Chemicals and Resources

I am currently a student of the State University of New York at Albany and working towards a Bachelors degree in Human Biology. My personal interest lies particularly in the growth and health of humans from the moment of conception to the adolescent years. Attending the first few classes made me realize the magnitude of relevance this class has with my interest. For example, the video "The Story of Stuff" explained, in detail, the production of our daily products from resources and paths these products take until the moment they reach our home and ultimately, to our families. 

The first major step of this detailed process is extraction. This is where natural resources needed for the production of our everyday materials is exploited. Recall that the next step was production, where "energy is combined with toxic chemicals" to produce our materials. It was clearly stated In "The Story of Stuff" that only a "hand-full of tests" were conducted to test the harmful effects of these toxins. I would like to argue that this problem surfaces first in the extraction step, were our resources are first exploited.    

The first topic that truly concerned me was the ability of pollutants to travel thru a food chain and eventually end up concentrating in the human body. I noticed that the video failed to mention our excessive pesticide use. We are using potentially harmful chemicals to grow many of our resources. So picture this, we have resources grown with the aid of pesticides. We exploit the resources and with energy and additional toxic chemicals, making them usable. We then either consume or use these materials in our everyday lives. I have yet to hear of any laboratory testing being conducted on the interaction of all these chemicals and their effects on the human body. My guess would be that it isn't anything good!

The most disturbing of all was the segment of the video which explained how the toxins used in the production of our products accumulates in the human body and into the breast milk of breast feeding mothers, and in turn into the newborn. I was reading an article that explained how this was occurring. Basically, there are these toxins called Persistent Organic Pollutants. These pollutants like to bind to the fatty tissues in our bodies. And it is these fatty tissues that are a necessary source of nutrients for the production of a mothers milk. This leads me to wonder, how many toxins are we exposing our children to?  Why isn't this regulated? Why isn't the government protecting mothers and newborns? These are in fact, the next generation that will be running this country.

It is my belief that society is most familiar with the five major steps described in "The Story of Stuff", but what they really need to be educated on all the important factors that go into making each step, especially the use of toxins . The more knowledge the public has on these flaws, the more pressure will be placed upon the government to make changes and regulate the use of ALL these chemicals. The government was created for the good of the people, right? 

References:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

http://www.nrdc.org/breastmilk/default.asp

http://www.nrdc.org/breastmilk/envpoll.asp