If you start really looking around at the enormous problems from unregulated chemicals and their amoral manufacturers, it can lead to overpowering overwhelm and frustration. But then a Hero comes along there, a Shero pops up there, and you can't help but get back in the fray with determination to rid our world of toxics that are making all life on earth sick.

One of my Hero Journalists is Andrew Schneider at the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Formerly with the Baltimore Sun, Andy has been ripping the cover off of the chemical industry's dirty little secrets for decades. Plus, he's a great writer. Check out his blog, Secret Ingredients, if you want to find out stunning news months and sometimes even years before the wire services pick it up.

Of course if you check out the blog of Shero Jennifer Sass, you'll see Andy's link there, too. Jennifer is a scientist at the Natural Resource Defense Council fighting the same fight - to hold chemical corporations accountable for their irresponsible behavior with their manufacturer and marketing of their dangerous products. Jennifer Sass's Blog gives you the scoop on the struggles that Jen and the NRDC are taking on for the rest of us. One example of that is their fight against an organochlorine chemical used as a pesticide, endosulfan. Endosulfan is about to be added to the international treaty, the Stockholm Convention, for world-wide phaseout along with other Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are chemicals that take a very long time to break down, and they travel North on wind and air. So we find them at much higher levels in the people of the North than down in the areas where they are actually manufactured (and why are we still making them?) and applied.

For example, the infamous DDT, banned here in the U.S. and in most countries, is still manufactured in China and India. The communities where it is made have higher rates of cancer, reproductive and developmental problems than average. The U.S. is promoting and commencing to spray DDT inside people's homes in Africa, starting with Tanzania.

The official reason for its current use is for malaria control, even though effective malaria control has been achieved using treated bednets and antibiotics, and most African physicians, scientists, and health advocates do not want DDT even for malaria control.

It seems that Monsanto is teamed up with the U.S. government for this chemical contamination of Africa. It is very interesting that in each place where DDT is being forced upon the people, is also a place were Monsanto has test plots for GMO crops. Of course, one of the first things the Monsanto funded DDT promoters did was to get Senator Coburn to force the EU to remove import restrictions on produce coming from countries where DDT is used. Could asking for import restrictions to be lifted from these very same countries for GMO crops be far behind? Could it be that the DDT for malaria campaign is part of a push to open up GMO markets in the EU and the world for Monsanto?

Well, unless someone involved in this has a fit of conscience, we may never know.

But Pam Miller knows that the effects of DDT and other POPs chemicals are being felt up in Alaska and the Arctic with the Indigenous peoples. A new report from the state of Alaska has been released showing much higher rates of birth defects in Alaskans and particularly Indigenous people than elsewhere. Cleft pallets are of particular concern, known to be linked to exposure from organochlorines like endosulfan and DDT (both pesticides) and dioxin. It is curious that the state report left out the part about chemical exposure as a factor.

One reason Indigenous people in the North have higher rates of POPs chemicals in their bodies is that they often rely more on hunting and fishing for their food supply. When a gallon of milk costs $12, it pays to get protein from traditional sources. The animals and fish, of course, contain POPs chemicals, too, the the Indigenous people are ingesting these chemicals at a higher rate.

Shero Pam Miller and her Shero staff are working to raise awareness about this situation, check them out at Alaska Community Action on Toxics.


Down in the lower 48, another Shero chemist Arlene Blum is battling the bromine industry. Arlene helped get bad chemicals out of children's pajamas in the 1970's. Now she's trying to get California, the U.S. the EU and the rest of the world to stop developing toxic chemicals, and to intentionally develop "Green Chemistry" instead, which creates safer chemicals.

But the bromine industry is so bent on making huge profits from overselling their toxic compounds, that they are out in force to oppose Green Chemistry or anything that would impact their profits.These companies make brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and methyl bromide. Methyl bromide is a fumigant pesticide that is slated for a worldwide ban because it makes the hole in the ozone layer larger. It is also linked to Parkinsons's and other neurological illness among farmers and farmworkers and near communities where it us applied on crops like strawberries. BFR's are linked to neurological, reproductive, and developmental problems and also to cancer. Firefighters don't want them used because studies have shown higher rates of cancer among firefighters that is likely to be from BFR exposure.

The bromine industry has bent over backward to try and fool the public about these chemicals so they can get regulators to force them into products. The same men who worked for the Tobacco Institute twisting information about smoking are working for the bromine industry. One of their specialties is creating phony citizens groups posing as regular people worried about fires. These include: The American Fire Safety Council, Citizens for Fire Safety, and Californians for Fire Safety. They even have bromine industry executives - in charge of consumer advocacy no less - posing as members of these groups.

We won't be fooled, however, and the good news is, that more and more people are waking up. In Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, Dick Rogers warned the readers about another "stealth organization," the Center for Consumer Freedom. This industry front group likes to debunk studies about nutrition.

You have to wonder, how can the people who spin lies for a living sleep at night? What happens when they wake up? What happens when they or their loved ones get cancer or other illness from the chemicals or bad food they are promoting? Will they ever get tired of promoting things that cause so much suffering?