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Chemical Hazards In Everyday Life
Summary of talk presented to the Pasadena Chapter of the American Nutrition Society.
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“When we deal with minute amounts of harmful substances, it is difficult to prove their harmfulness to humans since people don’t want to be guinea pigs,” said Dr. Granville F. Knight. “Additives of small amounts of chemicals do not add up arithmetically, but rather according to the specific interactions of the various chemicals involved. Sometimes equal amounts of four chemicals are more harmful than a like total of only one chemical for this reason.”
To better understand how toxic chemicals function, it is best to digress to consider the role of enzymes and cellular chemistry. Each cell is a chemical factory which contains tens of thousands of enzymes (amino acids, trace minerals, and vitamins). These enzymes activate chemical processes, but are not used up in so doing. The complexity of their work is unbelievable. Potassium cyanide and hydrogen cyanide neutralize iron and zinc in the oxidative systems, and thus the body cannot utilize oxygen from the air, causing death in a few minutes. There is a similar effect from chemicals in our everyday lives.
Our body utilizes food, but if anything interferes with these enzymes, the body cells become sick. The cell is almost immortal if nourishment is not interfered with. The heart is one of the organs that gives out as a result of poor metabolism. Actually our life span should be 100 or more years. The Hunzas live to 80 and 110 years in good health, with no tooth decay or other degenerative diseases. Their food provides an abundance of the essential elements.
Detoxification
We can modify the stresses and strains of daily living by following a good nutritional program. Toxins destroy vitamin C; aspirin increases our need for it, as does smoking. Those who smoke about 20 cigarettes a day need an additional 1000 mg. of vitamin C daily. Fatigue and stress also increase requirements for C.
Dr. R. Klenner of Reidsville, N. Carolina has done interesting work with vitamin C in treating polio patients. When he gave it intramuscularly or intravenously every four hours, there was no further increase of rigidity. He used it also in virus pneumonia with good results. “Rather than use vaccines for an increasing number of diseases, it would be better to raise the body’s resistance,” said Dr. Knight.
Commenting on schizophrenia, he said that it may be due to anti-metabolites circulating in the blood. Lysergic acid amide in minute amounts given to normal individuals produces hallucinations, so this would indicate that some mental illness may be on a chemical basis.
Antibiotics, another group of chemicals in wide use, destroy harmful germs, but also destroy friendly and necessary bacteria in the intestines which manufacture the B complex.
Pesticides
In foods, the United States Public Health service has found that all meals purchased in restaurants contain some DDT. Now we have newer hydrocarbons in variety, so it is possible to have as many as six different ones on the foods in one meal. What effect does this have on us? An outstanding doctor at Mayo’s has found that a number of his patients with leukemia had a history of some exposure to insecticides or strong solvents. Carbon tetrachloride may cause serious illness, damaging the liver and tissues. Some people have died from it because they used it indoors for cleaning a tie. Having clothes cleaned at the cleaners can also expose you to these hazards, so it is wise to ask your cleaner if he uses DDT in his cleaning fluids. This is often used as a moth-proofing agent. Dieldrin, sometimes used in the shampooing of rugs, is even worse than DDT.
Food Substitutes
In ice cream, extenders replace the eggs, good milk and cream. The harmfulness of food dyes is increased by the use of detergents in dish-washing. Since not all of the detergent can be rinsed off, some is therefore ingested. This residue helps us to assimilate food dyes from the intestines, which otherwise would not be.
Stilbestrol, used to add weight and plumpness to chickens, caused cancer in mice to whom it had been injected. Academy physicians testified to this effect at hearings in Washington four years ago. Recently the government banned its further use.
On the subject of insecticides, Dr, Knight said, “Dr. Barney Krohn, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, Jr., Dr. W. Coda Martin, and I believe that insecticides are harmful. No claim of harmlessness can be made in the absence of liver function tests upon the persons exposed to insecticides.”
There are three classes of pesticides:
- The older insecticides: Arsenic, lead, pyrethrins, and rotenone.
- The chlorinated hydrocarbons: DDT, toxaphene, TDE, chlordane, methoxychlor, lindane, aldrin and dieldrin.
- Organic phosphates: TEPP, HETP, parathion, malathion.
Of these chemicals the pyrethrins and rotenone are probably the least harmful. The chlorinated hydrocarbons are nerve poisons and their action is associated primarily with their solubility in tissue fats or lipoids. The cuticle or chitinous covering of most insects is water-repellent and seems to protect them from desiccation or drowning. The outer layer of this cuticle is of a waxy nature and has a definite affinity for DDT as though no cuticle were present. And the marked stability of this chemical presents prolonged opportunity for such contact. Flies readily absorb the compound through their feet. Those flies which are able to survive these pesticides continue to propagate at a rapid rate, causing resistant strains to develop all over the world. This necessitates newer and stronger poisons, which in time will have to be followed by still others of greater potency.
Poisoning Symptoms
In humans, the symptoms of poisoning by the chlorinated hydrocarbons resemble those of a cold–headache, sore throat, etc.–with antibiotics offering no relief. Other symptoms may be overwhelming fatigue and muscular weakness, peripheral neuritis, sense of a lump in the throat, severe emotional depression.
The organic phosphates are toxic by absorption through the skin, by inhalation and by ingestion. As little as one drop of concentrated solution in the eye has caused death. Symptoms of acute exposure include loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, excessive sweating, pupillary constriction, diarrhea, respiratory difficulty, headache, dizziness, muscle twitching and weakness. Hypodermic administration of atropine in doses of 1 to 2. mg. as often as every hour may be life saving in severe cases of poisoning.
Dr. Knight asks, “Do we need insecticides? Healthy plants will grow on soil that is healthy, as Dr. Albrecht’s work and the Haughley experiment in England prove.”
Combinations of chlordane and fertilizer for lawns may be dangerous to pets. One dog developed paralysis in his hind legs when he ran on such a lawn. Also harmful is 2-4D if used all over the lawn. It is best to treat just the individual weed instead. Those applying it may also inhale some of this, and be made ill. Those with a healthy enzyme system and good liver function may get by, but most people should avoid it.
Endless Hazards
There are still other chemical hazards in our environment. Even rancid fat should be avoided, because it has been found to cause cancer in rats. Thus we should avoid such foods as French-fried foods in restaurants, because this fat which is used is kept heated for long periods of time and is reused many times.
The air is polluted with smog. Fluoride given off by steel mills is also a serious contaminant. Water is polluted from aerial spraying, washdown of insecticides, refuse from manufacturing, etc.
On the matter of fluorine, the scientific accuracy of the widely quoted studies and statistics which have been used in its promotion to prevent dental decay has now been admitted to be open to question. In addition, the lack of opportunity for those who oppose fluoridation to be heard at meetings, such as PTA, etc., has prevented the public from obtaining the whole picture. Since 90% of tooth decay can be prevented by proper diet, why use fluorides? The rest of the body will benefit too.
For optimum nutrition, we should buy organically raised foods, grown without harmful pesticides; follow a high protein diet; drink medically certified milk; use ½ ounce of brewer’s yeast daily and/or freshly-grated frozen liver (or dessicated liver or fresh liver cooked rare); take soy or corn oil for essential unsaturated fatty acids; use cod-liver oil in winter; get sufficient rest and exercise.
Safer Controls Needed
To solve the problem of insecticides we should ask for the abandonment of the more toxic pesticides in favor of less harmful ones, and urge the development of widespread pest control by natural enemies. Write Congressman Delaney on this, and also your own congressman, and keep writing them. While your government representatives in local, state and federal capacities realize there is a problem and wish to protect the public, they are under pressure from pesticide manufacturers and distributors whose chief interest naturally is in sales. These groups refuse to believe that exposure to small amounts of insecticides constitutes a great threat to public health.
Entomologists, being primarily responsible for the production of large crops to feed a hungry world, are loath to accept proof of chronic toxicity–and such proof in humans is difficult to obtain.
You are the guinea pigs and must write your state and federal representatives asking them to take action. You must also contact your local departments of health along the same lines. The other side of the question must be heard from.