| Pollution killing 25,000 Canadians a year
Posted: 10/4/2007 8:09:01 AM | University study claims pollution killing 25,000 Canadians a year
Tue Oct 2, 6:11 PM
By The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER - A University of B.C. study claims pollution is killing 25,000 Canadians a year and costing the health care system more than $9 billion.
Study co-author David Boyd says Canadians are awash in toxic chemicals such as pesticides, heavy metals, flame retardants and air pollution.
The study, published this week in the on-line journal Environmental Research, says in addition to the deaths, the pollution causes 24,000 new cases of cancer and 2,500 low birthweight babies in Canada each year.
The research focused on four health areas: respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, cancer and congenital problems.
Boyd, who co-wrote the paper with Dr. Stephen Genuis of the University of Alberta, says Canadians think of their country as pristine, but the record shows when faced with a choice between protecting the environment or polluting industries, we protect industries.
He says Canada should develop a national environmental strategy, including tougher standards for air and water quality, food and consumer products. | |
|
| Pollution killing 25,000 Canadians a year
Posted: 10/4/2007 8:41:26 AM | I think that global warming has come so much to the forefront of our environmental concerns (and for good reason) that we have forgotten that it is by far not the only environmental issue that needs to be dealt with, although when we fix some of the more immediate, tangible environmental problems, such as the ones refered to in this article, then surely that will have an impact on the grander climate change issues. So thank you for posting this. We focus so much on finding a cure for cancer that we lose site on finding, and reducing the causes of cancer. Yes, cigarettes, asbestos, and other causes are well-known and we have been good about raising awareness of their long-term health problems, but there is still so much out there that causes cancer and other negative health effects that we ignore, or know are bad but allow to continue because it is easier/cheaper (in the short term, but certainly not in the long term) to ignore them. I had a (fortunately benign) brain tumour when I was a kid, and my brother has Crohn's Disease (which affects the intestines). It is interesting when we hear people from the neighbourhood where we lived as kids talk about how it seems so many people in that neighbourhood have had brain tumours, or have Crohn's. I have no idea if it is statistically-significant, but it is an interesting curiosity, considering that a few blocks from our school was the old Goodyear Tire factory (where high-density and low-income housing was built wayyyyy to soon after the plant closing. There is no way that they could have cleaned up all of the contamination from over a 100 years of massive factory being there), and who knows what sorts of factories may have existed on the grounds where our school was, and where our house was.
And even cancer and other things casued by chemicals are by far not the only place where we can see (and have been able to see for 200 years of industrialization) the direct and immediate impacts of poor environmental decisions. I think that thousands of people die every year in Toronto alone due to poor air quality. Most of these are already prone to respiratory illnesses and/or in frail health, but that is still people who die as a direct result of smog and other factors related to poor/outdated environmental policy. The future threat of global warming, while quite serious, is by far not the only major environmental problem that we have on our hands, and I think that many of us have lost sight of that fact. | |
|
| Pollution killing 25,000 Canadians a year
Posted: 10/4/2007 9:38:47 AM | | Pollution killing 25,000 Canadians a year? Well...something has to. If these people were not dieing of pollution caused cancer, they would be dieing of AIDS, West Nile, or something else. Pollution should be reduced, but whining about deaths won't do the job. Show the polluters how they can save/make more money by not polluting than the save/make by polluting. That will do the trick. Big money types do not care about their own health/deaths...as long as they can live high while they live. They certainly don't care about the health/deaths of others. They do, however, care about their pocketbooks. Make non-polluting profitable, and it will catch on like a prairie fire in a draught region. | |
|
| Pollution killing 25,000 Canadians a year
Posted: 10/4/2007 9:45:11 AM | I think these guys are being just a wee bit conservative in their numbers.
This thread can go in a lot of different directions. Whether it focusses on the canadians deluding themselves that they live in some pristine paradise or not is up to the posters. Yesterday a poster deleted his own thread about corporate growth, corporate strength and perhaps the corporate stranglehold that pervades most civilized economies.
Bottom line. Western society has a multitude of chronic health conditions associated with their 'enlightened' lifestyles. Indoor refrigerators, microwave ovens, air conditioners, fibreglass insulation inside your homes, carpetting, laminate flooring, linoleum, stuffed furniture, paints, fossil fuels, pesticides, foam bedding, plastics for bottled water, cleaning solvents, styrofoam dishes, food packaging, hair sprays, glues, electric water heaters, toasters, hair curlers, colognes, lotions, clothes dryer belts, treated 'anti-stain' carpets and furniture and wall papers, cookware, toothpastes, bleached flours, dentures, tooth fillings, body powders, cold cereals, flavored foods, colas, artificial sweeteners, infant formulas, store bought orange juices, decaffeinated beverages...the list goes on and on and on...Solvents and toxic elements and bottom line nasty pollutants that we sit on, wash with, eat with, sleep with, and eventually die from.
There is a school of thought** that suggests that all diseases, maladies and illnesses can be reduced to two items: Things that crawl or climb inside of us; and toxins. Toxins are unnatural substances that we unknowingly inhale or consume. The human, be it Canuck or otherwise, can reclaim his/her body by throwing the parasites and the pollutants out.
Getting rid of the parasites is the relatively easy part in terms of cleanses, fasting and herbs. Trading your products for unpolluted varieties is certainly a job, but not insurmountable. Cleaning your environmment is the biggest stumbling block.
In every case of the mysterious disease 'diabetes', you find the not-so-mysterious parasite Eurytrema, and the fairly common pollutant wood alcohol. Every case! And never in healthy people, Similarly in cancer, HIV, Alzheimer's, endometriosis, to name a few, you can find specific parasites and or pollutants at work.
Pollutants: Cancer patients will test postive for CFC's in their cancerous organ. CFC's also attract other pollutants-fibreglass and metals and PCB's. Most commercial soaps and detergents still have major pollutants in them, formaldehyde used in curing foam is found in your furniture, pillows and mattresses giving off formaldehyde for two years after manufacture. If you sleep with your nose buried in a new foam pillow all night, you risk major lung problems. Every cleanser in your house has a toxic warning on it. Every fluid your automobile usues is toxic. Every pesticide, herbacide and fertilizer on your lawn. Every paint, varnish, wax, lubricant, bleach and detergent. Why do we keep them around? Because it's convenient, and because we're 'enlightened' and lazy.
Not only canadians, but the whole world needs to come out of the dark ages and learn the true causes of infections and diseases. People need to learn to be their own health detectives. Your genes brought you the good things about your ancestors. Parasites and pollution brought you the bad things. The environmental factor needs to be corrected, but so to does the ship of 'progress' of increasingly complex processed foods and products, and simplicity should be the goal.
To be simple is to be great ~ Ralph Waldo Emmerson
** ~The Cure For All Diseases~Hulda Regehr Clark
 | |
|
|
Home
login 
