I just stumbled into a scary article on PCB levels in public schools. PCBs are a family of chemicals that have been shown to cause non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and they are no longer manufactured in the US. However, many older buildings used PCBs in their construction and the government hasn't done a good job cleaning them up, even though we now know they cause cancer.
According to the article, early testing suggests that upwards of 1,500 public schools in the greater New York City area contain toxic levels of PCBs.
Some folks, such as the mother of 6-year-old Emelina Gonzalez, are taking legal action and filing a lawsuit. To read more about this, click here.
The worst part about high PCB levels in public school buildings is this: young children and early teens are at the highest risk for health problems resulting from PCB exposure. This is because kids are still growing and their bodies are going through a lot of changes.
It makes me so mad that we know about the causes of this terrible cancer, and yet we still can't clean up our public schools from these toxins. I'm sad to think that other kids are going to go through what Lucy is going through, and we have the knowledge to prevent it.
No comments:
Post a Comment