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Unborn babies face a greater threat from pollution than
once thought, says a new study by the Environmental Working Group, a
leading nonprofit public-health-advocacy organization based in Washington,
D.C. The study found 287 different carcinogens,
consumer-product ingredients, and other chemicals in the umbilical-cord
blood of 10 anonymous American babies born between August and September
2004. Ken Cook, founder and president of the EWG, says that
although pollution in the air, water, and land has been examined for
decades, this study has revealed for the first time the real danger of
prenatal exposure to industrial pollution. “Before this study, to a large degree, medical
experts and scientists believed that the placenta shielded babies in the
womb from a lot of these chemicals by filtering them out,” Cook says.
“Our study showed that’s not the case.”
On Tuesday, Cook visited Springfield to present
EWG’s “10 Americans” before the environmental-health
committee of the Illinois General Assembly. He met with Illinois Times briefly beforehand
to talk about the implications of the research findings and about what
needs to change. The major concern, he says, is that many of the
chemicals identified in the babies’ umbilical-cord blood have toxic
properties that may be linked to such rising health problems as cancer and
autism. He argues against the rationale that better diagnosis has driven up
statistics. Instead, he says, increased exposure to environmental toxins
may be triggering an increased number of health defects. “We’ve just begun to study this phenomenon,
which is in itself shocking,” Cook says. “Eighty years into the
chemical revolution, we’re only now beginning to examine what
chemicals end up in us.”
Cook has begun lobbying state and federal legislators
to introduce more rigorous screening processes for industrial chemicals
such as fire retardants, personal-care products, and the agents found in
food-can liners before they are allowed on the market. The EWG’s main
goal is to modernize the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, he says,
which hasn’t been updated since 1976 and doesn’t impose basic
safety standards. “If you bring a new pesticide onto the market,
they have nearly 120 safety studies before it’s approved,” Cook
says. “That’s because a lot of those chemicals that end up on
food will end up in us.”
“But industrial chemicals also end up in
us,” he adds, “and there are no mandatory studies.”
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2008.
