Nifty self-inflicted biochemical warfare products
Life on Earth is a progression.
Billions of years ago, microscopic organisms thrived in a primordial soup toxic to modern life forms. Slowly but surely these prehistoric microbes self-destructed by creating environments toxic to themselves, but ideally suited to more advanced life forms. Just as lichens that grow on rocks create soil that supports plant life inimical to lichens, we're all sitting around worried about a meteor creating an environment inimical to humans, when we're doing it all by ourselves.
I wonder what life forms our toxins are paving the way for?
Further reading: Colburn, Dumanoski and Myers, Our Stolen Future 1996 ...Then try not to panic.
| AMAP, Arctic Pollution Issues. Public reports (All reports). |
 Cumulative
toxins |
heavy metals |
Impact on human health |
The Rhesus Factor
- Opening
quotation:
The extraordinary, rapid growth of the Homo sapiens population, coupled with its voracious appetite for planetary dominance and resource consumption, had put every measurable biological and chemical system on earth in a state of imbalance.. With nearly 6 billion human beings already crowded onto a planet in 1994 that had been occupied by fewer than 1.5 billion a century earlier, something had to give. That ‘something’ was Nature.
- Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague
- Chapter
12
Between 1940 and 1982…billions of pounds of synthetic materials poured into the environment, exposing humans, wildlife and the planetary system to countless compounds never before encountered. Consider a few figures that sketch the magnitude of this global experiment. U.S. production of carbon-based synthetic chemicals…topped 435 billion pounds in 1992, or 1,600 pounds per person. Global production is estimated to be roughly four times greater, but actual figures are impossible to come by. Around the world, one hundred thousand synthetic chemicals are now on the market. Every year, one thousand new substances are introduced, (the vast majority) without adequate testing and review.
- Colburn, Dumanoski and Myers, Our Stolen Future 1996
Cumulative build-up of what’s known as persistent artificial compounds – toxins…” Polar Bear PCBs and DDT, Actual figures in 1992 were around 64ppm, not 200. I projected 25 years in the future.
-Chapters 2-4 Colburn, Dumanoski and Myers, Our Stolen Future 1996
Updated figures on toxins in Polar Bears, including charts.
Farm-raised salmon, a growing staple of American diets, contains significantly higher concentrations of PCBs, dioxin and other cancer-causing contaminants than salmon caught in the wild and should be eaten infrequently.- Eric Pianin, Study: Salmon Contains Higher Amounts of Contaminants, Washington Post January 8, 2004
Boys won't be boys Something out there could be meddling with our fertility. And the latest set of pollutants is decidedly anti-male, says Julie Wakefield. The trouble is, the culprits are a vital part of modern life and we can't easily do without them.-New Scientist vol 174 issue 2349 - 29 June 2002, page 41.
EPA allows PCB contaminate lands in the US to be developed for housing
The Complexity of Gene Silencing. "Mi-2 complex couples DNA methylation to chromatin remodelling and histone deacetylation," Nature Genetics 23:62-6, September 1999 (Cited in 167 papers). Histone acetylation and DNA methylation are two important chemical changes involved in the intricate choreography of transcriptional regulation.1,2 Scientists know that they work in concert to turn genes on and off and regulate their expression." .... "No one is quite sure what genes these complexes target, but Bird's team performed a knockout study of the mouse homolog of MBD2, which produced animals that seemed normal, except that they abandoned their offspring.5 "We now want to bridge the gap between DNA methylation and maternal behavior," says Bird. (my emphasis) Ref 5:. B. Hendrich et al., "Closely related proteins MBD2 and MBD3 play distinctive but interacting roles in mouse development," Genes & Development, 15:710-23, March 15, 2001.
-For entire article citing all references and papers, see The Scientist 16[4]:31, Feb. 18, 2002 Article by Jim Kling
- Chapter
20
In just six months of breast-feeding, a baby in the United States and Europe gets the maximum recommended dose of dioxin, which rides through the food chain like PCBs and DDT. The same breast fed baby gets five times the allowable daily level of PCBs set by international health standards for a 150 pound adult...
- Colburn, Dumanoski and Myers, Our Stolen Future 1996
Here we go again…So, it turns out that poisonous polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are turning up in our food more often than we thought - and in larger amounts.
- Editorial; New Scientist 30 June 2001
- Chapter 30
Extract: Sonnenschein and Soto 1988 findings at the Tufts Medical School in Boston…
-Soto, H. Justicia, J.Wray, and C.Sonnenschein, ‘p-Nonylphenol: A Estrogenic Xenobiotic Released from ‘Modified’ Polystyrene,” Environmental Health Perspectives 92:167-73 (1991)
Extract: Updated Soto findings, 2001: In Utero Exposure to Bisphenol A Alters the Development and Tissue Organization of the Mouse Mammary Gland. Biology of Reproduction 65: 1215–1223. Markey, CM, EH Luque, M Muñoz de Toro, C Sonnenschein and AM Soto.
Extract: Feldman’s work at Stanford…-A.Krishnan, P. Stathis, S. Permuth, L.Tokes, and D. Feldman, ‘Bisphenol A: An Estrogenic Substance Is Released from Polycarbonate Flasks During Autoclaving.’ Endocrinology 132(8):2279-86 (1993)
Extract: John Sumpter, a biologist at Brunel University in Uxbridge…
-S. Jobling and J. Sumpter, ‘Detergent Components in Sewerage Effluent Are Weakly Oestrogenic to Fish: An In Vitrio Study Using Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Hepatocytes.’ Aquatic Toxicology 27:361-72 (1993)
Extract: Nicholas and Fatima Olea, at the University of Grenada…
-J. Brotons, M. Olea-Serrano, M. Villalobos, V. Pedraza, N. Olea, ‘Xenoestrogens Released from Lacquer Coatings in Food Cans,’ Environmental Health Perspectives 103 (6): 608-12 (1995)
Generations At Risk
Methyl Mercury commonly called Minamata Disease -- full story
Whale and dolphin meat sold in Japan has high levels of dioxin -Japan Times
Methyl mercury in dolphin and whale meat
Mercury Threat To Fetus Raised : EPA Revises Risk Estimates:Guy Gugliotta, Page A03 Washington Post February 05, 2004:
A new government analysis nearly doubled the estimate of the number of newborn children at risk for health problems because of unsafe mercury levels in their blood. Environmental Protection Agency scientists said yesterday that new research had shown that 630,000 U.S. newborns had unsafe levels of mercury in their blood in 1999-2000.
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