Response to Chemical Connections Presentation by Jane Houlihan

Response to Chemical Connections Presentation by Jane Houlihan

What an incredible video! I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation by Miss Houlihan and I actually watched it a couple of times! I must say that the research she presented correlates very well with the facts presented in Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, and Generations at Risk, by Schettler et al.
The plethora of facts revealed during this presentation are terrifying yet somewhat of a 'call to action', so to speak for the listeners.

It is amazing to me that seventy four billion pounds of pollution are generated daily in United States. Furthermore, 1.4 billion of that pollution is found in the air; not to mention the 1,000 contaminants found in drinking water. Miss Houlihan discussed a study that her group conducted on bottled water. The study found that the bottle water tested contained 38 known contaminants two of which were arsenic and tylenol. Several of the contaminants had known estrogenicity properties.

I also was very intrigued by her discussion of the biomonitoring research that she and her colleagues conduct. She discussed a cross sectional type of study of teenage girls across the United States. These girls were very diverse; coming from all areas of the United States with different ethnic and racial backgrounds. All of the girls tested contained chemicals in their blood that shouldn't be there. This couldn't have anything to do with the 12 personal products utilized daily by women :) The chemicals present in these teenage girls have a variety of concerns but many of them were known hormone disrupters. Furthermore, it was noted that puberty and breast development has been occurring earlier in young girls in the recent decades. Now, on average, breast development is beginning at age 10. Also, the average age of puberty for white girls is age 7 and black girls age 6. Finally, she gave a startling statistic; childhood cancer has increased by 26% from 1975-2002.

Miss Houlihan then shifted to a topic that is close to my heart and fits nicely with the book I'm reading for my book review for this course. It is so sad to me that we now as a society have to say industrial pollution begins in the womb. The presenter also sited that 7.3 million American couples have trouble becoming pregnant each year; the women most effected by this are under the age of twenty five. This is concerning for so many reasons and especially for those of us that are planning childbearing for later on in life. I've already began making small changes. Hopefully, by the time I am ready to conceive, I can eliminate the majority of potential pollution that my baby could be exposed to within the womb.

Finally, I now have a better idea of what I should buy organic and the others that I can skip on. It is scary that  eight different pesticides can be detected when purchasing a conventional peach! The presentation provided a "dirty dozen" list that gives the twelve fruits and vegetables that should only be purchased organic. The "clean 15" list also provides the fifteen items that are safe to buy nonorganic.

After viewing this video, I definitely feel like I have a better understanding of the potential toxins and risks to my health that I am exposed to on a daily basis right in my own environment. At any rate, the information is more on my radar and I am able to make better choices that could impact my life expectancy as well as my future offsprings' health.