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Dingo Roberts's avatar

I'm very pleased to see this. This is long, but you'll probably find a couple of things that are worth your time. I'll start my rambling with my sketchy memory of an old study.

Around 20 years ago, I found a study from the 1970s. The bottom line is essentially this: the researchers were studying the effects of three chemicals on rats. Exposure to one chemical caused no problems. Exposures to two chemicals caused sickness. Exposure to all three chemicals caused death. Around this time, I spoke with someone at the EPA. I asked about how they go about testing the many thousands of chemicals that are in use; how they can test the incalculable combinations of them. He said that they can't aren't funded well enough to test them singly, never mind in the combinations in which they're used. IOW: they're not tested the way they're used in a single product; what about how we all use them together in various combinations in our lives?

The only place that I know of that tested products in this way is (was?) a small laboratory in Vermont called Anderson Laboratories. Using technology that was originally developed by the US Army during the Vietnam War, they expose mice to real living conditions using real products that we all buy: carpet, mattresses, toys, soap, trash bags, or even air samples from buildings that are suspected sources of sick building syndrome. Here's an excerpt from an interview:

“Have you tested pesticides on the mice?

“Rosalind Anderson: We try not to, because we have such frightening results from things that are supposed to be “normal”, like dish-detergent. If that’s so toxic, we really don't want to go to things that are supposed to be poisonous. We avoid pesticides like the plague. Pesticides are a serious problem, but we do not want to risk contaminating our laboratory with pesticides.

“We don't have a ventilation system that is powerful enough. With the ventilation system we have, we would have to take the whole system out, get it decontaminated, take it to the trash and install a whole new system. So we have avoided pesticides as much as we can.”

It's difficult to find information about their work, but a good introduction is this interview. You'll never look at what you have inside your home the same way again. And even if you do manage to clean most of these chemicals out of your life, you will always be exposed to the poisons that people wear on their bodies or use in their homes and places of business.

http://exposed.at/anderson.htm

I became interested in chemical harm due to my own chemical injury. What's interesting in my case is that I had symptom development long before I knew that it had anything to do with the chemical that caused it (formaldehyde) and the chemicals that trigger my symptoms, which are a wide range of commonly used products. The easiest to identify are fragrance products. The worst offenders are those that likely contain phthalates, which led me to read about endocrine-disruptors. From there I found the studies that found frogs could change genders with these chemicals. My suspicion about the trans phenomenon has been that there are any number of traits associated with gender and sex preferences, and perhaps these traits are under the increasing influences of the increasing use of chemicals.

Regarding autism, glyphosate is an obvious potential culprit given the huge increase in use over the same time that autism has increased (same with vaccines), but my suspicion is that the problem may be a combination of things: vaccines, pesticides, and the innumerable chemicals that are in our foods, personal care products, cleaners, and air fresheners. But autism is almost a red flag like cancer: its often the case that if no proof of cancer causation is found, a product is safe. This helps avoid the many problems that are also likely caused by these products such as neurodegenerative diseases, behavioral problems in children and adults, psychological problems, etc.

Obviously, there is a tremendous amount of money at stake along with the power to protect it. The tobacco industry was able to use plausible deniability to defer recognition of harm, but this problem is far more insidious. And far more dangerous.

An interesting blueprint of denial by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries can be found in the treatment of my disease: multiple chemical sensitivity.

https://annmccampbellmd.com/publicationswritings/publication-1/

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John Q Liberty's avatar

An alternative hypothesis? Channeling my inner Brett Weinstein, it's hard for me to believe there's not an evolutionary component in all this. Years ago, someone pointed out that the baby boomer generation in America was the first generation to grow up that didn't have to worry about finding something to eat. Years later, we've progressed to a point where many don't seriously worry about any of their other needs - clothing, shelter, medical care - either. The welfare state has certainly helped fueled that, certainly, but that's a separate issue for another time.

Here's the evolutionary component, using the economic concept of wants and needs:

Before the twentieth century, needs were pretty much all that mattered. There was always next winter to worry about, how to survive in a world without electricity or refrigeration, a world in which you were only a crop failure away from severe deprivation and possible starvation.

Needs are few and defined. Wants are unlimited - anything at all that an individual can imagine. Human nature evolved from the very beginning to deal with hard-headed reality. That so many can no longer differentiate between fact and fantasy is predictable, time no longer dedicated to basic needs fueled more time and energy being spent on wants. A credible hypothesis? I believe so.

In a 'Forbidden Planet' sense, the human race has become the Krell.

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