UnderwoodHomoToxicus

Homo Toxicus

For a group like ours, who have seen numerous films on environmental issues, it is quite a feat for a film to create as much shock as Homo Toxicus did. I think that this may be because it’s about an issue that has kind of been forgotten in the drama of global warming, something that although it affects us every single day, and gets worse every single day, we really don’t notice, because it takes place on such a small scale. Carole Poliquin takes us through her journey of discovering the horrific affects of the chemicals that have become a part of our daily world, and I think the fact that she is discovering this as she goes through the process of creating the film is what makes it hit so hard, because we discover it along with her. It’s also quite horrifying to think that it was only released last year (2009), which means that not much progress has been made on the subject.

The problem is, that in the name of progress, we have started using many things without considering the affects they might have in the future. There are over 100,000 new, synthetic chemicals that make up our daily world. These come from pesticides, insecticides, industry, but also from things we have in our houses, like our pillows, couches, and children’s stuffed animals, which are doused in flame retardants, or our Teflon cooking pans. These things either get into us, or get into our water, then work their way up the food chain to us. Once they’re in us, we can’t really tell, which is part of the problem. These chemicals exist within our bodies in trace amounts, so it’s really hard to detect and prevent, but at these trace amounts, they effect our biological processes. For example, mortality from chronic diseases has increased greatly in the past 30 or so years. Chronic diseases are usually caused by environmental factors, but the problem is that doctors can’t really diagnose which specific environmental factor has caused a disease in an individual. It’s the same with cancer, which is caused by a series of mutations, which usually is occurring for 20-25 years before a tumor forms and it actually turns into cancer. This makes it near impossible to trace back and find out what caused the initial mutation to take place, so even though we know that chemicals probably cause cancer, they can’t specifically prove it on an individual basis.

One of the most disturbing (and most effective) parts of the movie is when they talk about these chemicals affects on reproductive systems. Male births are declining, while female births are increasing. Male sperm counts are decreasing. There’s an increase in babies born with hypospadias (or testes deformation), and male frogs are growing ovaries. That’s a lot of information to take in, and a lot of it is pretty scary. The problem is that the generation being born now is the second generation to be exposed to these chemicals, which means that they absorbed these chemicals from their mothers while they were in utero, and if they’re lucky enough to be born [relatively] normal, they also get it from their mother’s breast milk, as well as being exposed to it in their daily lives. So not only are they absorbing little bits of chemicals throughout their lives like we did, they were also born with these chemicals already in them. As generation cycles go on, we will just build up more and more of these chemicals as a species, which doesn’t look good for our survival as a species.

So why don’t we just stop using these chemicals? The problem is that most people are completely unaware that this problem exists. These chemicals have become so engrained as a normal part of our daily lives that we just accept them, and don’t think about the fact that they may actually be harming us. Most of the items in our houses that we use every day have toxic chemicals in them, and we just don’t realize it. Another problem is our government’s regulation system. Rather than using a protective approach, our government uses a risk management approach, which elevates economic considerations to the same level as health concerns. It is not in the interest of Agribusiness to stop using their pesticides (like atrizene), so the government claims that the pesticides are safe (even though atrizene has been proven to make male frogs grow ovaries). It is the same with many industries, like oil and coal. We know that they are harmful to us, but the government won’t regulate them because they are powerful economically. The industries/corporations and government rely on the fact that it takes years to study whether or not these chemicals are really harmful, and the fact that it’s often really hard to prove causation when it comes to the types of diseases these chemicals cause. There is often clear correlation, but because studies cannot prove causation, it is very hard to take legal action against the companies.

I think this film was really strong in the fact that it is so horrifying, and that it makes clear something that we generally don’t think about, but it was really weak in providing the viewer with solutions. The solution that Carole Poliquin seemed to come up with was educating people, which is important, but where do we go from there? Do we all move to Europe, where the governments are a lot stricter about these chemicals, and ban them based on contamination rather than insisting on needing proof of negative affects before they’ll take action? Do we all just run to the hills and live in caves far away from civilization and its chemicals? That won’t work, some of the most infected people are the Inuits and the Aboriginals, who are not industrialized societies, but are unfortunate victims of polluted food supplies and polluted air streams. I decided to go on the internet to see if the website’s links had any suggestions on what to do ([]). It’s main focus is a petition against 2,4-D, but when I clicked on the link, the site no longer exists. So I did some searching, and found out that 2,4-D is a pesticide that is widely used, and is proven to cause endocrine disruption and lymphoma, as well as a bunch of other nasty things ([]). I also found on the EPA’s website ([]) that they are considering 2,4-D for reregistration, and has found it not to be a “common mechanism of toxicity” ([]). Agribusiness: 1, Human Race: 0.