Keeping Score

I hope that people are deeply distressed by my posts on the universal American body burden. It's probably a planetary body burden, but the studies we have at hand are from this country. If you are upset, perhaps you'd like to know more about your own personal body and its chemical contents, perhaps you'd also like to find out what in your own environment is putting you at risk.

So I'm here to give you some things to play with. It might, for instance, be fun to find out your very own b.b. by taking this On-line body burden assessment. It is of course only a very ballpark assessment - the real deal is more extensive than most labs can handle, and more expensive than most wallets can cough up. So, by doing this you get a sorta/kinda idea of what you are carrying around. And, perhaps more importantly, you realize that what we're talking about here is not what we get from uncleaned-up Superfund locations, or living on top of Love Canal type sites - the majority of this burden comes from items in your: office, kitchen, shower, cosmetics bag, camping gear, bedroom, garage, cleaning closet, and so forth. I took this quiz, and scored a 339 out of 794, just under the median. I would have done better evidently, if only I vacuumed more often. It's not high on my list of ways to spend my time - but apparently particles of evil stuff like to bond with household dust (and presumably, pet fur?) and then enter the temples of our bodies (yes, I went to Catholic schools) as we breathe.

We go to some lengths to live as naturally and organically as possible: don't use commercial cleaning products, use organic personal products and as few of them as we can get away with, garden and do lawn care organically, etc. Still, we have TVs, a stereo/CD player, computer, camping gear, carpeting, vinyl floors in kitchen and bathrooms, I use the copier at school extensively, yada yada yada. Chemicals, the fabric of our lives. No way to get away from them.

So, okay, now you've more or less found out how burdened your body might be - it's time to discover what your local environment is like. Thanks to Environmental Defense, we can do that here, at Scorecard: Get an in-depth pollution report for your county, covering air, water, chemicals, and more. Yes. Just put in your zipcode, and there you have the scary picture of what your neighborhood is really like. The couple whose dog never stops barking, the kid who skateboards in your driveway, the people who get your parking space when you have to work late - nahh, they're nothing compared to what you'll find out here at Scorecard.

I really do hope that these posts are bothering a lot of people. And that activities like those in this post will inspire people to take action. Or, as Davis Baltz of Commonweal puts it:

Body burden testing produces data that supports a framework challenging the existing paradigm while creating a vision of the next. Thoughtful studies with powerful results that are integrated effectively into ongoing market and policy campaigns can provide continuing opportunities to engage with the press, the public, and policy makers about that next vision.

We are that public. Let's engage with the press, the policy makers, the DuPonts, Monsantos and 3Ms that are churning this stuff out. Let's get to work on that next vision. A world where babies aren't born with compromised health, where mothers' milk is not a conduit for toxins, where kids don't have to lose ten points off their IQ before they even know the alphabet.

| +Save/Share | |