Is Your Home Hazardous To Your Health?
Who’s responsible for today’s global environmental crisis?
Many point a finger at industry and business, blaming them for everything, including turning our lakes, rivers and seas into a toxic soup. Sure, much of the soil and groundwater contamination we have comes from businesses selling household chemical cleaners and laundry detergents, but who’s buying and using these products?
Caring for the environment – your environment – begins at home.Are you at risk?
Ask yourself, are you and your family at risk due to toxins in your home? Some common reactions to various chemicals include a runny nose, itchy eyes, a scratchy throat, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, skin irritation, and respiratory infections. Some of these symptoms can lead to various cancers, liver or kidney damage, and problems with the central nervous system.
What about the kids?
If you have young children, they are much more vulnerable to toxins because they breathe in two or three times as much air-and therefore pollutants-relative to their body size. These pint-sized explorers also unwittingly swallow the chemicals, as thousands of frantic calls each year to poison control centres across North America will attest. Parents who try to keep their home clean and germ-free can leave themselves vulnerable to exposure to toxins. A leading online medical information provider estimates some sixty million North Americans have allergies. In Canada alone, it’s estimated that 500 adults and 20 children are admitted each year to hospital with asthma-related problems.
What about the rising incidence of childhood cancers?
According to the CancerSmart Consumer Guide (produced by the Labour Environmental Alliance Society), cancer incidence in Canada has risen dramatically since the 1930s when approximately one in 10 Canadians developed cancer in their lifetime. Today, one in 2.3 men and one in 2.6 women can expect to develop cancer. What’s more, the Canadian Cancer Society currently estimates that the number of cancer cases will rise 60 per cent over the next two decades.
Walking Chemical Test Tubes
Testing carried out by the Centre for Disease Control in the U.S. found 150 different toxic chemicals, including lead, PCBs, benzene and other carcinogens, in the blood and tissue of people tested. On average, each person carried 90 of those chemicals.
These chemicals are only the most persistent of some 75,000 chemicals currently in use across North America. Of those, less than half have been fully tested for their health and environmental effects.
The World Health Organization attributes 25 per cent of cancers worldwide to occupational and environmental carcinogens, not including smoking.
Reducing or eliminating exposure to toxins is an important strategy for cancer and disease prevention and to help ensure a healthy environment for children. It’s your home, your environment. Take care of it.