Children's Health Month - 20 Years of pesticide exposure
Children's Health Month - 20 Years of pesticide exposure
Subject: EU Scientists Legalize Controversial Herbicide
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide RegulationSubject: Children's Health Month
Dear Ms. Loving:
I am a 67-year-old woman whose health has been destroyed as a result of two decades of exposure to pesticides applied to my neighbors' lawns. I know from personal experience it is not enough to stay away from a lawn for twenty-four hours after pesticide application. For many days after a lawn has been sprayed, the pesticides are released into the air each dawn with the evaporation of the morning dew. Once they have taken flight, they do not respect the boundaries marked off by the tiny, white warning flags. They travel great distances and become a part of the air we breathe.
Since I have become sensitive to pesticides, I am well aware of how much of the toxic substances are in the air because, when I encounter them, they cause me to cough and choke. They enter my brain and cause the nerves of my face to draw tightly in a gnarled grimace as though I were experiencing a stroke. They cause numbness and tingling in my arms and legs.
Due to constant exposure, I have memory loss and have experienced difficulty concentrating. Enough poisons have entered my bloodstream and my system so that I can no longer tolerate the other chemicals one would expect to be able to use on a daily basis, such as dish and laundry detergent, hairspray, hand lotion, dental anesthesia, etc.
Poison chemicals are sprayed on such a continuous basis and on so many properties, that there is seldom a time when the air is clean. The spraying season lasts for at least six months every year and that is followed by the toxic smell of gasoline snowblowers that spoil the freshness of an evening walk on new-fallen snow.
One would think that in a free country, clean air would be the most basic right of all citizens, regardless of age, and especially for children because their immune systems are not yet fully developed. I was forty-five when I moved to an area where I was introduced to this kind of toxic chemical exposure on a daily basis. But my tiny, newborn neighbors are now exposed to toxic air from the cradle to the grave. Unfortunately, the grave comes all too soon for many. Both of the men I worked for had to bury their young grandchildren because of cancer.
My heart breaks every time I see a child with a cute little hat covering a bald head. I know that another child is fighting for their life because they live in a country that places greater value on the chemical industry and perfect lawns than they do on human health.
It certainly is not for some strange, unknown reason that our healthcare system is in serious trouble when our health dollars are spent to treat symptoms of chemically-caused diseases instead of practicing prevention.
Whatever happened to the "rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? We have thousands of children suffering and dying from leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumors and other cancers that could probably be prevented if their little bodies were not forced to carry on complicated processes to detoxify the air they breathe. Not everyone is genetically blessed with all the enzymes necessary to handle the myriad of poisons they encounter.
We have thousands of kids whose futures are destroyed because of autism and attention deficit disorder. These are two disorders that did not exist when I went to school in the 40s and 50s.
It took centuries for the medical establishment to come to the conclusion that nutrition plays a part in health. They still can't come to agreement on the food pyramid after all these years. How many years do you suppose it will take for them to realize that the air we breathe may also play a part in health? Some of the doctors living in my area are among the worst offenders when it comes to poisoning their lawns. Apparently, they are receiving inadequate medical educations and don't have a clue about the dangers of toxic air.
We have thousands of adults facing years of expensive and unpleasant nursing home care as the statistics tell us we will all have a fifty percent chance of being Alzheimer victims if we live to the age of 85. That was not the case years ago. In the 1970s, I saw most of the preceding generation of my family die in their 80s and 90s. They were still able to write letters and carry on conversations even into the mid 90s. What do you suppose has caused the change in the way we age? Do you think that breathing man-made chemicals instead of God's formula for air could have anything to do with it?
As a taxpayer, the EPA has my permission to forget all about "Children's Health Month". Instead, begin working the whole year through to make America a safer place for babies to be born, children to grow up as happy, healthy, productive citizens and for everyone to be able to look forward to enjoying their retirement years without degenerative diseases of the central nervous system and with brains fully intact.
It is plain to see that we are not headed in that direction following the the course our government has chosen to take for the past 50 years.
Sincerely,
Dorothy Lee
If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us.
|
Nontoxic Products Recommended by Steve Tvedten Now Available |
| Safe 2 Use Products and Services |
Click
Here to Add Comment