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BACK IN NEW JERSEY
We moved back to New Jersey six months ago, and it's great to be back. The move interfered with our publishing schedule a bit, but we'll soon get caught up.
To my way of thinking, Turnpike Exit 9 is a little slice of heaven. New Jersey is the Garden State, where activists grow like flowers. It's a state where you see tee shirts proclaiming, "Union and proud of it!" -- and because of those unions, wages in New Jersey exceed the national average. As a result, many people have some breathing room to worry about their neighborhoods and their children's health, and even to get nosy about their government. (Yes, folks, unions are essential to the success of every democracy. Unions are also the foundation-stone of public health: inequality is our biggest killer disease by far, and labor unions are our best defense against inequality. When unions grow weak, the corporados roll you on the ground and have their way with you. Take a look around. But I digress.)
New Jersey is a state with a growing Environmental Justice Alliance, a statewide Environmental Federation with 80 organizational members, and a Work Environment Council with 60 organizational members where labor, community, and environmental activists develop strategies together. See https://www.njwec.org . To top it off, New Jersey sports a unique information service that keeps everyone informed: Garden State Environews reprints essentially every environmental story that appears in any of the state's newspapers, day after day, week after week. What phenomenal commitment, and what a phenomenal resource! See https://www.gsenet.org . Now we just need a similar service for labor news, to get more traffic flowing across the labor-environment bridge.
But of course there's a reason for all this energy, activism and commitment. Everyone in New Jersey lives within 10 miles of a toxic dump. There are at least 12,648 active contaminated sites in the state, and more are being created as we speak. Yes, there's real trouble here. Two reports released recently revealed that the streams and the tap water in much of New Jersey are contaminated with toxic metals, pesticides, antibiotics, flame retardants, deodorants, artificial colors, caffeine, benzene, pain killers, perfumes and fragrances, fuel additives like MTBE, anti-depressants, blood-pressure medicines, birth control pills, insulin, sunscreen, gasoline, and hormones that were injected into cows but soon leaked into the nearest stream. A low-level toxic brew indeed. Drink up!
A lot has changed since we left New Jersey in 1990 to go to work for Greenpeace -- a stint that lasted only 2 years but took us away from New Jersey for 12. Unfortunately, one thing hasn't changed -- New Jersey (like the 49 other states) is still bogged down in a "risk assessment" mentality.
Until that risk assessment mentality changes, New Jersey will never be able to protect its environment or its communities, it will never be able to achieve environmental justice, and it will continue to sicken and kill its workforce at an appalling rate. Worse, state government will pretend to champion justice and public health while doing the exact opposite, thus eroding people's trust in government and eventually in each other. When trust erodes and we find ourselves "bowling alone," the corporados cannot be held in check. That's why risk-based thinking is the corporations' best friend.
How does a "risk assessment mentality" manifest itself? Let me count the ways.
For instance: When university scientists released their shocking report listing 600 industrial chemicals in the state's waters, a reporter wanted to know what it all meant. The chief research scientist answered the question this way: "The question is, 'Is this something the body deals with at low levels, metabolizes, and there's no problem? Or is this something that accumulates in the body? To be honest, we are just starting to deal with that question." In other words, what it all means is "scientific uncertainty" but trust us, we can "deal with that question" eventually. Until then, sit tight.
The take-home message was clear: scientists will have to determine the combined effects of all these chemicals on humans and wildlife before we can conclude there's a problem worth solving. We need scientific proof of harm before we can justify action to protect ourselves. That is the essence of a risk-assessment approach, and it is rampant throughout New Jersey (and the 49 other states). It is the main operating principle of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and even of many well-meaning environmentalists. No wonder New Jersey is a toxic quagmire and getting worse.
Let's examine the university's risk-based approach for a moment. Scientists now know that very low levels of some individual chemicals are biologically active in humans -- especially humans in the womb. Some chemicals interfere with hormones at levels measured in parts per trillion, others in the low parts per billion. Furthermore, a handful of studies have now shown that harmless levels of several individual chemicals can combine together to produce harm.[8] But testing to measure the effects of mixtures of chemicals is extremely expensive and time-consuming -- so testing mixtures will remain a scientific curiosity but will probably never become routine. We'll never be able to determine the precise effects on the offspring of a pregnant woman who drinks (and breathes) a toxic brew of mercury, PCBs, manganese, dry cleaning fluid, benzene, birth control pills and who knows what else. Lastly, if we're drinking (or breathing) these chemicals every day, it doesn't matter if they build up in our bodies or not; even if we excrete all of them every day, we get a fresh new load every day, so our bodies are continuously awash in exotic industrial toxicants. Can this be good for babies? Is this what we want for our babies? Do we really need scientists to answer these questions for us? Ask any Mom.
No, the risk-based approach would study a problem like New Jersey's contaminated waters (and air) for 100 years and still never reach scientific consensus on the nature of the danger. Corporations, of course, love this risk-based approach because it allows them to do their business in our water without ever taking any responsibility for the dangers they create. They never get called to account or brought up short because the problem always has to be studied further.
A much smarter approach says, "All this crap in our environment is probably not good for babies, or for fish, and we could set specific goals for cleaning our waters and then take real steps to reach our goals. We could measure our progress each year. We could continue to study the harms of individual chemicals and spread that knowledge far and wide so people know exactly how and why their tax dollars are being spent. We do need the best possible scientific information. But delaying action until we have scientific consensus on the hazards posed by combinations of 600 industrial poisons is a recipe for endless trouble." Some would call this "precautionary action." Others would call it common sense. But it is not how the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection thinks, and frankly many strong environmentalists (and journalists) still don't think this way either.
Here's a recent story from GARDEN STATE ENVIRONEWS Dec. 27, 2002:
"Eleven organizations, including fishing and environmental groups, sent a letter to N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) Commissioner Campbell, urging the state to put public health first when updating PCB consumption advisories for certain saltwater species (striped bass, bluefish, eel, lobster, and blue crabs) caught in N.J. waters. Though the State is moving toward being more protective of human health, there is a debate regarding how protective the advisories should be and how to present the cancer risks to the public.
"The groups recommend the state issue public health advisories based on a 1 in a million cancer risk (a lower risk of getting cancer), and say advisories based on 1 in 100,000 (a moderate risk of getting cancer) is the absolute minimum. The current advisories are based on a 1 in 1000 cancer risk (a higher risk of getting cancer)."
This news story gives the impression that PCBs are the only chemical of concern in N.J. fish, and cancer is the only disease to worry about. However, if anyone takes the time to look, they'll find dozens -- perhaps many dozens -- of industrial poisons in New Jersey fish. The combined effects of those poisons on fish-eaters will never be nailed down to a scientific certainty. At a minimum we know that almost all the fish in New Jersey have mercury in them in addition to PCBs (plus many of the industrial chemicals listed earlier) -- so anyone who eats their catch in New Jersey is playing Russian roulette with cancer, subtle brain damage, reproductive problems, impaired immune systems, and harm to their hormones -- plus the very real danger of passing these problems along to the next generation. Go fishing in New Jersey? Sure, but it's got to be "catch and release." Let's be blunt: Only a fool would eat fish this contaminated. And only a scoundrel would hide these dangers from the public by pretending that the only contaminant of concern is PCBs and the only danger is cancer. This is the risk-based approach at its worst because it doubtless harms some people while pretending to protect them.
Here's another example:
At a meeting the other day, I ran into Jane Nogaki, one of New Jersey's most wonderful activists, an environmental and community leader who puts the rest of us to shame with her 25+ years of committed service, and her patient smile as she slips the knife to the corporate polluters. To give but one example of Jane's prowess: Back when Christie Todd Whitman was New Jersey's governor and environmental and worker protections were permanently stalled at the state level, Jane went from town to town and convinced 87 separate communities to adopt a precautionary, least-toxic pesticide ordinance to protect students and staff in their schools. Shortly after Christie Whitman fled New Jersey (leaving $5 billion in red ink as her legacy) to apply her "voluntary compliance" philosophy as head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], Jane Nogaki's precautionary approach to school pesticides quietly turned into New Jersey state law.
Anyway, Jane says to me, "New York has passed a law banning the use of arsenic in new playground equipment. Don't you think N.J. could use a law like that?" I start to answer when a gentleman standing nearby chimes in. I believe his work is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a lumbering agency in every sense of that word. Immediately he steers the conversation into familiar risk-assessment territory:
Gentleman: "I've been looking at this, and the only place you'd expect to find arsenic is in the soil immediately around the posts holding up the play set. It won't harm anyone there," he says in classic risk-assessor fashion.
Jane, smiling: "Actually, they're finding arsenic all over the play sets, where the children can get it on their hands. Arsenic causes cancer and it's a danger to the children."
Gentleman: "From what I read, it's only freshly-treated lumber that has arsenic on its surface. As play sets age, the arsenic is no longer measurable, so there's little or no hazard," he says, in best risk-assessor style.
"Actually," says Jane, smiling, "I've been reading just the opposite. It's the older play sets that have the most arsenic on the wood." The gentleman goes silent. Jane has nailed him.
I speak for the first time. "This is a risk assessment conversation," I say. "Maybe a precautionary approach would help. A precautionary approach would ask, What are our alternatives? What are the different ways of providing play sets for children?"
Jane smiles broadly. "Yes, there are non-arsenic wood preservatives, there are different kinds of wood that don't need preservatives, there are plastics, and there are metal play sets," she says.
Gentleman: "The exotic woods cost at least 20% more than arsenic-treated yellow pine and they don't have the necessary strength." A lumber guy to the end.
I say, "The play set at my early school could easily be in use today, 50 years later. It was made of sturdy metal."
At that moment the meeting is called to order and our conversation ends. I reflect that the gentleman has been using a risk-based approach to defend the status quo, doing his best to prevent people like Jane and me from asking the most basic precautionary questions: (a) What are our goals for our children and the quality of our environment? (b) What are our options for getting there? (c) How can we prevent problems before they start? (d) Shouldn't corporations have to test their products before they are allowed to market them?
Those questions are fundamentally different from, "How much arsenic-treated wood is safe for children at play? How much PCB-mercury-Viagara-contaminated fish can a pregnant woman eat without damaging her unborn baby's brain?"
The true answers to the precautionary questions can be known through a process of democratic debate. On the other hand, the true answers to the risk questions are forever unknowable, subject to endless scientific uncertainty. So long as we allow uncertainty to paralyze us while we search for the Holy Grail of scientific consensus, the corporados will rule the day and our children will get sick: cancer, asthma, reduced IQs, attention deficits -- all the things that afflict New Jersey's children now and are getting worse.
It was risk-assessment thinking that created New Jersey as it is today: dangerously contaminated by unaccountable corporate decisions, aided by governments and scientific risk assessors. The best hope of turning things around is starting to think and speak in a precautionary way. We can do this. It is starting to happen. So long as we retain the right of free speech, this surging sea change is something that the Enron-Halliburton-Monsanto gangbangers simply cannot stop.
--Peter MontagueMarch 16, 2003
Precautionary Principle: Bearing Witness to and Alleviating Suffering,
by Carolyn Raffensperger*
Healthcare practitioners have a special obligation to provide healthcare services that do not in themselves add to environmental degradation, which can cause illness. The use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics, mercury thermometers, and other hazardous materials can be phased out and comparable tools of less dangerous materials may be substituted. A coalition called Health Care Without Harm is a good resource for information about problematic healthcare practices and safer alternatives.
Alternative healthcare practitioners, particularly those who use herbal remedies, have an opportunity to promote the preservation of biodiversity. Any herbs should be sustainably grown and harvested. The United Plant Savers posts a list of plants that are at risk because of human activity.[15] They have a precautionary goal: "Our intent is to assure the increasing abundance of the medicinal plants which are presently in decline due to expanding popularity and shrinking habitat and range. UpS is not asking for a moratorium on the use of these herbs. Rather, we are initiating programs designed to preserve these important wild medicinal plants."
Plants from other countries are generally governed by the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, an international treaty that seeks to conserve biological diversity and compensate developing countries who have the most biologically rich ecosystems. Unfortunately, the United States has not endorsed the treaty and continues to seek free trade in plants that might be otherwise protected under the Convention. It is important to know the source of botanical herbs and promote just financial arrangements with countries that are the sources of these medicinal plants.
But every aspect of a medical care facility can be evaluated for its contribution to the environmental burden, and that burden can be reduced. How much waste goes to landfills or incinerators? Are bike racks as available as car parking? Can energy use be reduced at the facility?
Observing Emerging Health Patterns
Healthcare practitioners are also in a unique position to monitor emerging patterns of environmental health problems. The analogy is that of the alert practitioner who is charged with observing and reporting adverse drug reactions or unusual infectious diseases. Are you seeing unusual patterns in your practice and your community that may have an environmental link? Are there places to report these connections?
Dr. Allen Parmet is one such alert practitioner who observed that workers at a microwave popcorn plant developed a rare lung disease, bronchiolitis obliterans, that appears to have been caused by breathing particulates from artificial butter flavoring. Occupational diseases like this are reported to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. There are few places to report environmental health problems if the disease is not occupational, however.
The Minnesota Department of Health recognized the issue of environmental health problems and created a precautionary principle committee based on the model of the alert practitioner. Its goals were to examine science and policy related to specific emerging issues and to consider prudent avoidance measures.
Similar kinds of committees can be set up on the local, state, and national level. It is possible to include in these committees wildlife biologists, teachers, veterinarians, and healthcare practitioners, among others. Such committees are designed to monitor the health of the public, see patterns that may not have been predicted, and take precautionary action to prevent further harm.
Setting Health Goals
Most states keep statistics on many current, pressing health issues, including cancer, birth defects, and the number of children in special education. Hospitals and other institutions maintain their own records of problems, such as emergency room visits for asthma. These statistics can be used by communities and states to set environmental health goals. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) sets generic health goals, such as reducing obesity or cardiovascular disease. The DHHS has never set environmental health goals. Nevertheless, setting such goals could steer public health policy in new directions. Goals could include reduced incidence of asthma, learning disabilities, and cancers.
Examples of Implementation
Implementing the precautionary principle is a tall order. But several jurisdictions in the United States, Europe, and Canada are trying to implement it. The following initiatives are of particular interest to those working on environmental health matters.
In 1999, the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted the precautionary principle to govern pesticide use in schools. The district's policy affirms that the "principle recognizes that 1) no pesticide product is free from risk or threat to human health, and 2) industrial producers should be required to prove that their pesticide products demonstrate an absence of [human health risks] rather than the government or the public prove that human health is harmed."
Verizon Wireless sent a brochure in July 2001 to its U.S. cell-phone customers describing the potential harm to children from radio frequencies emitted by cell phones. Verizon described the precautionary principle by name in its brochure and suggested that parents adopt the principle and limit children's use of cell phones. Similar wording, without acknowledgment of the precautionary principle, may be found on the company's Web site.
The City of San Francisco appointed an ad hoc precautionary principle committee that began meeting in early 2002 to identify methods by which city departments could apply the principle. The committee stated the following:
Towards that end, the Committee will:
a. Develop and update a Q&A for the general public
b. Develop Precautionary Principle guidelines, forms, and criteria for departments such as purchasing
c. Suggest initial near term goals
d. Develop indicators to help monitor progress
e. Develop trainings for city staff
The Secretary of the Commission on the Environment will establish and update a library of key documents and maintain a binder of letters commenting on the Precautionary Principle.
Both the library and the binder are available to the public.
Conclusion
Past environmental decision making predicated on measuring and managing risk has failed to stave off environmental health damage. Many chronic and debilitating diseases are on the rise, and many of these diseases are rooted in ecological damage. This new and emerging set of problems requires new methods for considering and preventing further ecological injury and thereby preventing human illness. The precautionary principle provides a new way of thinking about environmental health that invites healthcare practitioners to become knowledgeable about the issues and observe and report environmental health links that arise in their own practice. Healthcare professionals also can take environmental action to the workplace by reducing waste and finding alternatives to environmentally harmful medical supplies and therapies.
There is so much suffering in the world. Every child who cannot learn to read because she was exposed to mercury or lead, every child who cannot draw a breath of air because of asthma, every child who was born with a deformed penis because of exposure to an endocrine disruptor suffers for a lifetime. We can envision a healthy world where the offspring of all species are healthy and vibrant. And we can act. We can implement the precautionary principle, which urges us to take precautionary action even in the face of uncertainty. Frogs, white pelicans, sea otters, humans, and Monarch butterflies are worth our every effort. May we not only bear witness to and alleviate suffering but may we bear witness to beauty.
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