WATCH: We are Rats in a Global Chemical Experiment
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Mark Schapiro, editorial director of the Center for Investigative Reporting and author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, recently participated in Current:Green’s Earth Day question series. In this video, Mark addresses the following question:
Here’s my Earth Day burning question. How bad are the chemicals that are found in things like everyday household items? And how do these chemicals affect our health and the earth?
Here’s the transcript:
The thing that concerns me most about toxic chemicals is this thought: that we—over the past 50 years or so—have been participants in this great global experiment as to what the effect of chemicals are on the human body. And we’re talking here about the substances that human beings have not evolved over millions of years to metabolize—these are wholly new synthetic substances. And one of the things that’s been happening over the last number of years is the results from this experiment are coming in. And what they’re telling us is that there are higher rates of cancer in the United States and elsewhere in the world, higher rates of reproductive troubles among young women and young men, higher rates of problems of the nervous system, and that over and over again we’re seeing these conditions.
At the same time, toxicologists have basically begun to identify the particular characteristics of some of these chemicals that we see in things like cosmetics and electronics and toys and a whole array of consumer products that we deal with on a regular basis. And what we have now is a government which does not have the ability to even regulate these substances—often they don’t even have the power to analyze the ingredients in a whole array of substances. I think it’s about time that that begin to change, because I—like I imagine you—don’t really fancy being a rat in this global experiment.
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