Back to basics

Have you ever heard people talk about how it seems more and more people are being diagnosed with cancer these days, and that the age of those individuals is becoming younger and younger?

Look back 40 or 50 years ago or talk to anyone who lived through that time and a cancer diagnosis was not the norm as it is today. Anyone living today might consider himself or herself lucky if they make it through to an old age and are never diagnosed with one form of cancer or another.

If you look at the science and the products used by humans it's no wonder the number of cases are on the upswing. The concern has always been that we are polluting our environment, but we're also poisoning ourselves. We're setting ourselves up for disaster and it's going to take a great deal of forward /back to basics thinking if we can ever expect the tide to be turned.

Health Canada taking action to possibly initiate a ban on bisphenol A is but one step in the right direction. It was all over the news last week that this chemical found in many common household plastics is a disaster that's already happened.

The chemical can be found in water bottles, sports equipment, medical devices, CDs, household electronics, food cans, etc. Especially troublesome about the announcement that bisphenol A may pose a health hazard to humans is the fact that the most innocent among us have been so heavily exposed to it through polycarbonate baby bottles and cans containing baby formula.

Take a quick look to the Internet and it won't take long to educate yourself on this chemical that is used in hundreds of common items. According to information contained on Wikipedia, "a consensus statement by 38 BPA experts concluded that average levels (of bisphenol A) in people are above those that cause harm to animals in laboratory experiments."

And what was the "harm" that came to those animals? The effects include: permanent changes to genital tract; changes in breast tissue that predispose cells to hormones and carcinogens; increased prostate weight of 30 per cent; lower body weight; increase of anogenital distance in both genders; signs of early puberty and longer estrus; decline in testicular testosterone; breast cells predisposed to cancer; prostate cells more sensitive to hormones and cancer; insulin resistance develops in two days, chronic hyperinsulin at day four; decreased maternal behaviours; damage to eggs and chromosomes; and reversed the normal sex differences in brain structure and behaviour.

This latest revelation adds to the list of chemicals/products humans have created that may or may not cause harm to the human race. Does anyone really know the long-term effects of using microwaves, computers, cell phones, pressure-treated lumber, carpet, paint, pesticides, etc?

The air we breath, the vehicles we drive, the houses we live in, the places where we work, the food we eat, the sun we rely on - can we consider any of it truly safe?

Reprinted from The Pilot, Lewisporte