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Connecting the toxic dots

If you are traveling to New York City, be careful. Trans fats are now illegal in that town, so empty that stash of stick margarine from your trunk before you drive into the city. Word from the street is that they won't arrest you for carrying a small quantity for personal use, but I wouldn't push my luck.

by Darrel Crain, D.C.

If you are traveling to New York City, be careful. Trans fats are now illegal in that town, so empty that stash of stick margarine from your trunk before you drive into the city. Word from the street is that they won’t arrest you for carrying a small quantity for personal use, but I wouldn’t push my luck.

The new law in New York reflects a growing trend here in the United States, the outlawing of toxic substances. This is a noble idea and recognizes the important negative influence that poisonous substances have on our health. However, as you can imagine, such efforts at promoting public health sometimes challenge the principal of individual liberties.

On the one hand, I support the personal freedom of anyone who chooses to eat hardened vegetable lard if they so choose, they can even slather on mayonnaise for all I care. Smoking? Well, if people enjoy paving their lungs with tar, I believe that is their choice, as long as they don’t light up near my dinner table or ask me to pay for a lung transplant.

On the other hand, some substances are so toxic, even the smallest contact is unforgivable, and that stuff should definitely be illegal. For example, in recent history we quit adding lead to the gasoline for our cars; we got rid of mercury batteries and mercury light switches, and even mercury thermometers are on their way out. In fact, except for mercury from the environment and in our seafood, the only remaining sources of mercury are vaccines and amalgam dental fillings.

Newly published research suggests that toxins are responsible for far more of the rampant rise of chronic illness than we previously thought. Asthma, allergies, neurobehavioral disorders, increased infections, autoimmune diseases, cancer, cerebral palsy, atherosclerosis, hypertension and male sterility are now strongly linked to toxic exposure in the womb and during infancy.

“Developmental immunotoxicity (DIT) is increasingly recognized as a significant risk factor contributing to later life immune dysfunction as well as chronic disease,” writes Rodney Dietert, PhD. in a study published in the April 2007 issue of Current Medicinal Chemistry.

Chalk up one more study showing that compared to adults, the developing immune system of the fetus and growing baby is more easily damaged with far less toxin, and the toxic effects are far greater and more persistent.

“In light of the current findings, as well as studies showing the vulnerability of the developing immune system, it seems time to reconsider the wisdom of exposing pregnant women, infants, and children to drugs and chemicals with unknown developmental immunotoxic risks,” writes Dr. Dietert in the August 2006 online Public Library of Science Medicine.

We must include in the list of “drugs and chemicals with unknown developmental risks” a staggering number of standard medical interventions because of their known and unknown risks, including antibiotics, drugs during pregnancy and labor, heavy metals and vaccines. Mainstream medicine has yet to connect the dots and acknowledge its own role as a major contributor to society’s toxic burden.

The medical doctors are doing the best they can with the tools they currently have to deal with chronic illness, but modern medicine’s remarkable crisis-oriented, life-saving acute care only alleviates short-term symptoms, leaving the immune disorders at the root of these problems untouched and people’s bodies more toxic than ever.

Medical disasters that haven’t happened yet seem to stir the media’s attention and attract the really big bucks. We hear on the news repeatedly that it is only a matter of time until biological attacks reach us. The only question ever raised is which one will get here first, the spread of anthrax and smallpox as an act of terror, or the bird flu pandemic as an act of nature?

Medical disasters such as toxin-induced chronic illness are already here and plague millions of people. Unfortunately, this escalating spiral of suffering inspires few headlines and even fewer politicians, resulting in little official concern or funding to address the problem.

My personal opinion is that defending our collective immune system from further damage and malfunction from toxic exposure ranks as a National Security Issue. Perhaps instead of naming a War Czar the president should name a Detoxification Czar with the supreme power to make a clean sweep and wipe out the toxins across the land.

The new Czar, or perhaps a Czarina, will head up an agency called the Detoxification and Nutrition Administration (DNA). She and her deputies will be mandated to locate and root out the bad stuff all across the nation that poisons our babies, our children, and all citizens, regardless of where the toxins are found.

The new DNA mandate will also instruct medical professionals in the art of heavy metal and chemical detoxification, coupled with therapeutic nutritional intervention. A massive nationwide program will be launched to get the lead out, and the mercury, the aluminum, the pesticides and the herbicides, the PCBs, the hydrofluorosilicates, the rocket fuel, food preservatives, aspartame, and all the other poisons breaking down our birthright of good health. The potential for improving society’s health is as mind boggling as the list of toxins is long.

Our new Czar will measure risk versus benefit using a yardstick based on precautionary principles, sustainability and innate healing. Our new toxin removal and nutritional intervention programs will restore and revitalize the nation’s immune function, providing an enormous cost savings compared to the “management” of chronic illness we have now. As we lose our toxins and balance our nutrients, we will likely discover the populace is better prepared to overcome any biological attack, whether by terrorists or Mother Nature.

Which brings us back to the streets of New York, where I’m told you can buy just about anything, legal or not. Once we muster the political will to face down the toxicity producers, I can picture this scene in the not-too-distant future. The Marlboro man ducks down a side alley to catch a smoke. A man in a long trench coat wearing his hat brim low emerges from the shadows and speaks, “Pssst! Wanna buy some trans fat French fries? How about a gram of mercury?”

planetc1.com-news @ 10:17 pm | Article ID: 1181711850

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