we are exposed on a regular basis to a hundred
thousand
chemicals
every single day
it depends on the spew where you are and I do mean a spew because it's a toxic spew
%uh and most of these most of these have never been tested for human safety
we're the guinea pigs
for
%uh a an experiment that is a way out of control and this is one of the reasons
that we have high rates of cancer although right now cancer is number two
superseded by %uh heart
cardiovascular problems which is now number one and asthma
which I will mention later it's number three
in addition there are eight thousand new chemicals that go on-line every year
to which we're also exposed
eight thousand
these too have never been has tested for human safety
chemicals and pharmaceuticals
are tested one at a time
and because the way things are right now there are very few independent labs and few independent
scientists
so a lot of this is as I say the fox is guarding
%uh a scenario that's really pretty awful
and we have known really since the thirties particularly for issues surrounding women's
reproductive problems
that tampons were safe
or unsafe in the thirties but a lot of things are covered up and that has not changed in
seventy years so having the pharmaceutical companies test things or the chemical companies
test things doesn't necessarily mean
that were safe if something is put on line
%uh
in addition these safety factors that the chemical and the pharmaceutical
companies
%uh test for
it doesn't really they're testing one chemical at a time this does not address what doctor
theo coburn in our stolen future in nineteen ninety six addressed and that is it's multiple
and one
chemical plus one chemical does not equal two one chemical plus one chemical could equal
especially in hormone disrupting chemicals sixteen hundred times the dose
and we are all walking time bombs that is a reality everybody in this room
bill moyers did a great great show about six years ago called trade secrets
%uh which is still available I believe on DVD
looking at this whole issue
of of the multiplicity of
chemicals and the problems
that %uh the problems I should say of greed
%uh have caused for
Americans and as I write in the uteran crisis it's all about greed it's not about
our well-being and safety
and there are countless stories
about the problems
of people who have become critically ill or died
story's going back to the thalidamyde crisis in the sixties and seventies
toxic shock syndrome
pesticide poisoning which are really off the scale
even for small children
and Vioxx just to name a few it was on the market when they knew it was unsafe and
people were spending a fortune
so that the companies could make billions of dollars
we are the guinea pigs in a huge and complex experiment where the health and environmental
repercussions are absolutely staggering
babies are now born with what is called the body burden
and that is while they're growing in utero in their moms bodies
they are already getting a chemical body burden that is
past on through
the umbilical cord and so by birth
these poor innocent children
are already affected
and there are staggering rates of birth deformities
cancers and other reproductive related illnesses that we did not have twenty or thirty years
ago
when I was growing up there was no such thing as a children's hospital think about it
we have children's hospitals all over
what has happened
what has happened just think about that figure what does a hundred thousand
chemicals mean
in a mixture that is not even
being tested
in its vast mathematical complicity