[SustainableTompkins] Taking Stock

[Tony Del Plato]

From: Rachel's Democracy & Health News #928, Oct. 11, 2007

*TAKING STOCK*

By Peter Montague

Every once in a while, it's good to take stock. Why are we doing what
we're doing? And is it working? Here we review two large trends.

I. Public health is in decline

Many chronic disorders are on the rise (diabetes; asthma; attention
deficits and hyperactivity; autism; certain cancers, especially
childhood cancers; certain birth defects; Parkinson's disease,
others). More than half of all Americans -- adults and children -- are
now living with a chronic
disease<http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_chronic_illness_costs_u.s._1_trillion.071003.htm>
.

The U.S. spends more per capita on health care than any other nation
(almost 17% of Gross Domestic Product [GDP]), yet is 42nd among
nations in longevity<http://www.precaution.org/lib/u.s._lifespan_shorter.070811.htm>and
41st among nations in infant mortality. An
important component of this poor performance is racial disparities:
Blacks die 5 years earlier, on average, than whites; and infant
mortality among Blacks is twice the rate among whites (13.7 per 1000
live births among Blacks vs. a national average of 6.8 per 1000). "It
really reflects the social conditions in which African American women
grow up and have children," says Dr. Marie C. McCormick, of the
Harvard School of Public Health. "We haven't done anything to
eliminate those disparities."

About half the U.S. population lives with the ever-present possibility
that a medical emergency will cost them their job, drain their bank
account, and perhaps even render them homeless. The number of
medically uninsured<http://www.precaution.org/lib/uninsured_rising.070903.htm>in
the
U.S. is now 47 million, 8.7 million of
them children. But another 73 million people are
underinsured<http://www.precaution.org/lib/half_are_underinsured.070826.htm>.
All
told, 40% of Americans -- many of them middle class -- lack adequate
health insurance.

Within this general picture of decline, the urban poor are suffering
the most. As a writer in the New York Times described the situation
in 2003 <http://www.precaution.org/lib/http://tinyurl.com/3yzzxu>,
"Something is killing America's urban poor, but this is no
ordinary epidemic. When diseases like AIDS, measles and polio strike,
everyone's symptoms look more or less the same, but not in this
case.... Even teenagers are afflicted with numerous health problems,
including asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure. Poor urban blacks
have the worst health of any ethnic group in America, with the
possible exception of Native Americans.... It makes you wonder whether
there is something deadly in the American experience of urban poverty
itself." And poverty itself has been
rising<http://www.precaution.org/lib/economy_leaves_record_numbers_poor.070223.htm>for
the past decade.

II. Our human technologies (and our human numbers) are destroying the
earth as a place suitable for human habitation. We are wrecking our
only home.

1. Many industrial chemicals have turned out to be far more potent and
dangerous then even most environmental health activists imagined.

The recent discovery of a second genetic code (the "epigenetic" code)
is radically altering our understanding of the role of the environment
in human health (and the health of other creatures). It is beginning
to become clear that inheritable diseases can be caused, and handed
down to offspring, without any genetic mutations. Just 15 years ago,
this would have seemed a scientific heresy. Now it is widely accepted
as a reality, with far-reaching consequences. It means that your
disease today may have been caused by your grandmother's diet decades
ago <http://www.precaution.org/lib/06/epigenetics_news.061114.htm>, and that
your grandchild's health may depend on the environment
you inhabit and how you choose (or are forced) to live within it.
Epigenetics "...introduces the concept of responsibility into
genetics," says Dr. Moshe Szyf of McGill University, a pioneer in
epigenetics. "Epigenetics may revolutionize medicine," said Dr. Szyf,
"and it also could change the way we think about daily decisions like
whether or not to order fries with a meal, or to go for a walk or to
stay in front of the television. You aren't eating and exercising for
yourself, but for your lineage." Suddenly "the environment" has taken
on a much more central role in human health.

2. The concept of "fetal programming" reached the scientific
mainstream this year with the publication of the Faroes
Statement<http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_faroes_statement_text.070524.htm>
.
Fetal programming traces many adult diseases back to low-level
chemical exposures (and other stresses) in the womb or shortly after
birth. It means that low-level exposures to industrial poisons are far
more important than previously realized.

3. Electromagnetic
fields<http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_che_consensus_on_emf.070615.htm>have
emerged in Europe as a major source
of concern, and to a lesser extent in this country. High-voltage power
lines, cell phone towers, and saturation by city-wide wi-fi systems
have changed the electromagnetic environment in which we live, and
there is accumulating evidence that disease patterns are changing as a
result.

4. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle in ways that few anticipated
even 15 years ago. It is now apparent that any country that acquires a
nuclear power plant can within a few years make a crude but effective
nuclear bomb. Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have proven the
point. Iran and a half-dozen other mid-east nations have now announced
plans to acquire nuclear power. A new arms race is under way. To
understand the nature of the threat, one need only ask, "If General
Musharraf suddenly loses political power in Pakistan, who will end up
controlling that nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons?"

5. As we and others predicted (it was a no-brainer), genetically
modified crops have proven to be unmanageable. Only 10 years after the
initial deployment of agricultural biotechnology, new phrases have
entered the language -- "genetic contamination," "genetic trespass,"
and "superweeds," among others. Genetically modified organisms have
proven impossible to
control<http://www.precaution.org/lib/biotech--a_leaky_technology.051108.htm>--
they travel long distances in ways
that are poorly understood. Once established in new locations they
cannot be eradicated. It is apparent that as time passes we will
genetically modify the biology of the entire planet in ways we cannot
anticipate, if we maintain our present course. And the most powerful
changes are yet to come: biotechnologists are now creating crops that
embody pharmaceutical
products<http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_rice_with_human_genes.070302.htm>.
It seems certain that these products,
too, will be carried on the wind (or by birds, insects, or humans) and
will end up growing in places where they are not wanted. As time
passes, some or all of our food crops may well end up permanently
contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs that are designed to be
biologically active.

5. And most worrisome of all, the field of "biotechnology" has given
rise to the even newer enterprise called "synthetic
biology<http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_synthetic_biology.2.070222.htm>"
in
which new life forms are being created that have never been seen on
earth before. Biotechnology merely manipulates genes that exist in
nature. Synthetic biology, on the other hand, intends to create new
genes that have never existed before, then construct entirely new
creatures. Already viruses have been constructed from raw chemicals.

Just last week Craig Venter, a U.S. biotech entrepreneur, claimed to
have constructed an artificial
chromosome<http://www.precaution.org/lib/venter_creating_artificial_life.071006.htm>.
"We are going from
reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That gives us the
hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before," Venter
said.

The next goal is to manufacture a simple bacterium from raw chemicals.
This is a far greater challenge than creating a virus or even a
chromosome, but the intention has been announced, and work is
underway.

In synthetic biology, the hubris of the biotechnologist combines with
the giddy optimism of "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" This
line of inquiry promises to produce some marvelous and surprising
inventions, no doubt -- accompanied no doubt by serious, irreversible
mishaps of an unprecedented nature and scale.

6. Nanotechnology is being touted by investors as "the next big thing"
-- but a stream of bad news about the hazards of nano-sized
particles<http://www.precaution.org/lib/06/prn_nano_backgrounder_nrdc.060320.htm>has
flooded forth during the past three years. Despite
this, dozens or hundreds of commercial products based on
nanotechnology have entered the marketplace, entirely unregulated and
unlabeled. It is only a matter of time before the dual nature of this
grand experiment becomes clear. We seem determined to learn these
lessons the hard way -- just as we did with chlorine-based chemistry,
nuclear power, and biotechnology.

7. Because of all this rapid, unchecked innovation, our ignorance is
growing. As the natural environment becomes ever-more modified by the
built environment, our ability to discern what exactly is going on is
steadily diminishing. Yes, we are leaning more about the details, but
as the systems themselves grow more complex and are being rapidly
modified, our ability to understand them is receding.

Despite the impression of "steady progress" that one gleans from
newspapers and TV, our ignorance about the world we have created is
growing, not shrinking. We add 750 new chemicals to the mix each year
-- almost all of them untested for effects on human health or the
environment. As the level of complexity rises, our understanding
shrinks. We are flying blind this year and we'll be even more blind
next year as the products of our technical wizardry mix, blend, and
interact in ways we cannot measure or even imagine. Perhaps that is
the lasting lesson of modern science: our ignorance is more vast and
more intractable than we ever could conceive.

How are we doing?

In the face of all this, how are we doing? The trend that we see in
environment-and-health activism is not promising. It seems clear to us
that problems of public health and environmental destruction are the
result of choices being made by a tiny elite (they number perhaps
50,000 individuals <http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780801487279-2>) --
those powerful few who sit on multiple boards
of directors of large corporations.

These are the people who make the big decisions for the nation --

** Will our economy be powered by renewable sources of energy or will
we continue giving multi-billion-dollar subsidies to coal, petroleum,
and nuclear power?

** Will we allow global warming to develop, then try to fix it, or
will we adopt a preventive approach?

** Will we commit our children and grandchildren to a perpetual global
war on terror or will we develop non-military, preventive solutions?

** Will we provide care and nurture for all the nation's children
during their early formative years or will we keep expanding the
prison-industrial complex, warehousing more and more young people for
life?

** Will we operate the economy to provide a job for everyone who wants
to work, and a livable wage for everyone who works, or will we
continue to operate the economy for the few at the expense of the
many?

** Will we commit to preventing illness or will we allow diseases to
increase as we continually expand the proportion of GDP devoted to
drugs, surgery, and other costly (and often painful and debilitating)
technical remedies?

** Will we make the investments needed to develop an economy that
meets human needs without compromising the ability of the biosphere to
renew itself, or will we continue to wreck our only home?

** And *most importantly*, will we develop a system for financing
our elections that *eliminates* the influence of private wealth,
or will we allow corporate elites to continue to choose who can run
for office and therefore who we can vote for?

For environment-and-health activists, the central question is, will
our work be guided by the recognition that imbalances of power lie at
the heart of the problems we are tackling, or are we lowering our
gaze, turning aside, and pretending we can ignore the steady growth of
corporate power and still make a real difference?


-- 
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of
the believer.
Albert Einstein