School kids are playing in toxic waste!

In Alaska, old government programs left toxic waste on site 50 years ago. Now, these areas are saturated with polychloriated biphenyls (PCBs), and some of them are being used as school buildings! Kids are literally playing with abandoned drums of hazardous materials. Check out this video to hear more of this outrageous story:

Cancer and PCBs are in love

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have been linked to cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Check out this video where The Non-Hodgkin's Project explains this magical relationship between this poisonous group of chemicals and NHL:



The Non-Hodgkin's Project is all about exposing this link, as well as forcing Monsanto to acknowledge responsibility for this issue. According to The Non-Hodgkin's site, Monsanto "the controversial biotechnology company, manufactured 99 percent of all the PCBs produced in the United States." If you would like to sign a petition telling Monsanto just this, click here.

DIY Water Cleanup!

Some people are becoming increasingly frustrated with the levels of pollution in their local waterways. Some are also becoming increasingly disenchanted with the government's dawdling approach to cleanup. Fed up with bureaucratic delays and stagnancy, many are now turning to the DIY remediation movement.



In New York, the Gowanus Canal is often refered to as the "loveliest toxic waterway" (The Earth Institute, Columbia University), polluted heavily with PCBs, pesticides and metals, among other contaminants. Disappointed with the EPA's tardy response to the situation, a local group of environmentalists decided to take action for themselves. Their efforts resulted in Jerko, "a refurbished houseboat, renovated with salvaged materials and fitted with a floating wetland" (The Earth Institute, Columbia University). The boat travels along the polluted canal, showing "how water can be cleaned through relatively inexpensive but surprisingly effective techniques of biological filtration through artificial wetlands. More importantly, it shows how citizens can take the health of their environment into their own hands without waiting for large-scale institutional action" (The Earth Institute, Columbia University).

Click here to read more about this awesome project.

Toxins Found in Umbilical Cords - Part 2

As promised, here's part two of this video series. Ken Cook discusses the risk of even low doses of chemicals, the rise of related medical conditions and some final thoughts on what can be done to reverse all of this. Enjoy:

Industrial Toxins Found in Umbilical Cord!

According to a recent article in Science in the Triangle, researchers have tested human umbilical cord blood and found a disturbing amount of industrial toxins! The chemicals included:

• 287 toxins and chemical pollutants, 200 on average per sample.


• 28 waste products, such as dioxins and furans, chemicals that come out of smoke stacks.


• 47 consumer product ingredients, such as flame retardants from furniture and clothing, teflon chemicals and pesticides.


• 212 industrial chemicals and breakdown products from pesticides that have been banned for 30 years or longer.

Source: click here

The identified contaminants included PCBs, DDT and Mercury! This means that "the placenta doesn’t filter out industrial toxins and environmental pollutants" and humans are being exposed to harmful chemicals during the most critical developmental stage. Watch this video below, where Ken Cook, co-founder and president of the Environmental Working Group, explains this study in greater detail:



Stay tuned for Part 2, which will post tomorrow...

Protect Yourself From PCBs

Here's a short video on PCBs:



I find it pretty crazy that PCBs have been found great distances from their original source. Although they haven't been manufactured for over 30 years, they've contaminated the entire globe. Some damage is impossible to reverse, which is all the more reason for strict safety regulation to prevent such destruction before it's too late.

PCBs May Impair Children's Vaccine Response

A new study suggests that PCB exposure hinders kids' responses to tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The study sample consisted of "587 children born between 1999 and 2001 on the Faroe Islands, located in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland." This area has been noted for high PCB concentrations in the environment. The study revealed,

"higher PCB concentrations, particularly in children at 18 months, were associated with lower concentrations of diphtheria and tetanus antibodies at ages 5 and 7."

This is some pretty scary stuff! Essentially, PCBs could be unraveling the benefits of decades of medicine. Even scarier, these effects are being noticed in children. This means that we will have to observe PCB impacts for years before we fully understand the effects of early-age exposure.

9-11 and Blood Cancer

When you think of 9-11, a lot of terrible memories may come to mind, including the death and destruction resulting from the plane crashes. However, you may not have considered the toxic dust cloud that resulted from the collapse of the Twin Towers.

8,500 recovery workers have experienced various illnesses resulting from exposure to the dust clouds, including respiratory diseases and cancers. Of the 8,500 suffering citizen, 75 have been diagnosed with various blood cancers, such as as NHL. All of these individuals are now involved in a joint-action lawsuit filed against New York City.

When the plastic, cement, insulation, glass and computers within the World Trade Center were pulverized, the resulting dust plume contained a number of carcinogenic chemicals, including asbestos, dioxin and PCBs. Read more here.

It's scary to think about, but there will likely be PCBs floating around NYC for years to come as a result of 9-11.

Seafood and PCBs

Eating seafood can be dangerous because all too often they swim, eat and breed in water that's been contaminated. Recently, dangerously high levels of PCBs have been found in certain seafood. Obviously, avoiding these species is a good idea, as PCBs can lead to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other deadly diseases.

Below is a list of seafood contaminated with PCBs according to villagevoice.com:

1. American eel


2. Atlantic and farmed salmon


3. Atlantic bluefin tuna

Man, this is going to make going out for sushi difficult!

Anniston, Alabama - my heart is with you

For nearly four decades, Monsanto Company dumped toxic waste into the local environment of Anniston, Alabama. PCBs were manufactured at this plant, and found their way into local landfills and waterways.

Monsanto engaged in many cover up activities. They bought their 70-acre plant in Anniston in 1935, and documents dating back to the mid-1930s reveal that company officials were aware of the devestating health effects caused by PCBs. Then, in 1966, a biologist hired by Monsanto placed bluegill fish along a creek in Anniston. All of the fish died within 3 1/2 minutes. The descriptions of the fish's death is pretty gruesome:

"I've never seen anything like it in my life," said Mack Finley, another former Ferguson grad student, now an aquatic biologist at Austin Peay State University. "Their skin would literally slough off, like a blood blister on the bottom of your foot."

But Monsanto stayed quiet for decades, amassing an unfathomable wealth, until the official PCB ban went into effect in the late 1970s.

Today, Anniston is a ghost town. Many residents got sick with various illnesses, and some left. To date, Monsanto still has not been forced to clean up the poisonous mess it left in this small town.

This sounds like a terrible, horror movie, but its real. Now, innocent people like Lucy are suffering because of it. It's a sad day.

Monsanto made PCBs

So PCBs, the toxic group of chemicals that have been shown to cause NHL, were once manufactured by Monsanto, the world wide conglomerate that has also been responsible for a number of ethically questionable products. Before production of PCBs was banned in 1977, Monsanto not only synthesized these toxins, but dumped them in the environment and people everywhere are suffering the consequences. I found this picture online, and it pretty much sums it all up:

Image from www.environmentalgraffiti.com

Hopeful fact of the day!

The survival rate for non-Hodgkins lymphoma is pretty high. The 10 year survival rate is over 50%.

The fact that Lucy is so young, and she led a very healthy lifestyle prior to her diagnosis, gives me alot of hope that she's going to pull through.

I also found an article that proves chemotherapy reduces PCB levels accumulated in the body. So if PCBs did cause Lucy's cancer, the chemo should be helping to get rid of them!

PCBs in the schools

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.

Scary link between PCBs and cancer

Cerro, Pharmacia named in another suit over Sauget pollution
From The Madison St. Clair Record last week:

Another Illinois resident whose relative died after being exposed to hazardous substances near Sauget has filed a lawsuit over the release of those substances.

Wanda Hurtt filed a lawsuit June 18 against Cerro Flow Products, Inc., Pharmacia Corporation, Solutia, Inc., Pfizer and Monsanto AG Products.

As a result of her exposure to the PCBs, the recently deceased Annie Pearl Able developed cancer and died, according to the complaint.

"According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a lifetime dose of one milligram of PCBs is sufficient to cause cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases," the suit states. "According to the World Health Organization, there is not a safe level of exposure to PCBs."

Not only are the PCBs dangerous to humans, but they also are hazardous to the environment, the suit states.

The releases began after the W.G. Krummrich Plant, which is also referred to as the Monsanto Facility in the complaint, began producing, storing and disposing PCBs at its facility, Hurtt claims.

In fact, "more PCBs were produced at the Monsanto Facility than at any other site in the United States, and perhaps even the free world," the suit states.

"To this day, one or more of the Monsanto Defendants and their consultants are actively engaged in a campaign of deception to mislead the residents and real property owners of communities adjacent to the Release Sites, including the Plaintiffs, into believing that the Substances do not present, and have never presented, any threat to the residents or to the real property of those adjacent communities," the complaint says.

Nate and Mary, if you're reading this, how scary is this?! This is just what you guys have been talking about lately.