"More than 80,000 new chemicals have been developed since World War II, according to the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai. Even of the major chemicals, fewer than 20 percent have been tested for toxicity to children, the center says."
Cancer in the Kitchen, Nicholas D. Kristoff, NYT - December 5th, 2009
[Read the whole article here]
As physicians we are taught to evaluate the pertinent scientific data on various treatments, looking at short and long-term benefits and harms, analyzing whether benefit outweighs risks for a particular patient with a particular problem. We are taught not to trust medications (substances that have been created specifically with the noble intention of alleviating illness) just because we think they should work - that we should wait and analyze the data. Why have we (or at least I) not applied the same critical approach to the thousands of semi-pronounceable chemicals on the packages of the things we eat and otherwise interact with? How were we lulled into a sense of safety about these things - when in reality we just do not know how safe or unsafe the effect of a certain chemical is? Why wasn't the above statement, excerpted from the New York Times, uttered by doctors decades ago - when we are the ones that are most concerned with health, and apply, regularly, a critical, scientific approach to that end?
Part of it is the myopia that the scientific study of the human body and its disorders requires. There is so much to be done that it is hard to spread our attention so far into every aspect of our modern lives that might impact us adversely. However it also seems to come from a sense of trust in the modern project. How could many of the things we put in or around our bodies be potentially bad for us when in general modernity has brought us such unprecedented good? There's "Progress" after all, right? The faith that things get better as we keep on going - that while filled with its own problems, our modern present must be (net) more positive than negative - more safe and better, than our past.
Is there really any way to know this for sure? Or is it only our faith in this point that makes it so real for us?
[Read the whole article here]
As physicians we are taught to evaluate the pertinent scientific data on various treatments, looking at short and long-term benefits and harms, analyzing whether benefit outweighs risks for a particular patient with a particular problem. We are taught not to trust medications (substances that have been created specifically with the noble intention of alleviating illness) just because we think they should work - that we should wait and analyze the data. Why have we (or at least I) not applied the same critical approach to the thousands of semi-pronounceable chemicals on the packages of the things we eat and otherwise interact with? How were we lulled into a sense of safety about these things - when in reality we just do not know how safe or unsafe the effect of a certain chemical is? Why wasn't the above statement, excerpted from the New York Times, uttered by doctors decades ago - when we are the ones that are most concerned with health, and apply, regularly, a critical, scientific approach to that end?
Part of it is the myopia that the scientific study of the human body and its disorders requires. There is so much to be done that it is hard to spread our attention so far into every aspect of our modern lives that might impact us adversely. However it also seems to come from a sense of trust in the modern project. How could many of the things we put in or around our bodies be potentially bad for us when in general modernity has brought us such unprecedented good? There's "Progress" after all, right? The faith that things get better as we keep on going - that while filled with its own problems, our modern present must be (net) more positive than negative - more safe and better, than our past.
Is there really any way to know this for sure? Or is it only our faith in this point that makes it so real for us?
