Part 1: ECONOMY versus HEALTH
Environmental toxicants
To introduce this new topic on how America’s goals for a strong economy could conflict with the goal of making us healthy, we begin with an earlier post about America’s lack of awareness of environmental toxicity: “A Tragic Blind Spot”
Poor diet. No exercise. Smoking. Insomnia. We know these things are harmful. Yet, despite decades of research confirming damage to human health, environmental toxins and toxicants have not made this list. Not for most Americans in everyday life.
How many times in a day do we expose ourselves to toxicity? Constantly.
Do patients with dementia or cancer or diabetes understand which environmental toxins contributed to their disease? Usually not.
Can we create safe environments when we don’t understand the causes of illness? No, how could we?
Are the environments our infants are born into toxic? Yes, very.
Are environmental toxicants changing the human species? Yes, but we don’t talk about it.
By strict definition, ‘toxins’ are naturally occurring elements such as pathogens, fungus/mold, radon, geopathic stress, poisonous plants, animals, and minerals.
‘Toxicants’ are man-made elements: heavy metals and chemicals, plastics and nanoparticles, radiation and electro-pollutants. Toxicants are ubiquitous in cosmetics, household cleaners, processed foods (and even on fresh produce as pesticide residues), coatings on food containers (think microwave popcorn), synthetics in clothing, beds, couches, and carpets, cell phones, computers, and “smart” devices in homes, hospitals, and offices, including in personal equipment such as wearables for monitoring health. Even baby monitors.
Human life on planet Earth in the 21st century is a daily swim through toxicants that are known to be harmful to human biology and function. Modern societies have heavier burdens of toxicants, yet no place is completely free of harm. Now that satellite-based wireless technologies, pharmaceuticals, and processed foods have reached most corners of the globe, even largely indigenous societies are affected.
When not properly understood, environmental toxins and toxicants affect more than acute and chronic disease. They eventually impact the functioning of family and society. Then economics, politics, and culture.
So, how are we dealing with toxicity in America? How do we pull together all that we know and eliminate or lessen the harm? We have made some progress with finding non-toxic alternatives, yet too many Americans still live embedded in toxic environments. Despite, ironically, some of the most strident environmental regulations on the planet.
The quest of science is to determine the impacts of toxicity. The purpose of medicine is to heal from the damages. The responsibility of government is to protect the public from harm. But the goal of the private sector is to make a profit on the goods and services that consumers desire.
What if science and the media get even louder about this issue? What if medicine - let’s say your primary care physician or pediatrician - explains how toxicants contribute to disease? What if they provide a list of common household toxicants? What if government has a game plan to detach itself from lobbyists and the power of the purse? What if enough consumers buy ‘clean’ and ‘non-toxic’ goods and services and we shift industry’s use of toxicants?
When science, medicine, government, and industry operate without an integrated vision for how to enhance health and reduce harm, too many products of industry work against us rather than for us. Without wellness as an agreed upon goal of society and in all academic disciplines, we live at the mercy of what we ourselves create.
Toxicity is a large topic and the questions that need to be asked are also large: How could an advanced country like America walk so deeply into toxicity? Why has mainstream medicine remained so silent on the problem? How can we change the impact of toxicity on chronic disease? What happens if we don’t?
Make America Great Again (MAGA) defines ‘greatness’ as rebuilding industry and taking the lead in new technologies such as AI and bitcoin. Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) defines ‘healthy’ as finding and changing the root causes of chronic disease, including such things as chemicals in the food supply, environmental toxicants in air and water, and over-medication in the management of sickness.
MAGA and MAHA are publicly poised to confront America’s long-standing conflict between economy and health. Stay tuned for Part 2 where we discuss how place-based wellness and regeneration can help.