After Flint, Helping Doctors Recognize Chemical Exposure

There are millions that have been ill for a long time and most upsetting when you go to a doctor that doesn't know anything. How sad after 20 years of being ill and meeting people all over the world that this is still something that so many people and doctors have no idea what to do. I don't get it there has been so much information for years. But it is a first step that doctors are getting educated. When people have Cancer many are not informed to be careful of the products they use. Bearnie Sanders went before Congress in the 90's and many gov agencies were aware of the dangers. At that time about 1/3 of the population was having difficulties around everyday products. Now with the new president taking away some regulations that many worked so hard to get-- people will be in more danger. You can imagine when all of a sudden you can't be around fragrance which is in everything and the companies do not have to tell what they put in our products. Seems like a security problem in this day and age. Even the EPA does ot know what is in our products and how crazy is that someone could just start a company and do what ever they want. It is the most painful and live altering illness not to mention if you became ill from mold that is another set of problems. The leaders that did nothing and took money knowing so many were suffering is criminal. I have watched the hearings but nothing is ever done. And they have the best insurance while we get no help and SS is really hard to get.

Chlorpyrifos. A recent decision allows it in our food. Europe--never.

Now that we know we have over loaded the earth with pollutants why not ban man made chemicals all together. There is always a natural way of doing things. Its everyones responsibility to change and not pollute or at least make an effort.

Anyone else's kid on a YMCA, high school or college swim team? I can't help but think of them when I hear "chronic environmental chemical exposure." They test the water, but not the air. Breathing chlorine gas for hours at a time seems like something that should be understood.

In my opinion, we, as consumers and citizens, must look at our lives and determine our 'toxic load'.Toxic load being all the chemical exposure added up over time.If you are 50 years old, start from day one and imagine all the possible chemicals you have been exposed to not to mention the genetic damage you started out with at conception.Yes, many chemicals cause genetic damage.Perhaps you have to imagine all the possible chemical exposure(toxic load) your parents had when you were conceived.The human body, supposing no genetic damage, is capable of dealing with a momentary low dose exposure to just about anything.But, none of us are only exposed momentarily to a single low dose of any single chemical from beginning of life to end of life.It's a history that we all start with, some better and some worse, accumulate over time, adding to each owns' genetic and biological history.Each individual then could have an upper limit at which the body starts breaking down.You're getting sick.Take stock.Take an inventory of your living environment, your work environment, your habits and actions, your surroundings, all of your exposures.Eliminate all chemicals that are a threat to you, to other humans and to the environment (including all those insects).Toxic chemicals kill the insects.Toxic chemicals kill the pesky weed.Toxic chemicals will do the same to us and it is.Add it up.We as stewards of the earth must take responsibility.Positive action for healthy life and healthy planet.

...and let us not forget what happened in Libby, MT...

Over the next twenty year Americans are more likely to be exposed to food and water born toxins than almost any other time in history. I'll cite a couple of examples. Here in Florida, the Florida Wildlife Commission (FWC) recommends that healthy adults should not consume more than one portion of King Mackeral per month, and that pregnant women and children should consume none. On a regular basis the FWC recommends not harvesting fish or bathing in certain bodies of water because of Karenia brevis blooms, better known as red tide. In New York, where I grew up, the EPA designated a small stream near my childhood home as a Superfund site a few years ago. Why, because during WWII the Liberty aircraft plant polluted the groundwater with heavy metals used for plating engines. Only took seventy years to figure that out. My brother and I used to wade and fish in that stream as children. As the resources for environmental monitoring are reduced, and environmental regulations are abandoned, we are being set up for higher levels of exposure to heavy metals and chemicals. Most of these compounds have effects on the human body that are not really understood. The 6th Extinction is ongoing today. Species are disappearing, from the land and the oceans, at an alarming rate. Maybe one of the next species to become extinct will be Homo Sapiens, in other words us. It's well and good to train doctors to recognize symptoms, but maybe we should focus more on not polluting our home planet.

I always find whose focus is primarily on man-made pollutants rather humorous. This, and other similar articles, ignore the primary source of potentially harmful chemicals - the plants we eat and the impact of our food preparation processes. Since plants generally do not prefer to be eaten (except in those cases when consumption of the seeds leads to their spread) and they cannot run, plants have only one way to defend themselves - produce toxins or distasteful compounds that will either kill the insect/animal eating them or make it distasteful. Indeed, the most toxic compounds known are all-natural. For example, rotenone kills as effectively as cyanide yet is considered organic. Genistein and daidzein, two potent endocrine disrupters, are produced by and found in soy beans in high concentrations. Aflatoxins, an extremely powerful class of carcinogens, and found in many peanut butters. Our cooking processes likewise produce large amounts of toxins. For example, coffee is a witches brew of carcinogens. Indeed, cooking any food at high temperatures will lead to the production of toxins and carcinogens. But, as any toxicologist will tell you, it is the dose that makes the toxin such that low levels of most toxins are completely. Due to our liver, we very efficiently detoxify most toxins, both natural and synthetic. Thus, I find this focus on low levels of synthetic toxins while ignoring the much higher levels of naturally occurring toxins a remarkable example of bad science.

I'm continuingly saddened that our corporate system floods poisons upon us without testing them for actual human health benefit, or harm . But then, corporations are people right?

Metal/chemical contamination is the serious health issue and yet most of the doctors are not required to follow the most recent researches and countermeasure treatments except some doctors practicing functional medicine. Whenever this issue comes out in the health column in NY Times, my comment is usually bombarded by the criticisms from doctors that are proudly ignorant and are sticking to their outdated knowledge from the medical school days. Two-thirds of the Alzheimer's patients are women. Other than their erroneous health knowledge preferring carbs instead of fats and their unfortunate hormonal imbalances, now the most advanced researchers are talking about possible hypothesis of particular Alzheimer's that is caused by toxic metals as they noticed cases and cases that a large number of female Alzheimer's patients are suffering from toxic-metal-triggered Alzheimer's. (source: Dr. Dale Bredesen of UCLA). Women suffering from osteoporosis discharge toxic metals when their bones are dissolved. These toxic metals have been combined to the bone for the long time. Usually our body produces amino acids and proteins that specifically purposed to combine these toxic metals to discharge from our body, but it can't handle flooding toxic metals.

The anti vaccine mothers seem to miss dangerous chemical exposure in the environment which always amazes me. Do they use plastic containers at home and spray for insects? Do they ever question the far more widespread chemicals already feared to be damaging? How to limit the exposures is an increasing challenge. Eversource is spraying Roundup under its transport lines on Cape Cod even thought runoff goes into wells and the ocean. All the drinking water for the Cape comes from those wells and seafood from that ocean. Lawsuits seem not to stop the spraying. The EPA has a lot to answer for and Pruitt has made it a moving disaster.

At first you want to blame the doctors, for incompetence, because they seem to react, reflexively, to sending patients away with a lackadaisical shrug and hands tossed in the air as if these many suffering are once again taking up their precious time with problems that are dreamed up rather than actual. And then we find out that corrupt appointees like Scott Pruitt just want to alleviate the consequences of unscrupulous agribusiness speculators from remedying the harms their poisons inflict on an unsuspecting consumer community. Little does it help us that vast numbers of know-nothings in the hinterlands and in the wealth belts regarded the general problems afflicting Flint and other similar towns as "Fake news" promulgated by the disreputable left-wing media. "Sometimes you don't see the consequences for generations," a doctor is quoted in the article. Not that that statement is suspect, but one must look for problems in order to see conditions that might be causing problems. After all, we learned about the disastrous effects of DDT and other contaminants in the 1950's. Let's expect more respect for parents and patients with complaints than just to send them away as if there were no actual causes for problems. Maybe there haven't been enough damage claims or malfeasance awards handed down to pressure the malefactors into correcting their practices. Precious little consequences have the government agents in Michigan, starting with the top on down, suffered these years.

Rural farmhands, many of them children working in the fields, were routinely sprayed down with pesticides by cropdusters and hand held sprayers. This started as a Jim Crow era custom, but never really stopped, even as the science showed soaring health problems for generations of sharecropper and migrant farm worker families. It was a running joke among the elite farm land owners who authorized the spraying: "They ain't going to school nohow so what's a few IQ points. Spray them down. They need a shower, anyways. It will keep the bugs off 'em."

Snyder is still governor. Can you believe it! What happened to the people of Michigan? I guess it's only one city, Flint, who cares. It won't to me. After Flint, this country elects Trump, who then installs Pruitt. This country has been scaling back funding science starting with Reagan. The current billionaire tax giveaway bill will accelerate this trend. America is now officially stupid. Expect more disasters.

The american academy of environmental medicine is the organization focused on educating doctors about The principles of environmental exposure and food sensitivities. I have educational videos on YouTube under my name if you would like to learn more about the effect on the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system of toxic exposure. This changes behavior and ability for people to handle stress and other exposures. They are for people who are more toxic have to reach out for treatments that help them get through the day even though they don't understand they are environmentally ill. I believe this is at the root of the addiction crisis. The more dysautonomic ( fast heart beat on standing compared to lying) these children are who are toxic from their school or home - often times from mold exposure - The more they crave stimulants to construct the veins in the legs to treat their problem. This includes nicotine caffeine, amphetamines, cocaine. Then when the entry to decide anomia is not treated over years it seems this burns out the adrenal gland completely and then only narcotics and heroin make them feel good. Please contact me in order to coordinate an educational program at your institution

I teach in an online masters program in health sciences. We don't have anything described in the article in our curriculum. Sad.

Indeed, the higher our station in life, the more responsibility we hold to make good of our knowledge and expertise. Or lacking that, show enough interest in toxic environmental changes requiring attention...and resolve.

The problem of environmental toxins is complex. Physicians are not educated adequately, insurance companies do not cover testing, brave physicians are denigrated and corporate profits are protected. Hopefully the tide is turning with brave physicians like Dr. Attisha and the rising tide of Environmental and Functional Medicine. Much is known. The Flint crisis is common compared to the Velsicol disaster of 1973-1974 in St. Louis, MI. Velsicol is one of the largest superfund sites in America and has not yet been abated. It continues to drain into the Saginaw Bay, compounding the problems of lead pipes. Velsicol produced hundreds of toxic chemicals, DDT and PBB among them. Robins still die on lawns, the cancer rates are very high, the inhabitants still suffer. The arthritis seen in this group are unusual, severe and untreatable. It is difficult to find labs to test for some of these environmental toxins and harder to get insurance to pay for it. Patients receive incorrect diagnoses, including chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, depression and fibrosing rheumatoid arthritis. Our treatments do not help much as the root cause has not ever been explored. When we we ever learn that to be good stewards of the earth will enrich ourselves and our progeny? When will we demand our leaders look past their own personal wealth? It will be easier to stop polluting the earth than to find solutions to treat the poisons. When will we ever learn?

Dr. Mona is right, I saw a bunch of patients with weird rashes in Flint. Totally stumped me. The water tasted really bad, but then our Governor was dissing Dr. Mona saying everything was fine. The city has replaced some of the lead lines, everybody is suppose to be filtering their water, and the water is coming out of Detroit. Speaking of Detroit, it is shocking how bad the air quality gets when you get close to the incinerator. I hope Michigan dems elect. Dr. El-Sayed for governor, he totally gets this pollution/public health connection.

Geezus - in the entire article not one mention of mercury? Mercury a known potent neuro-toxin found in batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, in significant concentrations in deep ocean fatty fish and yes, still as a preservative in some vaccines. It's so toxic its use in the familiar OTC antibiotic is now banned. And it's OVERLOOKED here? How will the public protect itself from this dangerous neuro-toxin if it's continually OVERLOOKED by the media? No excuse for an educated writer to make such an egregious omission. Pathetic.

Little or no regulations means more Deaths. Sooner or Later, but ALWAYS. Thanks, GOP.

Oklahoma has mercury in fish warnings in 54 popular public lakes but no testing for related health problems. Airborne mercury comes from 10 coal power plants, 4 within Oklahoma and 6 down wind just across the border in Texas. Dominate north - south winds' rains deposes mercury on our public and private lakes and ponds. Since Oklahoma is ruled by fossil fuel kings and gifted EPA with Scott Pruitt - there has been zero mercury poisoning testing for human health impacts by the state or EPA. Oklahoma is a no-environmental health concerns zone thanks to fossil fuels' porch monkeys - Inhofe & Pruitt!

Bravo for an excellent article. Education and training is essential in the growing calamity that faces humans from there complex interactions with the environment. And, the Congress needs to take the initiative in restoring funding to medical schools and hospitals with residency training programs to support the effort. On a lighter note, I understand that Scott Pruitt has removed the restrictions on the use of the toxic stew the president uses to secure his bangs (the quest for sartorial splendor as Trump seeks his authentic self).

The responsibility for promulgating the use of potentially dangerous chemicals should be automatically be compensated for by the companies responsible, even to the point of their being put out of business. The FDA has a remarkable reputation for assuring that medicines and medical devices are safe. This is achieved by constant testing, developing explicit SOPs (standard operating procedures) for every aspect of manufacturing of medical products. There is absolutely no reason that such testing for safety of non-medical chemicals, building materials, and etc should not be required to of all companies introducing new chemicals into the environment. It should be remembered that there is no known safe lower limit for lead and there are literally millions of houses covered with lead-based paint. Although our SCOTUS has given corporations the 'right of free speech', the right to fund electoral candidates without limit, there is no body, political or otherwise, that can give corporations a conscience. So the right to put practically any chemical of their choosing into our environment, needs to be strictly controlled by an FDA-like agency to assure industrial chemicals are proven safe before becoming environmental hazards. To do otherwise is to condone even more excess deaths than we are already subject to by rogue manufactured chemicals.

According to EPA, indoor exposure to radioactive radon gas causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the USA. Their web site has a lot of information. Test kits are available from many hardware stores. Many State geological surveys have information about where in each state radon might be a problem. The remarkable aspect of this public health problem is that so few people bother with testing when the public health consequences are so huge. Year after year, thousands of deaths!

Here's a reference as to what was or hasn't been dome with regard to contaminations and lead-poisoning in Flint, Michigan. Disgusting! http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/us/flint-water-crisis-fast-facts/index.html

Lots of talk, but did anything ever happen in Flint to fix the lead-poisoning problem?

The cause of asthma is unknown. The air (in the U. S.) is much cleaner than it used to be, yet the rate of asthma has increased. It's not that simple.

This is going on all over the country. Chemicals are used in farming more then ever and they tend to migrate in the wind. The lead problem in Flint is a castastrophe. The fact that it went on for years is a disgrace and the mayor should be held accountable. EPA conducted a lot of research on the health effects of many substances and chemicals. This has been shut down or is being addressed by "scientists" that have no ability or desire to find problems with these substances. The NIH also has had its budget cut and I do not believe they are currently addressing the issue. We need an administration that does not ignore science and engineering. Trump certainly does not believe in basic or applied research. Our only hope is that the incredibly rich dot coms will start to donate money to the cause and develop AI that can identify toxic substances by scanning the literature and figuring other methods to identify environmental harmful chemicals and other pollutants. The first thing we need to do is rebuild the USEPA!