A brilliant book edited by Nancy J. Meyers and Carolyn Raffensperger, this is an absolute must read for anyone interested in saving our environment. Every politician should be made to read this book and understand its teachings of how to use the Precautionary Principle in making decisions in our everyday life as well as public policy. Click on the book to get it from Amazon.com.
The other day, the media bleeted like a chirping bird that the mercury used in amalgams was safe based on two “definitive” studies. I looked at the research and was at first appalled, then angry and then spitting fire at the utter nonesense that was called science. The papers were so flawed that the trees used to print this drivel obviously died in vain.
So I was at my computer, ready to hop on my high horse and refute the studies when I decided to slide over to my good friend Pat Sullivan’s blog site to see if he had anything to say about it. Sure enough he was on the job with a masterful response along with numerous updates. Pat, you saved me a lot of time by putting your response on your site. Nice job.
So, for those of you interested, go to www.patsullivan.com and read up on the issue of mercury toxicity as well as the arguments in opposition to his position. Pat may have strong opinions on subjects but I truly admire him for his willingness to let opposing view points be heard.
Back in the 1990’s a proposal, quickly dismissed by the United Nations, is now back in the mix may be making a much needed comeback. What was proposed was that countries with vast forests of trees could swap not logging the trees, which protects the environment, with countries that exceed carbon dioxide emissions set under the terms of the Kyoto agreement. Basically for each ton of carbon saved by not cutting or burning the trees, you can sell that on the open market to companies or countries that exceed their carbon emissions.
Countries like Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica are in the forefront of this proposal. Indonesia, with vast forests could conceivably net $1 billion dollars a year by cutting back on their deforestation by 1/3rd. If the 3rd world countries would then return the money gained to the farmers who are most likely to cut down trees, then the incentive to not cut down the forest would be increased dramatically.
While there are major problems with this proposal, especially when you see that 80% of Amazonian deforestation is done illegally, it is a direction I believe we need to look into further.
Evidence presented at the 45th meeting of the Society of Toxicology suggests that this may be true. Glass, TA, Bandeen-Roche, McAtee, M and Schwartz, BS of Johns Hopkins suggested that environmental stress increased the cognitive damage caused by lead poisoning. This is the first study of its kind and has major implications in human health.
Environmental toxins like heavy metals and solvents have long been know to cause neurological dysfunction in humans, especially children, but the effect of stress has not been tested on environmentally poisoned individuals until now. The researchers found that higher levels of stress exacerbated the effects of lead exposure in children in Baltimore. These findings give rise to interesting treatment options to better aid those environmentally challenged. Not only do they need to detoxify but they may need counseling as well as ways to lower their stress.
More on this subject in the coming days.
About 4 years ago, I made a presentation at a clinical nutritionists meeting in Las Vegas, proposing that toxicity (solvents, heavy metals, toxins produced by bacteria and parasites, etc) were part of the reason for the growing obesity issues facing people today. I proposed that some toxins have the ability to block the entry point of the citric acid (Kreb’s) cycle and cause our resting metabolism to go down, sometimes dramatically. Additionally, a number of these toxins are endocrine disruptors affecting the thyroid, adrenals, pituitary, hypothalamus and pancreas.
Four weeks ago my brother came to my house and proclaimed that toxicologists have just discovered that obesity and toxicity are being linked together. Needless to say my wife and I had a big laugh and reminded him of what I had proposed a few years before. The abstracts of the presentations done at the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology are available at http://www.toxicology.org. Beware, it is a huge file (552 pages).
I spent the past 4 days going though it and noticed a number of abstracts related to obesity and toxicity (start on page 307, abstracts 1503 – 1508). I will be posting some of the most pertinent issues and abstracts on this website in the coming weeks along with commentary.