===== A message from the 'toxicscaucus' discussion list =====

From: ashadra@pop.kin.bc.ca (Andy Shadrack)
Subject: Why I Fear Chemicals
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 13:54:11 +0000

Hi,

This is my latest Nelson Observer article.

Andy

Why I Fear Chemicals
by Andy Shadrack

"Here you had better read this," said my high school biology teacher as he shoved a copy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring into my hands. "You say you are going into farming," he continued, "so you had better learn about what is going on out there". Some 16 years later I found myself sitting in a Regina hospital, worried sick because my partner Gail was being treated for a five inch blood clot in her left leg, with a drug called Warfarin. For nearly a decade (starting in the mid-1960's) I had only known of and used Warfarin (the name used by the medical doctors was heparin, but it was the same chemical substance with the same effect) as an anti-blood clotting agent used to kill rats that were eating farm-stored grain. Even the term "war" and "farin" (farin is French for flour) means "flour war" between rats and humans.

And that is what we have waged throughout much of this century - a war against bacteria, viruses and virtually anything else we saw as pests. In the process I believe we have interfered with the natural balance between life forms, and so now we are reaping the consequences in increasingly apparent ways. I took my spouse into hospital because she was suffering from an intense pain in her left leg the night before our daughter was born. Having worked in animal husbandry for a decade, I was concerned that my soon to be born 9lb 6oz daughter was cutting off the circulation in my partner's leg.

The nurses ignored my concerns and the gynecologist did not show up until my daughter was nearly out of the womb. For the next 18 hours, 15 of them in labour, my partner was ignored and given two hot water bottles to ease the pain in her leg (an extremely dangerous response to a blood clot). Only after the trauma of labour did the medical staff at the hospital bother to check my partner's leg, when the whole leg began to swell and change color, and she could no longer walk on it. Thereafter an x-ray revealed a five inch blood clot, which the doctors decided to dissolve through intravenous use of "heparin" over the next month, followed later by Warfarin pills to continue the anti-clotting action for another six months.

Decades earlier Gail's grandmother had suffered the same medical experience (blood clots) after she had given birth to Gail's mother, and been forced to lie still in bed for about 8 weeks. Modern medicine promised to avoid that extended length of recovery time and thus reduce the risk of a fatal heart attack if all or part of the clot had decided to move. Less than a decade later, however, Gail's immune system collapsed and the only way doctors could keep her alive was through feeding her glucose intravenously. 
For a month during the spring of 1990 she could neither eat food nor drink water. In addition she has to wear a support stocking for the rest of her life as the valves in the veins of her left leg were permanently damaged by the clot, and therefore that leg cannot recirculate blood without the aid of a stocking.

I know that the use of "heparin" was not the sole cause of Gail's multiple chemical sensitivities, but I am sure it did not help her long term medical condition. For over three decades doctors had been pumping Gail full of antibiotics every time she got sick with bronchitis or some other illness. 
No one ever bothered to suggest she avoid being around cigarette smoke, dogs and cats, etc. They just treated her symptoms by giving her stronger and stronger asthma medicine and eventually an inhaler. I personally think that the build up of toxins in her body, due to a suppressed immune system, finally overwhelmed her.

Around the world 10% of all children are now chronic asthmatics due to industrial air pollution and off-gasing of toxic wastes from motor vehicles. In the fall of 1993 the Kaslo and District Environment Society determined that 15.1% of surveyed households contained persons who reacted to chlorine in a public water supply. Symptomatic indicators included hives and skin rashes (cracked and bleeding hands), headaches, constricted breathing passages, itchy eyes, digestive problems and diarrhea, and severe medical reactions - which in the instance of my partner included heart palpitations for over 48 hours on one occasion.

Thus it came as no surprise, when the Water Action Group of Erickson was preparing to defend itself against the possibility of a court ordered injunction to remove their anti-chlorine blockade this spring, that we quite easily found six persons who reacted to chlorine, plus one each in Creston and Wynndel. Ever since my partner became chemically sensitive I have found myself in a circle of people who react to all kinds of substances. Some take cortisone and other drugs, while still others live almost like gypsies in their cars and/or as hermits in the bush - trying to keep one step ahead of the substances that make their lives a living hell.

One of the most laughable aspects of these people's lives is the claim, by some among the population (including some doctors), that what they experience is all in their heads. Once, in Saskatchewan, I took my partner to the same hospital where my daughter was born because Gail was having a severe asthma attack. Fortunately, on the way to the hospital I had persuaded her to stick her head out of the car window and breathe in deeply, so that by the time we got to the hospital she was breathing easier. The young intern in emergency was next to useless as he declared it was all in her head and seemed quite angry at Gail.

A couple of weeks later the emerging organic grain producers network sent out an alert, warning that some farmers were combating that year's grasshopper infestation with a modified World War I nerve gas. I remembered that Gail's asthma was triggered as we came over a rise from the beach, that a very slight breeze was blowing towards us and that a farmer was spraying his crop in the distance. Coincidence or conjectured speculation, I stored the information away for later. I just remember feeling relief that I had suggested she breathe in and exhale deeply on the way to the hospital, because this probably helped her clear her lungs of what was irritating them.

Within a few years, in the mid 1980's, we were living in Medicine Hat where I undertook a one year contract at the community college, just down the road from the NATO chemical weapons testing range at Suffield. In the middle of winter my daughter Erin, and Gail as well, contracted a chronic cough, and when the usual cough syrup failed to make a difference we all went to see the doctor. He seemed little bothered by the persistence of the cough and openly admitted that a lot of people had this "infection", and we simply had to let time heal it. It went on for several months.

A little while later we learned that the NDP MP for Regina-Wascana was asking questions in the House of Commons about escapes of toxic substances from the NATO chemical weapons testing range, whose existence I had not discovered until after I had moved my family into this region of Alberta. 
Local peace activists maintained that some releases had been deliberate, escaping far into western Saskatchewan. The local population, they claimed, were being used as guinea pigs for military experiments. It all seemed a little too conspiratorial and on the edge of reality at the time.

The emergence of Gulf War Syndrome, on top of known toxicological problems from chemicals used during the Vietnam War and the more recent admission that medical notes were removed from 1,000 files of Canadian military personnel involved in Croatian peacekeeping operations, leave me wondering what our military leadership might be capable of covering up. More recently I got to wondering again about whether there was a correlation between the fact that Warfarin kills rats by causing them to bleed to death through the stomach lining into their gut, and the fact that Gail's ability to digest food and water stopped nine years after she had used Warfarin herself. 
Coincidence or scientific speculation, I cannot tell.

Last Monday night when I read the Ministry of Health's Medical Specialist, Risk Assessment and Toxicology response to the nine affidavits from the Erickson area describing reactions to chlorine, I was in a less speculative mood.

"While one should not doubt the sincerity of those submitting the affidavits, one must be careful in the medical and scientific interpretation one places on those reports. The affidavits make reference to: a) symptoms (e.g. headache, nausea), b) diagnosis (e.g. asthma, eczema) and c) inferences as to cause (e.g. exacerbated by, caused by)," states Ray Copes, MD, MSc (July 7, 1999, letter to Dr Andrew Larder, Medical Health Officer, East Kootenay Community Health Services Society from Ray Copes, MD, MSc, Public Health Protection Branch, Public and Preventative Health Division, Ministry of Health and Ministry Responsible for Seniors).

Dr Copes goes on to state, among other things:

"I am not aware of any evidence that would implicate use of properly chlorinated water in the causation of eczema, asthma, allergy or other medical conditions mentioned in the affidavits...I have attached a copy of the rationale for the WHO chlorine guideline".

At page 800 of the attachment to Dr Copes' own response to the Erickson affidavits it states:

"It has been reported that asthma can be triggered by exposure to chlorinated water (28). Episodes of dermatitis have also been associated with exposure to chlorine and hypochlorite (29, 30)" ("16.3.6 Effects on humans", International Programme on Chemical Safety, Guidelines for drinking-water quality (second edition), Volume 2, Health criteria and other supporting information, World Health Organization [WHO], 1996, page 800).

A quick check of the footnotes on page 803 reveals:

"28. Watson SH, Kibler CS. Drinking water as a cause of asthma. Journal of allergies, 1933, 5: 197-198.

"29. Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office. Ambient water quality criteria for the protection of human health: chlorine, Washington, DC, Office of Water Regulations and Standards, US Environmental Protection Agency, 1981.

"30. Eun HC, Lee AY, Lee YS. Sodium hypochlorite dermatitis. Contact dermatitis, 1984, 11:45."

Clearly the good Dr Copes did not read the attachment to the letter he sent to Dr Larder on July 7, 1999. Previously I had not known that the medical community had evidence since 1933 that chlorinated water caused asthma in some persons. I look forward to obtaining the article and reading it. It is now 66 years later and we are still debating the merits of chlorine as a potential disinfectant for our domestic water supplies.

I personally am not surprised to learn about any of the reactions to chlorine, having taken in a lungful of chlorine gas while cleaning pipes at the Regina sewage treatment plant in the fall of 1981. I also remember talking to World War I veterans who had experienced chlorine gas attacks in the trenches. Persons who are sensitive to chemicals, I often have to remind myself, have a much lower tolerance than those whose bodies are functioning normally. I, for example, can tolerate drinking chlorinated water and swimming in chlorinated pools and hot springs. My partner Gail cannot.

On this point the WHO document, for example, goes further on page 800:

"In a study of 46 communities in central Wisconsin where chlorine levels in water ranged from .2 to 1 mg/litre, serum cholesterol and low density lipo-protein levels were higher in communities using chlorinated water. 
Levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and the cholesterol: HDL ratio were significantly elevated in relation to the level of calcium in the drinking water, but only in communities using chlorinated water. The authors speculated that chlorine and calcium in drinking-water may react in some way that affects lipid levels (31)" (Taken from Zeighami EA, Watson AP, Craun GF. Serum lipid levels in neighbouring communities with chlorinated and non-chlorinated drinking water. Fundamental and applied toxicology, 1990, 6:421-432).

This is precisely the emerging concern around chemicals, some of whom (like chlorine) were thought to be relatively safe at low and very low dose levels for all humans. The problem, as Rachel Carson so clearly pointed out, is the long term rate of bioaccumulation. Chlorine may, for example, kill off bacteria and some viruses. But until I recently talked to a laboratory technician I was completely unaware that some bacteria were found in cosmetics as early as the 1970's even though chlorine was part of the chemical make up of that cosmetic.

While some people have developed chlor-acne to certain cosmetics, certain bacteria have gone on to become immune to certain disinfectants and almost all pharmaceutical drugs. Meanwhile rapid temperature change through boiling and/or instant freezing continues to remain one of the best ways to kill bacteria and viruses, other than through irradiation. Like all life, bacteria and viruses mutate. So it should come as no surprise that bacteria and viruses mutate away from forms that are vulnerable to human-made substances like chemical disinfectants and pharmaceuticals.

Further, bacteria and viruses, unlike humans and other higher food chain life, have a much faster lifespan turn around time. One human being quite literally lives through billions of bacteria and virus lifetimes. Thus I speculate that it is quite likely that bacteria and viruses can genetically structure themselves away from biotoxicity and potential extermination much faster than other life forms, when their habitat is disrupted. We humans are like whales and other mammals who store toxins in our body fat and other tissues. We know this from, for example, uncovering and analysing the bodies found from the Franklin expedition to the Arctic (it is now thought that the members of the Franklin expedition died from metal toxicity caused by the cans their food was stored in, and not from hypothermia or malnutrition as was originally thought).

We should know this from evidence found linking chlorine (and other chemicals) to cancer. Cancer is an extreme form of bodily dysfunction, in which human cells go rogue. The normal duplication of cells malfunctions due to an imbalance, and often the body cannot reverse that imbalance unless it is healthy. We all live with disease at a sub clinical level on a daily basis. Usually our immune systems kill off alien life that is harmful to us and/or rogue cells. When our bodies are weakened, that is precisely the point at which we become prone to disease and other physical invasions and mental breakdowns.

Our bodies become stressed, and unless we can overcome that physical experience of stress we can become increasingly sicker and sicker and eventually we can die. That is what happened to the birds and the offspring they generated, as described by Rachel Carson. And I believe there is a link between what is written about in Silent Spring and the impact that a pharmaceutical like Thalidomide has on human foetuses. As we go up the evolutionary scale in terms of life span, so too can the rate of bioaccumulation increase. Thus bladder cancer in humans is thought to be caused in part by 35 or more years continuous consumption of chlorinated drinking water.

Likewise trees die due to continuous use of fossil fuels that cause acid rain. In the Baltic 40% of the seal population died from a previously unknown virus in 1995, thought to be correlated to the level of toxic pollutants in the ocean, caused by untreated sewage and industrial waste disposal. In the North Sea German scientists found traces of an unidentified chemical which later turned out to be tranquillizers flushed from the toilets of millions of Europeans, whose sewage eventually flows into the sea. Treated or otherwise, some of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals that end up in sewage effluent have a much longer life and impact than any manufacturer ever considered.

The problem does not appear during initial product testing conducted in labs, nor in testing using elevated doses. No, it is the continuous use and bioaccumulation of compounds and as instanced above (by the example of chlorine interacting with other naturally occurring substances like calcium) the interaction of chemicals with nature. We simply do not know of all the potential deadly combinations which can occur when human-created chemicals combine with themselves and/or with naturally occurring chemical elements in the environment. We simply do not know the inter-generational impact of, what on the surface, seems like a benign product. We do, however, need to take a step back in order to reflect on the state of human health and the interrelationship with the health of planetary ecosystems.

In this century we have increasingly focused on symptoms of ill-health. We treat the common cold, instead of trying to understand how to avoid it. We spray for pests and weeds instead of trying to understand how to grow or create growing conditions in which plants can overcome sickness or stress due to "weeds", insects, etc. Quite literally instead of focusing on creating health we attempt to kill the symptoms that we call "disease". In the process nature has become a battleground, in which benign, symbiotic, and sometimes even protective species to our needs have become causalities of our war against nature.

As various complementary birds and other predator species disappear under the "rain" of chemicals, the plants we rely on for our food supply become more and more dependent on us creating the artificial conditions necessary for them to survive. We cannot, however, control global temperature. In fact we are inadvertently making the climate less stable. We cannot control moisture conditions or availability of nutrients in various soils. Yet the kinds of plants that we are bio-engineering increasingly require those kinds of conditions to survive and produce a crop.

The same is true of the direction we have taken in production of meat for food. Likewise modern human medicine requires us to exist within a narrower range of conditions than previously necessary. Humans who are raised using frequent doses of pharmaceuticals do not have the same level of immune system operation as those who avoid these drugs. Not only can they not fight super bugs created by the bacteria's and viruses' battle against pharmaceuticals, but those same humans are in danger of being too weak to resist what were once easily shrugged off infections.

Typically younger and older members of a species can be vulnerable because they have either not developed immunity,or age weakened bodily-response time makes them more prone to disease. Such a situation is exacerbated by the arrival of thousands of new chemicals since World War II. As the environmental auditor attached to the federal Auditor General's office recently said in a report to the federal government: many of the tests previously done on thousands of toxic chemicals were done at a time when testing procedures were in their infancy.

We are now in a catch 22 situation where the sheer number of chemicals needing to be retested, never mind those the corporations want to introduce, is greater than the capacity of the government sponsored labs to handle them. Only when a crisis arises such as at Chernobyl or Bhopal do we understand, in a magnified form, what we have and are continuing to unleash on ourselves and the environment that surrounds us.

For much of this spring and early summer I have been immersed in studies and regulations surrounding chlorine and two herbicides: Round-Up (Glyphosate) and Triclopyr. I am only a volunteer working outside my regular job, and these three substances are only a part of the political workload I have to pay attention to. How, I ask myself, can the average citizen know what is safe and what is not, what is bioaccumulative in the long term and what is benign.

I was originally trained as an agricultural technician. I saw a co-worker's skin peel and fall off after he slipped and accidentally dipped his arm in a herbicide spray tank. I was there at the beginning when we had protective masks which we very rarely wore, used water absorbing coveralls, wore no goggles, etc. I worked as a trade union organizer in a Saskatchewan Uranium mine and saw yellow cake dust on the floor of the mine's kitchen in the 1980's. I have lived with a person who has suffered from multiple chemical sensitivities for nearly a decade - a women I knew when she was relatively healthy as compared to now.

That is my experience, and that is why I question expanding and sometimes maintaining use of certain toxic chemicals. We will, in my opinion, not build a healthy economy with their use, maintain a healthy agricultural or forest industry, or strengthen our own human health. Ours is a society bent on combat - fighting a rearguard action against illness. We need to begin to search for health and how to create healthy conditions in which to live and grow our food, by producing less waste and toxic pollutants which foul the land and poison the very air we breathe and the water we drink.

Next time I will write about the contradictions which exist for us and the chemical companies by focusing on the alleged experiences that some people have had with one company: Monsanto. I say "alleged" because Monsanto is very aggressive about defending itself against criticisms, and runs a very pro-active public relations system. In an economy based on selling products we should not be surprised by this. We should, however, think through how our justice system and government bureaucracies defend the status quo.

It is, in Canada, legal to produce, sell and use a product until it is proven to make humans and other species sick. We even talk in terms of balancing the risks of human created compounds making us sick, as compared to naturally occurring phenomena making us even sicker. The current Ministry of Health bureaucracy in BC, for example, would prefer you to continuously use chlorine and run the alleged one in a million risk of contracting cancer, than have you continuously boil your water. It is preferable to spend billions in BC filtering and adding chemicals or irradiating water than it is to stop logging domestic or community watersheds.

Natural filtration by the forest that is good enough for all other mammals, providing they maintain their immune systems through a healthy diet, exercise, etc. is not good enough for humans. The fact that other life forms on this planet only survive through keeping themselves healthy is not a good enough guide for humans. And so we have now reached a point, in my humble opinion, where we need to ask society at large to choose. Is it better to create an economy, including food production, that is in step with natural ecosystem functions? Or is it, as some would have us believe, better to continue down the road of further creation of an artificial environment for ourselves that is free from the natural constraints that the planet originally imposed on us?

Filtering and chlorinating the water in Erickson to current urban industrial standards under Dr Larder's interpretation of the Safe Drinking Water Regulation would cost the people of Erickson $7 million for the capital cost of filtration alone - or approximately $8,200 per household. The addition of chlorination could add up to another $120 in capital costs, never mind the annual cost of maintaining the system.

This is only the dollar cost of using chemicals. Chlorine does not kill giardia or cryptosporidium and reacts with organic and inert materials in the water. Thus we have to first create the optimal conditions for use of chlorine to be most effective, otherwise we are misleading ourselves about the capabilities of chlorine. Just ask the people of West Trail, Cranbrook, Kelowna and Penticton who thought chlorination protected them from water borne illnesses. Ultra-violet also can only operate in filtered water, but it does at least nearly knock out giardia. Boiling the water is most effective, but does not prevent infection for someone who drinks unboiled water.

Thus because some humans will not take responsibility to ensure their water is protected from activity that can cause disease we have to add chemicals or irradiate the supply. Even when humans want to protect their water supply there is no guarantee that governments or the courts will allow us to do that. In 1997 I was arrested for trying to protect Silverton's back up and the Harris Ranch's water supply at New Denver Flats. I was sentenced along with six others for contempt of court for disobeying an order that allowed logging to proceed. I was placed on eighteen months probation and subject to an immediate seven days in jail if I failed to obey the terms of my probation. I currently still face a lawsuit claim filed against me and 16 others by Slocan Forest Products for disruption of their business, and for participating in an alleged conspiracy to organize what became an illegal blockade.

I admit that a water supply is not guaranteed safe for human consumption just because there is no human activity in it. Logging adjacent to or near a source of human supply can make that water easier for animals to access or may force them to seek that source because it has become the only available source of water due to clearcutting elsewhere. In the early 1990's beavers in Arrow Creek caused giardia, and the only way to end "Beaver Fever" was to trap the beavers above the intake and to lessen their likelihood of reentering the watershed by also trapping them for 25 kilometres around the creek.

In response to beaver fever, some citizens moving to Erickson and others living there did begin to filter and treat their household or drinking supply. Others boiled the water and some ignored the possibility of getting sick altogether. Are we, I ask, responsible for ensuring that all water purveyed must be ready to be consumed by humans or should we only treat that which could make us sick? Can we afford to spend the amount of money necessary to make all water potable from a mountain stream, river, lake or reservoir? Or is this just another example of us trying recreate the planet to suit our own needs? The 1992 BC Safe Drinking Water Regulation requires us to make all water potable and useable for domestic purposes without further treatment.

Next time, as I said earlier, I want to write about the contradictions caused by chemicals in our lives and the conflict that exists for corporations who produce and sell them. To give you an idea of what I am talking about: would you want to admit that the product that you grew, produced or sold made people sick? Yet that is precisely the dilemma that has faced tobacco growers and manufacturers of tobacco products. We are allowing legal products like tobacco to harm us and the emphasis is on others to prove that they do, before we place restrictions on them or eventually agree to remove then from sale to say minors under 19.

This is the same dilemma increasingly facing chemical companies like Monsanto. It is legal for them to sell chemicals and make a profit for their share holders by doing so. Executives and management receive bonuses for increasing product sales, but at the same time there is growing opposition to what chemicals do and how we are bio-engineering other species that are useful to us. How then do we start to unravel the gordian knot that is gripping our society? That will be the emphasis on the next series of articles I write - for you to read more about chemicals and why I have grown to fear them.


--
Peter Ronald, Pulp Pollution Campaigner Georgia Strait Alliance
Email: peterr@island.net
Tel: 250.361-3621 Fax: 250.361-3682
WWW: http://www.island.net/~gsa

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