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Measuring Pollution In Humans

Posted by Hemos on from the you-come-out-to-3.5%-filthy dept.

CHaN_316 writes "Scientists have begun measuring pollutants in our body and the results sound like a chemical clean-up site. They've found things such as flame retardants, chemicals derived from DDTs, mercury, uranium, cotinine, and many more. The concern is a lot of this stuff is ending up in mother's milk. But hey, at least in the event of spontaneous combustion, I'll be partially protected."

1 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. skeptical environmentalist by penguin7of9 · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    But it's OK, says the skeptical environmentalists: after all, we do not have definitive proof that all those substances are bad for you.

    Never mind that cancer is on the rise (could just be demographics, right?) and that dozens of species other than humans show hormonal abnormalities correlated with the presence of manufacured chemicals (could just be parasitic infections). Why be prudent and conservative if we can increase the GNP by 0.1%?

    In fact, it's probably impossible to prove at all that they are bad for you because no single substance may harm you--they may only harm you synergistically. And since you are exposed to all of them constantly, it is impossible to assign responsibility to individual chemicals. But without definitive proof that an individual chemical is harmful by itself, we wouldn't want to limit the freedom of corporations to pollute, would we?