Health Care Without Harm

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Miracle II can alleviate all of these problems, safely and effectively, and

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If needed, our pin # is 2651.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Kraig and Shirley

606-376-3363

 

 

Charlotte Brody, Health Care Without Harm

 

Charlotte Brody, a registered nurse, is a founder and executive director of

Health Care Without Harm , an international coalition of 416 organizations

in 44 countries working to make health care more environmentally

responsible and sustainable.

<http://www.gristmagazine.com/images/dot_clea.gif> [Charlotte Brody]

 

 

Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday

 

Monday, 12 May 2003

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. A sunny, breezy morning. So I walked across

Washington instead of taking the Metro. The azaleas are fading but there

are new roses and peonies.

 

On the way, I passed three pesticide trucks outside of office buildings and

apartment houses. Would they be there if the workers and the occupants knew

what I know?

 

I am one of eight people who got their body burden of chemicals tested as

part of a Commonweal and Environmental Working Group study . So I know

about the pesticides and other pollution in me. My tests showed that my

body was carrying 85 contaminants, including 45 carcinogens and 56

chemicals that can impact the brain and nervous system. My blood and urine

contained two organochlorine insecticides and four organophosphate

pesticides, including the now banned Dursban, made by Dow Chemical.

 

How did these chemicals get into me? I never use pesticides in my house or

garden and I try to buy organic. But the pesticides still could have been

on something that I ate or the chemicals may have been sprayed in a room

that I walked through. I don't know. What I do know is that no one knows

what the combination of pesticides and dioxins and furans and PCBs and

phthalates and metals and volatile organic compounds that I am carrying

around is doing to my health.

 

The chemical industry issues press releases assuring the public that these

levels are too low to be dangerous. But the testing that these press

releases are based on does not look for the effects from combinations of

chemicals or for the subtle or long-term health effects of chemicals on

people and the environment.

 

As a nurse who has spent many hours going over informed consent forms, I

get riled up thinking about how the chemical industry enrolled all of us in

this giant experiment on our health without having to get our permission. I

never got the form.

 

The chemical industry would say that the body burden we all carry is a

small cost to pay for the benefits of modern society. But pollution doesn't

need to be the payment for progress.

 

That's been the experience of Health Care Without Harm : The Campaign for

Environmentally Responsible Health Care. When we started in 1996, hospitals

in the United States were major sources of dioxin and mercury pollution.

Today, hospitals are reducing the volume and toxicity of their waste

through environmentally responsible purchasing, reuse, and recycling. The

waste that remains is decontaminated using non-incineration technologies

that do not produce dioxin.

 

Thousands of hospitals have phased out the use of mercury fever

thermometers and blood-pressure devices. All of the major retail pharmacies

in the United States have stopped selling mercury fever thermometers and

now offer cost-comparable, safer alternatives.

 

Instead of debating how much mercury is necessary to impact the brain of a

developing child or how much dioxin a person can bear before the chance of

cancer increases, hospitals are figuring out how to decrease the amount of

toxic chemicals that come in the front door and go out the back. Leaders in

the health care industry are teaching each other how to use and emit less

mercury, less dioxin, less pesticides, and less phthalates. These lessons

are finding their way around the globe, as best practices and successful

case studies get shared and refined.

 

 

 

The day-to-day work of Health Care Without Harm asks and answers the

question, How can we reduce everyone's body burden of toxic chemicals? I

feel lighter for being part of it.

******

Kraig and Shirley Carroll ... in the woods of SE Kentucky

http://www.thehavens.com/

thehavens

606-376-3363