Chemicals and Our Health

[groovedaddy]

However careful you are about your health, your body is almost certainly home to troubling chemicals called phthalates. These are ubiquitous in modern life, found in plastic bottles, cosmetics, some toys, hair conditioners, and fragrances — and many scientists have linked them to everything from sexual deformities in babies to obesity and diabetes.

The problem is that phthalates suppress male hormones and sometimes mimic female hormones. As I’ve written before, chemicals called endocrine disruptors are believed to explain the proliferation of “intersex fish” — male fish that produce eggs — as well as sexual deformities in animals and humans. Phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) are among the most common endocrine disruptors, and among the most difficult to avoid. They’re even in tap water, and levels soar in certain plastic water bottles.

They probably are not harmful to us adults, but it is another story for children. In girls, some research suggests that phthalates may cause early onset puberty. Most vulnerable of all, it seems, are male fetuses in the first trimester of pregnancy, just as they are differentiating their sex. At that stage, scholars believe, phthalates may “feminize” these boys.

“Commonly used phthalates may undervirilize humans,” concluded a study by the University of Rochester. The study, which was small, based its conclusion, in part, on measurements of “anogenital distance” — the distance between the anus and the genitals, which is typically twice as long for males as for females. Some scholars believe that shrinkage of this distance reflects “feminization” of male anatomy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/opinion/16kristof.html?th&emc=th

[HamdenRice]

1. You might amend your subject line to "synthetic petroleum based organic chemicals and your health"

because in about 10 seconds the "water is a chemical" crowd is going to be on you like white on rice to derail your thread. That's I believe the kind of chemical you are talking about.

[KT2000]

2. Pesticides too

Being sensitive to chemicals, I have the misfortune of living next door to someone who uses one pesticide, herbicide, along with chlorine and diesel in his yard to kill every living thing. Actually he tried to kill the weeds and pests in my yard by super dousing the property line. It is legal.
I barely made it through last summer and informed my "will executor" I doubt I would make it through this summer - as in die. (irrgeular heart rate, chest pains, closing throat, shortness of breath, dizziness, blurred vision) No money to relocate.
Miracle of miracle, my neighbor decided to let me live! and he is using fewer chemicals in his yard.

I once got a call from a couple who had both had heart surgery and during their recovery - commercial yard care cos doused the yards on both sides of them so they could hardly breathe. There was nothing they could do except seek medical help.

These scenarios annd others are repeated daily by many people but the rights of chemical companies and their consumers are greater than people who do not wish to be exposed to poisons.

The deaths and illnesses are never recorded as having to do with chemical exposure - that just does not exist!