Chemical Terrorism....The Terrorist Next Door

For three years, I have been offering this column to the readers of the Hometown Connection for the purpose of educating you to the fact that most products and services you purchase and use are making you ill and eventually will kill you, your family and pets and your neighbors.  I am not peddling Pseudo Science, as one local doctor so publicly and falsely accused me of doing.  I report the facts from well documented research, peer reviewed studies and government agencies just to name a few of my sources.

Time has a way of letting the “cat out of the bag”, and now the World Health Organization (WHO), after years of denying the facts and studies, finally admit that Environmental Pollution is killing people at a rate of 1 out of 4, each year, due to unhealthy homes and work places.  This means the harmful chemicals, substances, and pollutants you have been putting into our air, water, and soil, and, thus, into your bodies from the products you purchase and use, are contributing to “our” deaths.  Modern Day Suicide! Am I peddling Pseudo Science?  I think not!

While polluted work and home environments account for 23% of all annual deaths, they account for 26% of deaths in children under the age of 5-years-old. Environmental pollution and chemical toxins are especially attacking the elderly between the ages of 50 and 75.  “Strokes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and respiratory diseases can all easily be traced back to the health and safety of one’s living and working environment. If one is immersed in toxic substances on a daily basis, it should be no big surprise that that person will develop serious – and deadly – health problems as a result”, says the World Health Organization. 

I have mentioned, in my articles, some of the environmental and chemical pollution that have been proven to be deadly and they are pesticides, herbicides, wood smoke, asbestos, chemicals in and on your foods, chemicals in your household products and chemicals in your health care products.  Recently the “experts” just admitted that powders containing talc causes cancer, a fact that I have known for years. With this “finding”, the lawyers are now raking in the dough with multimillion dollar litigation lawsuits for everyone involved.

But the “new kid” on the block is Silica Sand.  Silica Sand has been known to be HIGHLY carcinogenic for years, yet still allowed to be used on the job and in your homes and yards. It is a fine powdery dust that easily becomes airborne.  It not only invisibly “hangs” in the air for several days to weeks, depending on weather conditions, but it also travels long distances (drifts), exposing innocent people to a carcinogenic cloud of dust they have no control over and cannot help but to breath in. 

Inhaling these fine particles of silica dust is extremely dangerous, as it is responsible for health issues ranging from headaches and sinus infections to lung cancer and a condition now referred to as silicosis, of which there is no cure.   Silicosis can develop within a few weeks to even decades after exposure. When people breathe in silica dust, they inhale tiny particles of the mineral silica. This silica dust can cause fluid buildup and scar tissue in the lungs that cuts down your ability to breathe and eventually will lead to tuberculosis, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer and eventually death.  Inhaling silica dust has been proven to cause autoimmune disease such as scleroderma, lupus, arthritis and kidney disease, dental issues and the enlargement of the right ventricle of the heart.  Now that the government has announced the acceptance of what science has been proving since 1931, lawsuits are soon to follow for all concerned.

Silica Sand is used in construction, road paving, glass and pottery manufacturing, tile setting and as a filler for home patios, sidewalks and driveways.  It is recently reported that silica sand, or polymeric sand, is not recommended for residential use not only for the adverse health effects for the whole neighborhood, but it is not the best media for binding without cracking and for the elimination of weeds and ants.  It is used however, because it is easy and cheap for the contractor to work with. 

The dangers of Silica Sand are now right up there with asbestos, so it might be a good idea to ask your contractor if any of his materials being used on your property contain carcinogenic Silica Sand.  Like I have said many times, I really do not care what you do in your yard.  But please keep it there and out of mine.  Because I “choose” to live healthy chemical free…..

What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You....Or Will It???

A couple weeks ago, I saw the most interesting movie called The Confession, starring Alec Baldwin.  It was about a contractor who won a municipal bid to build a road through a city and he used contaminated dirt to capitalize on the project.  The road crew, who had to work with this contaminated dirt, all developed terminal cancer.  At this point, I wondered where the line is drawn between fact and fiction.  It brought to mind the Southington company, Solvents Recovery, that contaminated the ground and aquifers surrounding their property and most of the children in that neighborhood came down with cancer.

Now that Spring is around the corner, when we purchase products such as dirt, wood chips and mulch for landscaping, how do we know we are not getting contaminated waste?  Do we ask the provider if his product contains carcinogenic toxins?  Good luck with THAT one!  I can assure you, you will most likely get an answer that sounds good and a “dirty look”.  So, again, it’s buyer beware.

Upon doing some quick research, I found the latest craze that is being pushed on the gullible consumer is “commercial compost”.  In order to reduce the waste in municipal landfills, cities collect what they pleasantly call “green waste”, compost it and sell it back to the public for a tidy profit.  This commercial compost is sold by the yard to farmers, landscape services and companies that bag it and wholesale it to garden centers for you to purchase and use in your gardens and flower beds. 
This “green waste” is made up of plant and animal material such as shrubs, grass clippings and other yard wastes, crop residues, forest products, animal manure, food wastes, dirt, sewage sediments and sludge, newspapers and other approved paper products.

This compost is also sold as “organic” but is it really?  The USDA has come up with the National Organic Program (NOP) final rule that mandates the plant and animal material that can be permitted to enhance soil, may contain URECs: unavoidable residual environmental contamination. And this contamination includes pesticides and other dangerous chemicals and toxins such as antibiotics, heavy metals, prescription drugs, bacterial pathogens, arsenic, copper and lead. 

When this compost is applied to the soil, the pesticides and toxic poisons will leach into the soil when exposed to watering and rain and over time you will have a tidy acid-alkaline soil imbalance as well as contamination.  Your garden will not grow so nice and your flowers, grass and shrubs may discolor and die. And you will not even be aware that it was your compost and mulch that did you in.

At first, commercial compost was considered a win-win for everyone concerned.  But after a short while, the chemical contaminants started to rear its ugly head and death and devastation came to the surface.  Farmers were noticing lower yields and dying crops, as well as soil contamination.  The culprit was found to be Clopyralid, a widely-used dandelion herbicide, found to be present in City-manufactured compost. Golf courses were noticing their shrubs and trees were dying and after years of agonizing over the cause, they discovered that the DuPont herbicide Imprelis, was present in the compost used on the fairways. Trace residues of dichlorophenyl-dichloroethylene, a breakdown product of DDT, and bifenthrin, an ant killer, have been found in compost for potted plants and potted organic herbs, where they can be taken up into the plant through the root system.  And you then eat the ant killer in the herb. These pesticides and herbicides mentioned are also classified as known carcinogens.

This information was devastating to me, as I go out of my way to buy organic food, only to find out it is grown smothered in pesticide laced compost.  I OBJECT, your Honor!!!  In a world run by psychopaths, who have gone out of their way to kill everything good in God’s creation…..I do my best to live healthy chemical free.