Posted on 07/15/2005 2:06:25 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
WASHINGTON — Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report to be released Thursday.
Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.
The report by the Environmental Working Group is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.
"These 10 newborn babies ... were born polluted," said New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, who planned to publicize the findings at a news conference Thursday.
"If ever we had proof that our nation's pollution laws aren't working, it's reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb," Slaughter, a Democrat, said.
Cord blood reflects what the mother passes to the baby through the placenta.
"Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests," the report said.
Blood tests did not show how the chemicals got into the mothers' bodies.
MERCURY AND PESTICIDES
Among the chemicals found in the cord blood were methylmercury, produced by coal-fired power plants and certain industrial processes. People can breathe it in or eat it in seafood and it causes brain and nerve damage.
Also found were polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are produced by burning gasoline and garbage and which may cause cancer; flame-retardant chemicals called polybrominated dibenzodioxins and furans; and pesticides including DDT and chlordane.
The same group analyzed the breast milk of mothers across the United States in 2003 and found varying levels of chemicals, including flame retardants known as PBDEs. This latest analysis also found PBDEs in cord blood.
The Environmental Working Group report coincided with a Government Accountability Office report issued Wednesday that said the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the powers it needs to fully regulate toxic chemicals.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found that the EPA's Toxic Substances Control Act gives only "limited assurance" that new chemicals entering the market are safe and that the EPA only rarely assesses chemicals already on the market.
"Today, chemicals are being used to make baby bottles, food packaging and other products that have never been fully evaluated for their health effects on children -- and some of these chemicals are turning up in our blood," said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who plans to co-sponsor a bill to require more testing of toxic chemicals.
Pollutants and other chemicals are believed to cause a range of illnesses. But scientists agree the only way to really sort out the effects is to measure how much gets into people and then see what happens to their health.
First - the sky is falling, the sky is falling
Second - "These 10 newborn babies ... were born polluted," It sounds like original sin.
Third - aside from the very first sentence and the fact that this is totally a superficial article, at least the reporting is fairly politically neutral.
Lastly - Although it would appear counter-intuitive given the massive use of chemicals to build our wealthy, healthy, prosperous society to this point, my inclination is to believe that somehow this was not a problem before George W. Bush was President.
Well, the left has another reason to support abortion-- Polluted fetal tissue....
Everything was different when President Clinton was in charge. First off, such studies never saw the light of day.
But how much did they find????
It's all my fault.
I stopped using condoms.
They can rip them out of the wombs at the say-so of the mother, so what's a few chemicals between friends.
"Pollutants and other chemicals are believed to cause a range of illnesses."
Gee - ya think? I say we all head back to the dark continent from which all mankind is said to have originated and live a long healthy life of natural beauty and purity.
And people are living longer every year because......
Because they ignore these "make-work" nutcases -
Go back before we had all of these so-called killer chemicals - see how long and well people lived back then -
No gasoline - just walking across fresh horse manure in muddy streets - now there's something real natural you love to scrape off your boots and high button shoes -
Back when there was no penicillin - no anesthesia for operations - no indoor sanitary toilets - no safe running water - no food refridgeration - no quick and safe electric or gas stoves - no electric lights -
Ah - the good old days -
When most everyone died so young -
Then they took the benzine out. Lost all of it's flavor...I couldn't swallow it.
Now I buy generic CO2 water, or get some cartridges and fire up my 60's bachelor pad retro spritzer bottles.
prisoner6
"Unborn Babies Soaked in Chemicals, Survey Finds"
Heavens! Next thing you know, they'll be exposed to COMPOUNDS and SUBSTANCES!
Babies? I thought they were "fetuses" until after birth. That Slaughter, a pro-baby-killing Democrat, should suddenly discover that they are babies is amazing. If a mother can kill her baby until it is totally out of her body (partial birth abortion), why in the world should we be worried about the possible and remote harm of polluted cord blood?
I wonder how these environazis explain that the life expectancy of those babies keeps going up and is almost at 80 years...unless your mother aborts you, of course.
And where did they find the subjects for the "test?"
Uh LIVING?
Conspicuously absent in the above "article" is any mention of the quantity of toxins found. If the amount of chemical is trivial, the danger from it is trivial.
I thought to the LIBS that an UNborn baby was just a blob of tissue? So why their big concern for the blob of tissue being polluted?
As always, "discoveries" likt this are going to cost us money. New and/or stronger regulations brought to us courtesy of the EPA will result in higher costs that will be passed along to the consumer. And, naturally, the more regulations we have, the more federal bureaucracy we will need to enforce them.
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