Schwartz-Nobel - Poisoned nation: pollution, greed, and the rise of deadly epidemics

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Contents

Stolen Lives: A Personal Awakening

No One Is Spared

Cluster Illnesses, Leukemia, and Birth Defects

Thyroid Disease, Cancer, and Pesticide Victims

Mercury Contamination and Asthma

Stealing Lives Around the World

Mammograms, Ionizing Radiation, and Conflicts of Interest

Third-World Children, Contaminating Nonsmokers, and the Special Risks to Women

A Spiritual Crisis, a Theological Opportunity

A Leap of Faith: What You Can Do, Now and Later

For my sister Helen Driscoll, who died on July 28, 2006, of a rare environmentally linked adrenal cancer, just three weeks after diagnosis

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am a journalist who has reluctantly taken on a very large task. I could never have done it alone. Although the responsibility for the text is solely mine, the intellect and scholarship of countless environmentalists, researchers, activists, authors, scientists, journalists, physicians, politicians, and religious leaders inform these chapters. Investigative reporters are a little like beachcombers. We walk lifes shores endlessly searching beneath the sand and waves. We cull and dig and collect, then polish and string together the fragments and pearls of those who have come before us. We interpret, synthesize, and try to create from all those fragments a larger image, a bigger picture, a new vision.

Among the environmentalists and journalists to whom I am most indebted are Rachel Carson, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Renee Sharp, Bill Walker, Nancy Evans, Bill Moyers, Glenn Scherer, Marla Cone, Sarah Ruby, Sandra Steingraber, Ross Gelbspan, Jeffrey St. Clair, Renee Downing, Peter Waldman, Erica Werner, Michael Bender, Colleen Diskin, Betty Brink, Lindy Washburn, Alex Nessbaum, Bob Feldman, Miguel Bustillo, Peter Eisler, Kurt Gottfried, Deborah Frisch, and Al Gore, whose Inconvenient Truth helped me to make the connections between human illness, environmental contamination, and global warming.

Among the physicians and scientists whose research guided me are Dr. Samuel Epstein, Dr. Eric Dewailly, Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, Dr. John Grofman, Dr. Amy Holmes, Dr. Tim OShea, and Dr. Janette D. Sherman.

Among the politicians who have worked for change are Senators Dianne Feinstein, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, and Jim Jeffords.

Among the great religious leaders and groups who have voiced their profound concern are Pope John Paul II, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, the Interfaith Council of Churches, Rabbi Saul Berman, Mark Jacobs, Paul Gorman, Dr. Robert Edgar, John Carr, Dr. John Ruskay, Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Dr. Ronald Sider, and Fr. Chris Bender.

Among the activists who have inspired me are Barbara Brenner, Barbara Loe Fisher, Andrea Ravinett Martin, and Larry Ladd.

Among the victims of chemical contamination and their families, whose stories have moved me to search further, are Neil and Karen Blair, Ellen Harris, Jerry Ensminger and his daughter Janey, Belinda Reanda, Virginia Morales, her daughter, Desiree Hoguin, and grandson Aaron, Kathleen and Kristen Froess, Anastacia and Matt Warnecke, Adam Jernee, and Greg Voetsch and his entire family.

I also want to thank my former husband, Joel Nobel, and my good friends Mark Griffis, David Robertson, Gay Heib, Judy Talbert, Joe and Bonnie Ryan, Maryellen Wheeler, Bo Dean, Cyndi and Ron McNeil, Pam and Jack Robillard, Katy and John Bridge, Barbara Brigman, Carol Saline, Yoko Johanning, Jeffry Burr, Neil Blair, Fr. Alexis Regis, and Rosemary Gross for their untiring support.

This book could never have been written without the faith of my editors, Diane Reverand and Phil Revzin, and production editor, Julie Gutin; the tough professional guidance of my agent, Ellen Levine; the assistance of my late sister Helen Driscoll, who frequently provided me with invaluable material and ideas; the skillful editorial and literary suggestions of my daughter Ruth, who helped with an earlier draft of the manuscript; the enthusiasm and support of my other children, Rebecca and Adam; the inspiration of my new grandson, Jonathan; the treasured memory of my mother and father, Fay and Abraham Rosenberg; the word-processing skill, editorial assistance, love, and endless patience of my partner, Bill Burr; and, finally, a guiding spiritual force and presence far larger than anything that I can comprehend.

PREFACE

Stolen Lives: A Personal Awakening

Children of Godlook at My works! See how beautiful they are do not spoil and destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.

MIDRASH ECCLESIASTES RABBAH 7:13

When my editor Diane Reverand called and said she was concerned about the epidemic surges in autism, birth defects, breast cancer, asthma, and clusters of other illnesses in cities and towns around the United States, it began a chain of research that opened my eyes to a frightening world of hidden contamination around the globe that threatens all of us.

It was the 9/11 era, and I was still more concerned with terrorists and anthrax than with the deadly contamination that America and the rest of the world were bringing upon themselves. I still felt perfectly safe when I breathed the air around me or drank water from the tap. When I drank milk or ate salad, fruit, vegetables, chicken, or fish, I thought more about avoiding carbohydrates and calories than about avoiding chlorinated hydrocarbons, perchlorate, arsenic, mercury, and thousands of other untested and often toxic chemicals. I still sprayed household pests with insecticides, rubbed mosquito repellent on my skin and my childrens skin, and used cosmetics without concern. I still cleaned my floors and sprayed my shower curtains with whatever chemical cleansers happened to have accumulated in the cabinet under my kitchen sink.

I had recently moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a relatively remote barrier island on the coast of North Carolina. Even though it was only about ten miles from the Camp Lejeune military base and forty-five miles from the small, bustling city of Wilmington, I felt safe from the man-made contaminants and pollution of the big cities.

A house built right on the dunes at the edge of the ocean was the dream of my lifetime and my mothers before me. After her death, I believed it was then or never, so I searched the entire East Coast for something remote enough to be affordable. Then, when I found it, I looked up at the stars and clouds and sensed that my mother knew we were finally there. I thought it was the purest and most primitive place I had ever lived. Countless pelicans and seagulls flew overhead. Giant sea turtles nested just two hundred feet away from my door, and sand crabs scurried into holes as I took my evening walks. Sometimes, when the moon was full and the tide was high and the ocean came right to the foot of my deck, a fear of the encroaching sea or the threat of hurricanes engulfed me, but a fear of environmental contamination never did. Ironically, just as my life overflowed with the joy of my isolated fulfillment, the contamination that threatens all of us was moving ever closer.