Category Archives: Chemicals

If Chemicals Behave Like Drugs, Why Aren’t They Regulated Like Drugs?

 Good question!

Penelope Jagessar Chaffer TEDxBrussels 1

It’s a question I have asked many, many times, especially when dealing with fragrance chemicals and scent marketing.

Penelope Jagessar Chaffer wasn’t referring specifically to fragrance chemicals when she asked that question, but one set of the chemicals that she discusses in the following TEDX talk are often found in fragrances, laundry, and personal care products (but are never on the labels), and they have been implicated in many different adverse health effects, including the deformities of the penis that she elaborates on in this new video:

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Are Everyday Products Safe?

Sadly, too many of us have found out, with a loss of health or life, that they aren’t.

Here’s another short film about the problems with chemicals in everyday products and materials

UNSAFE: The truth behind everyday chemicals

Want to know where petrochemicals are hiding?

2012 petrochemical chart headerThere’s more:

petrochemical chart_2012 PDF download

 Please keep on informing yourself, then share what you learn with those around you.

In this day and age, we can’t depend on regulations and public policy to protect us.

It’s up to us to learn, and then demand better from manufacturers and regulators.

How Acceptable Are Your Levels?

 Do you know that you have hundreds of toxic chemicals in your body right now?

Do you know that our bodies weren’t designed to deal with 24/7 exposure to the kinds of substances we are breathing, ingesting, and absorbing all the time now?

If you have MCS/ES, then yes, you know. If you are involved with the environmental health movement, then yes, you know. If you watched the interview with Bruce Lourie that I shared earlier this year, about his book ToxIn ToxOut, then yes, you know. If you or someone you know has a health condition that has been linked to chemical exposures and pollution, then maybe you know… Otherwise, probably not…

How many of you have any idea what kinds of chemicals are in your body now, and what kinds of health effects they might be having on you, or on your eggs and sperm?

Have you agreed to be a chemical experiment (and are any of you being paid for it, or receiving funding to deal with the adverse effects that might happen or are happening)?

If you are like most of us, then you are completely unaware of what we are all being exposed to and the effects these exposures are having on our health. We still believe that products have to be safe if they are being sold to us. It’s hard to believe otherwise.

Like so many others, we don’t question this belief until something goes wrong in our own lives. Ed Brown was no exception. But after his wife suffered a couple of miscarriages, he got to asking

WHY?

And he made a film about his quest for answers:

Unacceptable Levels

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It’s Not Personal, It’s The Chemicals

offended

Have you ever noticed how some people get offended when we are disabled by, or get sick from something in the products they’ve used?

What’s up with that?

???

What about those who feign disbelief that we could be harmed by something they are using? Or that they could be using something that is harmful?

disbelief

While I am not up to delving into the psychological and emotional intricacies of those responses here, or how industry pays big money to create them, I did come up with a few simple images with variations of the following text:

It’s not you! It’s not personal! It’s the chemicals!

Fragrances, personal care, and laundry products
contain toxic chemicals that make it impossible
for some people to be around those who use them.

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Flame Retardants, Health, and Deception

If you haven’t seen the documentary Toxic Hot Seat yet, you (probably) don’t know what you’re missing! If you read the Chicago Tribune’s award winning series “Playing With Fire” a couple of years ago, then you do have an idea of what the film is about, but it is still very worth watching. We all need to understand the implications of what is discussed in this film. It affects each and every one of us.

Safer Chemicals Healthy Families‘ are streaming the film for free until December 7, 2014. Check out their website for all kinds of great info and actions you can take!

Sign up here to receive the link to watch the film.

toxic hot seat

Here are resources and an infographic on how to address flame retardants at home:

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Creative, Less Toxic, and Eco-Friendly Christmas Decor Ideas

The ideas and photos I am sharing are not designed specifically for people with MCS/ES, but they can be easily adapted to meet our needs.

The majority of people who celebrate Christmas do it with decorations, parties, and gifts, perhaps  with a visit to church, if possible. For people with MCS/ES, all of these traditions, as currently practiced, can be seriously problematic, if not downright impossible.

chapel of thanksgiving square dallas philip johnson

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Video: Everyday Chemicals and Other Toxins Affect Brain Development

child health

Please watch this important and very well done new video by Dr. Bruce Lanphear, where he discusses chemicals and other toxins that affect brain development in children (and can cause MCS/ES symptoms in others) and what we need to do about it.

Little Things Matter: The Impact of Toxins on the Developing Brain

Here’s a longer video presentation by him from Autism Canada

Excavating Environmental Risk Factors for Autism: Suspects and Strategies

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In a Doctor’s Own Words: A Toxic Legacy and 12,000 (+) Canaries Later

 

Dr. John Molot is a doctor who sees patients with complex, chronic, environmentally linked, and often disabling, health conditions. Although he is retiring from private practice, he is still a staff physician in the Environmental Health Clinic at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

He recently released a book, “12,000 Canaries Can’t Be Wrong“,  wrote a report in support of the Ontario Centre of Excellence in Environmental Health (OCEEH), and appears in a video presentation about the health effects of common  chemical exposures (see below).

Check these out:

12,000 Canaries Can’t be Wrong
What’s making you sick & what can you do about it

Books

12000Canaries_hiRessm

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Electromagnetic Fields: The Chemical Connection

“In other words, though work to reduce toxic chemical exposures can be viewed as quite distinct from efforts to address EMF exposures, both EMFs and EDCs can disrupt the critical signaling systems in the body and lead to problematic health endpoints.”

Nancy Hepp's avatarOur Health and Environment Blog

written by Elise Miller, MEd
CHE Director

Elise Miller, MEdAs you probably remember from your high school biology class, our bodies function using electrical impulses to communicate between cells, such as telling your heart muscles to contract or signaling your brain that you just stubbed your toe. Since everything relies on these signals, any breakdown or disruption in your body’s electrical system can become a real problem.

We also know that certain toxic agents, such as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), can alter our bodies’ hormonal messaging systems (which, by the way, uses electrical signals to communicate). When exposures to these chemicals, even in tiny amounts, happen during critical windows of development, then a wide range of health problems can result over a person’s lifetime.
So what do EDCs and electromagnetic fields (EMFs) have in common? As Henry C. Lai, professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle and an expert…

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Some Fragrance Contamination Effects

There are days that I am not as peaceful as I would like to be… This is one of them…

Despite most of my fantasies being about a world where we all have clean air, clean water, healthy food, safe shelter and clothing, and care about each others well-being, I admit to occasionally entertaining various “revenge” fantasies regarding those who allow toxic chemicals into everyday products and materials, especially those in the fragrance industry…

I have had different fantasies over the years, despite in my heart of hearts, not wanting anyone to suffer…Today another revenge fantasy emerged (since some people just don’t understand the harm their actions cause others, unless they personally experience the same or similar harm):

The people who allow toxic chemicals to be used in colognes and other fragranced products deserve to be locked into a room with no ventilation, to inhale the fumes from 20 opened bottles and packages of those products (like soaps, laundry, personal care and cleaning products) for 24 hours, no matter what happens to them while they are in there.

eau de not fresh

With their families and friends watching via live-stream somewhere else…

Ok, I’ll be a little considerate…maybe when they go unconscious or delirious, they could be taken to a hospital, to a room filled with toxic sanitizers, PVC/vinyl fumes, perfumed and cologned doctors and nurses… only to be told that their symptoms were all in their head.

Why, you might ask, would I wish such a thing on someone today?

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