The US lags behind other advanced countries in regulating dangerous chemicals, making us more susceptible to COVID and a host of other diseases. Action Alert!
Thousands of pesticides, food additives, and cosmetic ingredients that are legal in the US are banned in the European Union, Brazil, and China—which may help explain in some part why Americans have lower life expectancy and higher COVID fatality rate than other comparable nations. The federal government’s deference to the chemical industry is completely unacceptable.
One of the most dramatic examples is PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals” that do not break down in the environment. We’ve written at length about the EPA’s failure to address the dangers of these chemicals, which contaminate drinking water and are used in Teflon, food packaging, and a host of other products. While the EPA stalls, it has been left to individual states to pass legislation to curb the use of PFAS.
Experts are warning that elevated PFAS levels can increase risk of serious COVID infection. They are also linked to a wide range of other health concerns such as cancer, thyroid disorders, kidney disease, autoimmune problems, liver disease, and more.
While the EPA seems to be twiddling their thumbs, European countries have been more active in setting limits on PFAS chemicals and in some cases even banning their use in food packaging.
But Americans are exposed to thousands of other chemicals that are banned elsewhere, increasing our toxic burden. Consider these facts:
- In 2016, US farmers used 322 million pounds of pesticides that are banned in the EU, 40 million pounds of pesticides banned or being phased out in China, and 26 million pounds of pesticides banned or being phased out in Brazil.
- The EU has banned or restricted 13,000 chemicals used in cosmetics; the US has banned or restricted just 11.
- A host of food additives are restricted or banned in the EU but not the US, including: potassium bromate, red dye no. 40, yellow dyes no. 5 and 6, chlorine-washed poultry, rGBH or rBST growth hormones used in cows, genetically modified fruits and vegetables, BPA, and others.
It’s hard to know the cumulative health impact of our exposure to these chemicals, but we do have some clues. For example, we reported early last year on research indicating that the epidemic of diabetes in this country is causedby exposure to chemicals. Many of these chemicals are endocrine disruptors, and thousands of scientific papers have been published over the last two decades linking endocrine disruptor exposure to the very comorbidities that increase the risk of dying from COVID-19, such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and reduced immunity.
These regulatory failures speak to the power of the chemical industry in influencing chemical regulation across many sectors of the US economy. This cronyism is undermining our health and, as we’ve shown elsewhere, reducing our ability to stay healthy with natural medicine. It has to stop.
Action Alert! Write to Congress, the EPA, and the FDA, telling them to ban PFAS. Please send your message immediately. By sending this message, you will also be supporting our petition to ungag doctors so that they can share with patients the benefits of supplements and natural treatments for COVID.
We must lead in this area, not lag behind as we do now.
for far too long large corporations have been able to dictate and otherwise influence the testing and regulation of chemicals in this country. We have released far too many chemicals into the planet making us live in a chemical soup.
The US lags behind other advanced countries in regulating dangerous chemicals, making us more susceptible to COVID and a host of other diseases.
Stop the madness
This is a very relevant article. I hope that people read it and take it seriously.
Communities of damaged people (like the Lyme disease community and other infectious disease groups) often wonder why they cannot clear their chronic infections. What is more, government and special-interest groups are inclined to ignore these suffering people (who too often defy the skewed, sterilized, bubbled of pre-clinical infectious disease studies).
Politicians like Bush and other conservatives in Florida pathologized environmental advocates as psychologically unstable and delusional (even going so far as to fire public health officials who tried to stand for environmental protection). Today, their work is now recognized as scientifically valid (where it once led people into a straight jacket). Psychologically pathologizing scientists who stand for the environment and public health is nothing new. History reveals that they have been discredited, mislabeled, stalked, harassed, become targets of gang-stalking, and killed. Sound like paranoia? Try looking into it…
As a result of untreated and unrecognized infectious disease syndromes, people do not want to pay for any public healthcare and are voting conservative. Sadly, this has ultimately defunded much of the Environmental Protection Agency and deregulates industries dumping chemicals and toxins into the environment). Few standards have been set at a national level, and even what has been set to limit chemicals nationally (like perchlorate regulation for water), has not been implemented.
But, reform is needed (not limited access to care). Our country operating under the control of the insurance industry and other special-interest control of the standard-of-care is not an excuse to deny human rights like universal medical care.
Infectious diseases worsen with chemical exposures. Chemicals reduces/uses up glutathione and other critical detoxifying proteins (which lowers natural killer cells that fight infections) within the human body. People need to understand the long-established relationship between chemicals, drinking water, autoimmunity, immune deficiency, and infectious disease.
During COVID19, our society is especially at-risk. Many people are willing to simply dump cleaning chemicals and run (without even cleaning them up or thinking of the consequences) in an attempt to sanitize during the pandemic. The consequences of the non-judicial use of chemicals is grave and will not only lead to more cases of COVID19, it will worsen them.
COVID19 is worse in the USA because American health is more damaged than other countries (our demographics are some of the worst in the developed world, as is the American healthcare system. The link between COVID19 severity and air quality is already established. Our society/government “turning a blind eye” to non-judicial use of chemicals, low air quality and environmental toxins is not new (because it implicates too many powerful entities). But during the COVID19, government oversight of private entities responsible for non-judicial use of chemicals and many other important public health areas has gone down. What we are seeing is an increase in the deregulation of big business globally, particularly in medicine and chemicals (not just oil and gas).
Then, people are scratching their heads wondering why they get infections like COIVD19 aggressive and cannot clear chronic infectious diseases anymore (like Lyme disease). Start with investigating drinking water, air quality, toxins in the food, and cleaning chemicals…then empower yourself with key compounds known in the medical literature to increase the production of glutathione and increase Phase II detoxification. I love the GeroNova Research stabilized and purified K-RLA (because it is known in the medical literature to address these areas) and I cannot wait to get some when it becomes available again!
Great article above. Thank you.
Thank you for this work. Understanding that
Since the end of WWII and the Chemicals of War were repurposed to Agriculture. This affected our family directly as My uncle got involved in fumigating grain elevators in KS. DDT & Chlorodane were used and Uncle died of BONE MARROW POISONING. My aunt’s vineyard was killed from Drift from the Toxic Spray. The Cancer Rate has done nothing but grow since then. The Hospitals just get bigger…Bigger Hospitals is a MAJOR SIGN OF A SICK SOCIETY! It starts in the Corporate Farms!
PFAS should be banned altogether. I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and do not need any endocrine disrupters, an autoimmune disease. I do not need my condition aggravated. I already live close to a metal shredding company. That’s bad enough. Please do not pollute crops, nor the water. I’m tired of my health being so affected by chemicals. It only costs more to Medicaid as I have lost my job as so many have in this time of COVID.