MORE & MORE DATA ARE EMERGING WHICH SUPPORT THE THESIS THAT MANY COMMERCIAL INTERESTS ARE KNOWINGLY POISONING US FOR PROFIT
THE INTENT IS PROFIT.
SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE MERELY BYPRODUCTS (‘externalities’ as economists would say)
THE OPERATIVE WORD HERE IS ‘KNOWINGLY’
The scale is massive!
The damage our health is widespread, fundamental, and growing as more and more toxic chemicals are added. Their effects, in combination, make the situation worse.
Should we be concerned? Yes, we should be extremely concerned. The SOBs are making us sick—and killing us, They just don’t think of it that way—or prefer not to.
We all know that much of life is about trade-offs, and that there is some degree of risk to virtually any human activity. However, as a general principle, we try and mitigate it as much as possible. We regard that as just plain commonsense.
The issue here is not the innately hazardous nature of life, but the disturbing reality that all too many commercial interests are putting profit before principle, and systemically doing things that they know are causing harm.
But, who are those guys?
Big Ag; Big Food; Big Soda; Big Fast Food; Big Restaurant Chains; Big Pharma—the list is endless. Killing your customers, providing you don’t do it too blatantly, or too quickly is considered culturally acceptable in business circles. It is integral to the underlying ethos of the American Business Model.
The argument here is that such customers are choosing to kill themselves.
The issues here concern scale, balance, and choice. U.S. business tends to rationalize the production of a vast range of harmful products with the the argument that we don’t have to buy them.
That’s a somewhat specious argument for several reasons.
- We now know that promotional techniques can influence us way more than most of us would like to admit—so ‘Freedom of Choice’ is somewhat of an illusion. Culturally, we haven’t accepted this yet. We need to. It’s a fact. It has profound implications for how we organize society—and for the very nature of democracy itself. Simply put, if we allow virtually unlimited propaganda—as the U.S. does—then we don’t have Freedom of Choice; and, thus, we don’t, and can’t, have democracy.
- We rarely have full information about a product—so we are easily fooled. Corporate propaganda is virtually one sided—and scale of it is limited only by the available budgets. There is virtually no obligation to tell the truth. The average person has really no way of discerning it.
- The producer has a duty of care independent of whatever the purchaser may decide. He can’t abdicate responsibility.
- It is becoming increasingly clear that the scale of the harm that producers are causing is massive—and increasing. We are all affected.
It has long seemed to me that www.mercola.com covers this subject better than most.
“Our Daily Poison” — A Stark Look at Our Toxic Food Supply
October 24, 2015 | 73,362 views
By Dr. Mercola
How many chemicals are you exposed to on a daily basis? There's no way to know for sure, but chances are toxic chemicals are in your food and many items you touch hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day.
What is known that your toxic burden is largely related to your purchasing decisions and lifestyle. While environmental pollution is certainly a factor, primary routes of chronic exposure include your diet, and personal care and household products.
Tests have confirmed that those who eat non-organic foods and use chemical-based products tend to have far higher levels of toxins in their system. Your choice of building materials and furniture can also play a role, as many contain toxic chemicals like flame retardants.
Toxins in Food and Plastics Are Fueling Chronic Disease
Health statistics suggest the toxic burden is becoming too great for children and adults alike, and toxins in our food appear to play a primary role.
According to Joseph E. Pizzorno,1 founding president of Bastyr University, toxins in the modern food supply are now "a major contributor to, and in some cases the cause of, virtually all chronic diseases."
Dr. David Bellinger, a professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School has expressed similar concerns. According to his estimates, Americans have lost a total of 16.9 million IQ points due to exposure to organophosphate pesticides.2
Most recently, a report3,4 by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics5 warns that chemical exposures now represent a major threat to human health and reproduction.
An Endocrine Society task force also recently issued a new scientific statement6,7 on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, noting that the health effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals are such that everyone needs to take proactive steps to avoid them.
The statement also calls for improved safety testing to determine which chemicals may cause problems.
Our Daily Poison
Written and directed by Marie-Monique Robin, the featured film "Our Daily Poison" delves into these kinds of issues, covering a spectrum of poisons that most people are exposed to on a regular basis. This includes:
- Agricultural chemicals
- Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and other food additives
- Endocrine-disrupting chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA)
The film also discusses "the cocktail effect" — interactions between chemicals that render the sum total more harmful than the risks associated with any given chemical in isolation.
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