Archived LHEI Article

INDOOR AIR POLLUTION

JONNA GABERMAN, MD

FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE LONGMEADOW HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT INITIATIVE

 We are a part of everything that is beneath us, above us, and around us. Our past is our present, our present is our future, and our future is seven generations past and present.                                    -- Haudenosaunee teaching

 Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Environmental Working Group’s body burden study recently demonstrated an average of 91 industrial compounds in the blood and urine of nine volunteers.  None of these nine people had worked with chemicals or lived near industrial facilities.  Of the 167 total compounds found, 76 are known to cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain or nervous system and 79 are known to cause birth defects or abnormal development.

In breast milk today, insecticides, flame retardants, fungicides, wood preservatives, mothproofing agents, toilet deodorizers, and dry cleaning fluids can be found.  These known carcinogens, immune suppressors and endocrine disruptors are fat-soluble, so can persist in human tissues for up to half a century.  Though breast milk still offers tremendous health advantages, it commonly violates FDA action levels for poisonous substances in food.

Eighty percent of the two thousand newly registered chemicals each year are approved with no health or safety data and eighty percent of these are approved within three weeks.  These chemicals are added to foods, cosmetics, consumer products, and pesticides and make their way into our bodies.  Is this body burden of chemicals a problem?  We have seen rising incidences of cancer, major nervous system disorders and disorders of the reproductive system.  Only five to ten percent of disease can be attributed solely to genetic causes.  Environmental exposures can have tremendous long-term effects.  One need only look at the developmental effects of lead and mercury on older children who were exposed in-utero or as toddlers or the increased breast and genital cancer seen in adults exposed to small amounts of DES in-utero.

The air in our homes can be two to five times more polluted than the air outdoors.  During the use of products indoors, we may inadvertently increase toxin levels to 100 – 1,000 times that of outdoor air and notice immediate effects such as wheezing and chest tightness, headaches, burning eyes, sore throat, dizziness and fatigue.  Certain cleaning ingredients in toilet fresheners and room deodorizers and others in disinfectants and furniture polishes are suspected of causing cancer.  Others, containing petroleum-based surfactants, don’t biodegrade easily and can disrupt hormone functions in animals and possibly humans.  Chlorine bleach contributes to the production of potent carcinogens in our environment, dioxin and trihalomethanes.  Phosphates from dishwasher detergents damage our rivers and streams.  PERC or perchloroethylene, a probable carcinogen from the dry cleaning industry, commonly pollutes our indoor air and has made its way into some drinking waters.

What We Can Change at Home

 GARAGE

1.  Do not allow pesticides to be used inside the house. Use or ask for non-toxic pest control.  Check www.pesticide.org/factsheets.html#alternatives.

2.  Avoid strong solvents and glues or use with excellent ventilation.

3.  Throw away partially full containers of old or unneeded chemicals safely through your town’s toxic waste collection days.  Keep in locked or secure container until disposal date arrives.

 CLOSET

4.  Ask your dry cleaner to switch from PERC or look for cleaners utilizing safer non-PERC methods.

5.  Use cedar products to discourage moths; do not use moth balls.

 BATHROOM

6.  Use nail polish and other cosmetics that do not include the chemical ‘phthalate’.

7.  Use non-chlorine bleach cleaners to reduce environmental dioxin.

 UNDER THE KITCHEN SINK

8. Read the label on cleansers; many cleansers are known to contain potential carcinogens.  If a product says ‘CAUTION’ or ‘WARNING’, or ‘HAZARD,’ look for a less toxic alternative.

 FOOD PREPARATION

9.  Use the physical act of washing with soap and water to remove germs.  Less than five percent of registered antimicrobial products sold control infectious microbes.  In many cases we are exposing ourselves to potentially harmful active and inactive ingredients and possibly creating broader antibiotic resistance without clear benefit at home.

10.  Microwave food products in ceramic or glass; don’t use plastic containers or wraps in the microwave.

 GENERAL

11.  Tell your friends; stay informed; and join teachers, public health groups, and other advocates by supporting the Massachusetts Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow at www.healthytomorrow.org.