Originally posted on Quora June 9, 2023
It seems as if everything we touch, taste or smell is a diluted slow acting poison in our modern industrialized world. As I mentioned in Plastic Poisoning much of the decline in fertility rates and testosterone levels is attributable not just to higher education, urbanization, sedentary lifestyles and the cost of childcare but also to the ubiquity of a class of plasticizers called phthalates, and these aren’t the only forever chemicals we have to contend against. This year, a lawsuit filed by a man that had Coca Cola product Simply Orange™ lab tested found that the juice was contaminated with PFAS a few hundred fold over the EPA advisory limit for drinking water, which not only endangers consumer health but contradicts their claim of being an “all natural” product. While this is just one lawsuit and one lab test that has yet to be replicated, its findings are reinforced by the plethora of evidence that petrochemical based consumer goods have wreaked havoc on our health. A new study from Silent Spring Institute and UC Berkeley estimates that 5,000 tons of toxins are released from consumer products annually just in California alone. Many of these chemicals, known as volatile organic compounds, are the main contributor to smog in metros and present occupational safety hazards to everyone from salon workers to janitors, mechanics and construction workers. What’s more, of the 100 artificial chemicals found inside of people 55 of them have never been detected in humans until recently and 42 are so-called mystery chemicals with unknown sources.
“These chemicals have probably been in people for quite some time, but our technology is now helping us to identify more of them,” says Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at UCSF, in a university release.
And it’s not just from ordinary consumer products; 29 of these newly detected chemicals come from pharmaceuticals and 23 of them come from common pesticides like atrazine. These chemicals were found in both pregnant women and their babies which means that children are born poisoned in a poisoned world.