Environmental toxins ingested through air, food and drinking water, pose particularly serious risks to human health. These substances (including many pesticides, dioxins, furans, PCBs, and heavy metals such as lead and mercury) persist in the environment, and may bioaccumulate and magnify in the food web.
Because of the tendency of these chemicals to accumulate in fatty tissue, many (such as DDT and dioxin) are found in significant quantities in human breast milk. Many are mobilized during pregnancy when fat reserves are depleted, and subsequently find their way across the placenta to the newly developing fetus. There may be special windows of vulnerability in the development of fetuses when these chemicals can have long-term, irreversible effects on the reproductive and neurological systems.
On any given day, people are exposed to an array of toxic substances, from industrial pollutants in the air, to pesticide residues in foods, to heavy metals in drinking water. The sheer number of toxic substances present in the environment is alarming. For example, in the last 50 years some 80,000 chemicals have been developed and introduced into the environment. Visit PSR's national website, at www.psr.org, to find out how you can become active in this critical area.
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