Over the last seventy-five years, men have seen a sharp reduction in reproductive capacity, and evidence suggests that commonly found chemicals are to blame.
If that news isn’t stark enough for the future of humankind, these chemicals are also making us dumber. A recent piece in the New York Times drew attention to an important issue: endocrine-disrupting chemicals in everyday consumer products are killing or disabling sperm and making men sterile.
The numbers are extremely troubling. Scientists say that approximately 90% of sperm in a typical young man are misshapen, meaning they are unable to swim correctly. Additionally, sperm counts have decreased sharply over the last seventy-five years. As one researcher bluntly stated, “Not everyone who wants to reproduce will be able to.”
Our grandfathers may not have been able to understand our smart phones, but their ability to produce offspring vastly outpaced our own.
There’s a great deal of evidence to suggest endocrine-disrupting chemicals are the major cause of this problem. They’re found in plastics, pesticides, and many other products. Quite simply, these chemicals disrupt the proper functioning of hormones.
This first hand report is from a very interesting blog by a mother who fell ill from exposure to the many fragrances found in everyday products that we are frequently not aware of. Learn about her story.
She “developed Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Environmental Sensitivities (MCS/ES), Fibromyalgia, and eventually a side of Electromagnetic HyperSensitivity to wireless technologies (EHS or otherwise included in ES), tossed in just to make things more interesting (as the old Chinese curse goes). Adult onset, intermittent relapsing autism and MS have also made appearances, along with toxic brain injury symptoms caused by gas leaks and a series of other unavoidable exposures.” lindasepp.wordpress.com
Frequently there are toxic chemicals used to treat carpet and also contained in carpet cleaners
Fragrance Ingredients
“Below is a list of 3090 materials that were reported to be used in fragrance compounds by IFRA members in a 2008 voluntary survey. IFRA members are responsible for possibly 90% of the world’s fragrance production. The list was updated in 2011 and they say they will occasionally update it again with info from future surveys.
There could be ingredients used in fragrance manufacture that are not on this list.
Many of the fragrance ingredients are made from petrochemicals. Yes, from petroleum. Great stuff to breathe in (especially for children and pets) and absorb through our skin.
I hope to be able to get a list of the 4000 – 7000 chemicals that (according to the CDC) are in cigarette smoke, and then find a way to compare the two.
Note that health effects are not known for a significant portion of the chemicals in production and use today. Testing has simply not been done. When substances do show health harm, it is extremely difficult to get them off the market.
That said, there are more than a few substances listed below that are known to cause serious health harm.
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Reflections by Dr. L. Christine Oliver and Alison Johnson http://www.alisonjohnsonmcs.com Dr. Oliver is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Alison Johnson is the author/producer/director of books and documentaries on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. Visit http://www.alisonjohnsonmcs.com to download a transcript or to purchase her books or DVDs.
As always it’s so important to be awake and aware and be prepared to read extensively. The independent research is often shuffled away and needs to be uncovered. Industry frequently conceals it or adds it in very fine print. Most of us (as I used to) don’t read beyond the large label. Flip over any product though and examine the list of those unpronounceable chemicals there and then record and research them on the many ID sites available for these, along with the information as to whether they’ve been tested or not. EWG is an excellent site to do this. There are others. Minimizing our exposure to these unhealthy additives can only be healthy. There are safer natural alternatives. You may think your exposure is minimal however remember the chemicals soak straight through your skin into your bloodstream and accumulate. The damage is long term and cumulative. A cancer tumor can take up to 15 years to develop. An excellent book to read is ‘The Politics of Cancer’ by Samuel Epstein, a Medical Doctor who warned back in the ’70s of the chemicals in our environment that are leading to cancer.
Symptom lists for Alzheimer’s, Brain Injury, Chemo Brain, EHS (Electrohypersensitivity), Food Allergies and Sensitivities, Fibromyalgia, Inhalant Abuse, Mold Illness, MCS/ES (multiple chemical sensitivities/environmental sensitivities), MS (Multiple Sclerosis), Neurotoxicity, Pesticide Poisoning, Poisoning, Stroke …
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