Green Mothers Digest

Yup.  Environmental toxins build up in people’s bodies, including children…. Who knew?  This is an article for mealy-mouthed politicians that should be rubbed into their eyeballs again and again until they cry for mercy.  But there ain’t none.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/22/body.burden/index.html?eref=yahoo

A headline in Yahoo today, parents claiming religious reasons, refuse to have their children vaccinated.. 

When I had my third child in 1999, studies were just coming out that childhood autism was becoming more frequent, and the cause might be mercury and other toxins in common childhood vaccines, like the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine.  I delayed my daughter’s vaccine somewhat, but finally caved in – not pressure from anybody, but just common sense and the urgency that I myself felt I had to protect her from all those diseases – and I had her vaccinated but only after reassuring myself that the vaccines my doctor’s office was using did not contain mercury.

Here is a site about childhood immunization that has some useful information.

I heard about lead in lipstick the other day, and most often in the pricier ones.  Sighing with relief I figured I was safe then since I never spend more on lipstick than what you can buy in any supermarket, and Revlon apparently had no lead or very little.  I think I know why there might be lead in the more expensive ones – they are usually creamier, and glide on more easily, and just as in plastic lead perhaps is used to make the product softer?  I really don’t know, but I have my theories.  And also, I have Burt’s Bees. 

And now comes the clinker: There is considerable lead in Burt’s Bees lipstick too!  And the theory right now goes that apparently lead might be naturally occuring in the mining process of titanium dioxide!  And, hello — I have been shmearing “California Baby’s” exorbitantly expensive sunscreen on my kids for years and the main ingredient is, you guessed it, titanium dioxide.

What is a mother to do?  What’s safe anymore?  Even ordinary chocolate contains lead…

A tiny, so far timid voice inside my head goes, “Hohumm, haven’t these kinds of hazards been around for ages now?  And nobody seemed to be the worse for it?  Isn’t it just because we now have the ability to test for all these things that we are freaking out over them?”

Particularly in the case of lead.  Lead paint has been outlawed about 20 years ago now.   Before that, children and adults have been exposed to lead, mercury, cadmium, and who knows what else.  There were toxic chemicals in household dust long before there were computers and fire retardant materials.  Is all of this protectiveness really overprotectiveness?  What’s going on really?  The geniuses of yesteryear, Einstein, Mozart, Shakespeare, what did they inhale and ingest without knowing it, and how did it affect them?   Has the average IQ been increasing or decreasing, or stayed about the same?  We probably don’t know because for IQ too we have only started to test relatively recently.

Many people, myself included, always looked upon genetic engineering with great discomfort and anxiety.  In Europe, genetically engineered food is banned.  It can’t be imported from America, and is generally referred to as “Frankenfood.”

Now scientists have found a way to get trees to ”vacuum” up industrial toxins by genetically altering them.  Read the article here.

Of course, they are capitalizing on something that plants are good at by nature – to improve the air quality around them.  You only have to google for this, and there are scores of links.  Here is a good one: Air Filtration and Purification with House Plants.

and featured was the environment.  Of course here, in a way, we talk about this every day.  Please look at the Action Blog and the many cool blogs that participated yesterday, and please do support the organizations below:

The Natural Resources Defense Council
www.nrdc.org
Donate online

The National Wildlife Federation
http://www.nwf.org/
Donate online

The Nature Conservancy
www.nature.org
Donate online

The Conservation Fund
http://www.conservationfund.org/
Donate online

Greenpeace International
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/
Donate online

The Sierra Club
http://www.sierraclub.org/foundation/
Donate online