Chemicals are stealing childhood
By KRISTINE SOLY
Cape Cod Times, February 10, 2011 2:00 AM
I am a physician — a holistic cardiologist — practicing in Yarmouthport. I’m writing about the NStar spraying issue. This was an issue we recently dealt with in Yarmouth. I had the opportunity to speak at one of our town meetings, and introduced a concept — hormone mimics — that no one seemed to have thought to worry about. I think it is important that we all be aware of this issue.
Pretty much everyone seems to recognize the risk of spraying such toxic chemicals on a fragile area like the Cape. People have certainly weighed in on this at length. I don’t think I need to address this issue since I’ve heard it referenced a good number of times, and, of course, the concern is very legitimate.
What I want to bring up is the issue of endocrine disrupting chemicals. These chemicals include herbicides, pesticides, lawn treatments, and similar chemicals (like surfactants), as well as many plasticizers in plastics that are ubiquitous in our lives. These chemicals are dangerous because they mimic the hormone estrogen, are absorbed into and stored in our bodies, and behave like estrogen, creating very high levels in our bodies.
I am 66 years old, so I can reflect back to when I was pubescent in my early teens. Most girls at that time began to develop secondary sex characteristics (like breasts, pubic hair, shapely hips, etc.) and began menstruating at about the age of 13 to 15. If a girl started her periods at age 10, she was really kind of freakish, and it was an oddity. Not so today. As a result of all the hormone mimics in our environment, estrogen levels are so high that girls are beginning to develop sexual characteristics much earlier. Now it is not considered premature for an 8-year-old white girl or a 7-year-old black girl to begin menstruating and developing secondary sex characteristics!
I’m sure most of us have or know children, perhaps daughters or granddaughters, whom we can recall at 7 or 8 years old. Picture them starting their periods and developing breasts! This is what is happening, and it is largely a result of the chemicals that we pour into our environment with no consideration to the downstream effects. These are children barely past babyhood who are developing the bodies that we normally see on young teenagers!
Though men may not appreciate the impact, most women will recall that starting to menstruate and developing a woman’s shape pretty much signify that childhood is over. It’s the end of playtime. Is this what we want for our children — to so early call a halt to their innocence?
The effects on our boys are not yet so clear cut, although we do know that sperm counts are being affected. These levels of estrogens were never designed to be in boys’ bodies, either.
If you agree to let NStar, or anyone else, spray hormone-mimicking chemicals into our environment (because cutting the foliage down takes too much time?), this is what you’re signing on for. Not only will it poison the water and soil we all must use, but it will so significantly affect the health and well-being of our children that they will no longer be children, and the results will be irreversible.
I think this is a terrible tragedy. To prevent it requires that we exercise the precautionary principle of not using a substance till it is proved safe, rather than using something till it is proved dangerous. Will this be an inconvenience for NStar? Apparently. Will it cost more not to spray these chemicals? Perhaps. Do our children’s lives and health matter enough to restrain NStar from spraying? I guess we’ll see!
It’s time we all spoke up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. Our children are helpless pawns in this situation. Aren’t we as adults supposed to protect them? Think of all the things we do to help them grow up healthy. Choose, if you wish, to ignore what might happen to us as adults if NStar is allowed to spray (after all, we don’t have that much longer to live and suffer, do we?), but by all means act to prevent them from destroying the future health and lives of our children. These little people are precious, and they are vulnerable — their safe future depends on us. It’s way past time to say no to NStar spraying.
Dr. Kristine Soly practices in Yarmouthport.
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