Naturally Interesting

In the Washington Post yesterday Donna Jackson Nakazawa discussed the rise of autoimmune diseases. I was just going to give the bottom line, but the article had too much good (scary) information. Read it yourself.

Here are some highlights:

• Nakazawa, interviewed medical experts around the country and they almost unanimously agreed that our daily exposure to environmental toxins is a major trigger of autoimmune diseases.
• Over the past 40 years, rates of Type 1 diabetes have increased fivefold; in children 4 and under, it’s increasing 6 percent a year.
• The CDC sampled 2,500 people nationwide looking for the amount of chemicals and pollutants each individual carried. They found traces of all 116 chemicals and pollutants they tested for, including PCBs, insecticides, dioxin, mercury, cadmium and benzene, all highly toxic in higher doses.
• Those who work with pesticides, textiles, solvents, benzene, asbestos and other compounds are significantly more likely to develop and die from an autoimmune disease.
• Finally, I love that she mentions the precautionary principle - something we seem to have forgotten about in America. Where the European Union has implemented legislation requiring companies to develop safety data on 30,000 different chemicals, the US is still awaiting action from Congress.