Three-eyed fish and hermaphroditic frogs

What if the cost of convenience was cancer? Would Hoosiers keep consuming, and companies keep producing, swing sets treated with arsenic, toys made of toxic plastics, blemish-free apples made "perfect" with pesticides? What do we know about how these toxins work on our genes, immune systems and brains? If we have even half-solid evidence that we are poisoning ourselves, can"t our free market ingenuity kick in and engineer some smarter alternatives?

What"s wrong, according to speaker Pete Myers, director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, are the serious gaps between regulatory practices, scientific knowledge and public awareness of the effects of environmental contaminants on human health. Arsenic on treated deck wood, flame retardants, dry cleaning solvents, indoor pesticides: "These toxins highjack normal development," said Myers, often while life develops in the womb. "These contaminants may not cause disease, but they enable other pathogens to do more damage." They work endemically, often with long latency periods. If a man gets testicular cancer at age 25, for example, it"s technically the result of a failed gene mutation at the fetal stage, in turn a result of the mother"s exposure to toxins.

Three-eyed fish and hermaphroditic frogs are not just punchlines on The Simpsons. They"re examples of genetic permutations that occur in humans in the form of cancer, birth defects and low IQs. Myers, co-author of Our Stolen Future (www.OurStolenFuture.org), pointed out that studies used to assume that high dosage of poisons do the most damage. That paradigm is being shattered. "Scientists had not been asking the right questions. The new science needs to consider the effects of the smallest doses of poisons, as well as their endless possible combinations."

A local example: Ron Hites at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs just published a study of the level of PBDEs - a flame retardant chemical used to prevent fires in TVs and computers - in the blood of Indiana mothers and their infants. The Indiana subjects had levels 20 times higher than those in Sweden and Norway. The high levels may or may not be caused by exposure to the electronic products themselves or industrial waste. While PBDEs have been shown to cause health problems in rats, how do they affect humans? "We don"t know," Hites told the Bloomington Herald-Times. "Reasoning by analogy with PCBs, there are probably some [health risks]. But it took us 25 years to figure out what the health effects of PCBs were, and there"s still controversy about it."

Unlike the Swedes and the Japanese, who err on the side of caution in response to such knowledge, the U.S. government has been slow to regulate or challenge the status quo, no matter how deadly. Myers says capitalism can be part of the solution, if regulation is too slow. Recently, after delivering his data to a hostile audience at a plastics manufacturers" convention, Myers was approached by two men. "To my surprise, they thanked me. They had an idea for an alternative to phthalates [the toxin used in plastic baby toys and teethers], and they were ready to make big bucks."

Right now the big bucks are in agricultural pesticides, a $35 billion international industry. Monica Moore of the California-based Pesticide Action Network spoke of the millions of industrial agriculture workers worldwide exposed to pesticides every year. Susan Osburn of the Lymphoma Foundation of America noted that farmers and their families are at a greater risk of cancer due to their pesticide exposure. "The big cancer charities raise millions to address cancer cures," she said. Advising people to "prevent cancer" by eating more fiber is all well and good. "But that doesn"t approach the reasons why people have endometriosis, tumors and learning disabilities."

Farmers hold the keys to turning the tide of pesticide carcinogens. Our quest for the biggest crop yield is destroying the soil itself and creating a boon for pests, said Wes Jackson, president of the Kansas-based Land Institute (www.LandInstitute.org) and a leader in the sustainable agriculture revolution. "The secret is copying the biodiversity of the prairie, which is made up of perennials," Jackson says. Replacing annual corn corps with rotated corn, legumes, wheat, clover and alfalfa "fools" pests, which means we can reduce our need for pesticides and the fossil fuels used to apply them. "Nature knows best," Jackson said. "Who"s more productive than The Old Lady herself?"

If Mother Nature holds the solutions, ordinary moms and dads should educate themselves about the environment"s health impact. "A pregnant woman is a habitat," said Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a fetal toxicologist at Cornell University and mother of two. While swimming in the "marshland" of the uterus for the first six months, a fetus has few defenses against toxins. A mother"s long- and short-term exposure to contaminants like weed killers, diesel fuels and insecticides programs fetal cells for death. Cleft palates, gonadal mix-ups, heart defects and learning disabilities get their start before birth, thanks to toxins like mercury and lead.

During Steingraber"s own experience of pregnancy, detailed in her scientific and poetic book Having Faith, she was reminded of the oneness of all environments. "The amniotic fluid is not just the fluid in my womb," Steingraber observed. It is the river in a woman"s city or town. It is the milk, honey and juice she drinks. It is the rain that fell on the groves of the oranges she eats. Environments are communal, and very personal, as Caddell would agree, having lost his own sister to cancer the week before the seminar.

All of this is enough to make Rachel Carson roll in her grave. How do even the bravest activists and health advocates confront the endemic, intangible threats of environmental contaminants to human health? With a mix of research, legislation and free market creativity, Myers said. To support unbiased research, "we need some sort of public trust fund, funded by taxes or fees imposed on chemical manufacturers, governed by scientists and policy experts and insulated from corporate pressures." Meanwhile, non-profits like Children"s Environmental Health Network (www.cehn.org) and the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) work to inform the public and health professionals about health-environment relationships.

Myers believes that constructive legislation is not likely in the current political environment. However, "entrepreneurs that are focusing on new design criteria emerging from the plethora of new scientific research are building markets and profiting from the fact that consumers really care about these issues. And when legislation finally catches up to the new science, those entrepreneurs will be in a fantastic competitive position compared to the companies that decided that the best way to deal with the new science is to fight it or ignore it," Myers said.

Meanwhile, Caddell and other Hoosiers are taking action, literally, in their own backyards. The "Fatal Harvest" seminar ended with sessions on learning disabilities in Clinton County schools and prevention research; finding chemical-free food in Indiana; and reducing pesticides in local schools and daycare centers. Everyone was invited to limit lawn chemical and bug killer use; to lobby school officials, farmers and politicians; to boycott dangerous products; and to eat organic foods.

Looking out over the crowd of 300 activists, parents and farmers at the humble Frankfort Library, Wes Jackson said, "This is the way the world changes."