that ammonium nitrate was an excellent source of nitrogen for plants, and the fertilizer industry was born. (Tragically and ironically, ammonium nitrate is still used to make bombs by terrorists.)
The pesticide industry has its roots in the same era. Scientists discovered that many of the poison gases used in the war to kill people could also be used to kill insects.
So in effect, both the fertilizer and the pesticide industries are the result of the government converting its wartime machine to peacetime purposes, or swords into plowshares.
And today, both industries are behemoths backed by lobbyists and trade organizations. Admittedly, the focus of their marketing efforts is the agriculture industry, which purchases 85% of their products. But they spend millions on advertising to attract consumers like you and me, despite the fact that collectively we represent only 5% of their market. And their advertising campaigns are nothing short of brilliant.
After all, they’ve convinced millions of Americans (78 million, to be precise), that they cannot have a green lawn or a perfect tomato without the use of synthetic chemicals. And incredibly, they’ve actually defined our perception of what a lawn or a tomato should look like – lawns must be weed free, and tomatoes must be blemish free.
And they do this with the knowledge that the products they manufacture and sell pose a real threat to the health and safety of their customers. Consider the following:
Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 13 are probable or possible carcinogens, 13 are linked to birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, and 11 with endocrine system disruption.
Findings such as these have been submitted to the government by The National Academy of Sciences and the National Cancer Institute, among others, but they’ve fallen on deaf ears for decades. And the government agency responsible for pesticide regulation – the EPA – doesn’t even have the power to control the chemical industry, whose lobbyists have persuaded congress not to enact laws that might threaten their goals and their wallets.
For example, health data assessed by the EPA for the registration of pesticides comes from the manufacturer of the pesticide! EPA is not obligated to examine peer-reviewed scientific literature, even if the findings contradict industry claims.
Pesticide-testing protocol was developed before science fully understood the human immune and hormonal system. EPA still does not evaluate data for several neurological effects of disruption of the endocrine system.
EPA does not evaluate the health and environmental effects of actual pesticide formulations on the shelf. Data submitted to EPA also does not account for low-dose effects, synergistic effects with inert ingredients, or combined exposure to more than one pesticide at a time.
And speaking of inert ingredients, they comprise as much as 95% of a synthetic chemical product, yet manufacturers aren’t required to disclose them because of their status as “trade secrets.” However, inert ingredients can be more toxic than the active ingredient. According to an EPA study, 800 out of 1200 inert ingredients are classified as “of unknown toxicity,” 57 as highly toxic due to known carcinogenicity, adverse reproductive effects, birth defects, neurotoxicity and/or other chronic effects, and 64 as potentially toxic.
So how then, given the power and money of the chemical industry and the apparent complicity of the government, do we fight the battle against the use of synthetic chemicals? Simple. We don’t buy their products.
