Are You Poisoning Your Family?

This question may seem a bit insulting. But I have some information that may shock you. This may sound like a pretty harsh question to you. In fact, it may make you feel angry. But it may make you take a look at how we do things now and how we need to make some simple changes which may make the difference between health or illness…even life or death.

You see, until a few years ago, I was poisoning my family. Of course, I didn’t know that. I thought I was doing the best I could with the resources I had.

Let us first understand what is a ‘Poison’?
We usually think of about someone ingesting a toxic substance. There are several ways that a body can be poisoned. If the chemical gives off fumes and you breathe them, then they are absorbed into your body by breathing. Get the chemical on your skin and you absorb it also. So, a toxic chemical can be absorbed by tasting, smelling and touching it…even touching a surface that it has been on days or months before.

70,000 new chemicals have been introduced since World War ll and most of these have not had extensive testing. Thousands of these chemicals appear on the shelves of your grocery store! They wouldn’t allow stores to sell products that weren’t safe, would they? Actually, if companies can make a lot of money with a product, it can be found at the store, safe or not safe!

We are the first generation to grow up with such high level of chemicals in our homes. And what do we do with them? We see them, we use them. We disinfect our children’s room with them, we clean with them, we smear them on our skin, we wash our clothes in them and wear them all day and sleep on them all night. We wash our dishes in them, we brush our teeth with them. They are a part of our lives. We grew up with them on commercials and trust them since they can be bought in any store. But, in reality, fewer that one-fifth have been tested for acute effects and fewer than one-tenth have been tested for reproductive or mutagenic effects.

And, now let’s see….in the past 30 years, learning disabilities, asthma and allergies are on the rise, cancer is still one of the top diseases & infertility affects more couples than ever before. Is it a coincidence? Shouldn’t we be finding answers to these issues rather than have them get worse?

One of the problems is labeling. Many household products don not require labeling. Products like pesticides only have to include the active ingredients-even though the inert ingredients may account for 99% of the product-and even though there could be toxins or poison like DDT in them! Many companies know their product is not safe and will include warning labels on them. We are so accustomed to these labels we tend to not read them until after something happens with the product.

The EPA has reported that the average home has chemical levels 70 times higher inside the home than outside. It was also reported that women who work in their homes have a 55% higher risk of cancer than women who work outside the home.

Indoor air pollution is a suspected culprit in sudden death syndrome, which will take about 5,000 U.S. lives this year. The incidence of SIDS is higher in the winter, perhaps because decreased ventilation in the cold months traps air indoors, where contaminants become concentrated.

Other behavior and health disorders caused by chemicals in our home include coughing, wheezing, nasal congestion, burning eyes, headache, muscle aches, irritability, mental confusion, uncoordination, and hyperactivity according to William Rea, M.D. of Dallas, past president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.

A recent book, Chemical Exposures, concludes that Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is the new disease called ‘the environmental illness’. It is suggested that MCS may already afflict 15% of Americans. For patients with MCS the body has become so sensitive to chemicals over a period of time that it can no longer tolerate even very low levels of everyday chemicals. Symptoms range from mild headaches, irritability, depression allergies to complete debilitating illnesses.

Yet slow contamination is by no means the only hazard in the home. Every year 5-1- million household poisonings are reported. Many are fatal, and most of the victims are children. Ordinary dish detergent accounts for more poisoning than any other household chemical. Ordinary dish detergents are extremely toxic—yet we don’t put them out of reach of children. Doesn’t this fact make you wonder about the residue left on dishes after we ‘clean’ them??

What really makes this discouraging is the fact that billions of dollars are spent each year to convince us through television and print advertising that we need these products and that they will enhance our lives—when, in fact, many of them are slowly poisoning us.