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When, in a recent lecture, Joe Thornton, a research fellow in Columbia's Department of Biological Sciences and in the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), showed off the ultrasound image of his unborn baby, he wanted to point out more than tiny fingers and toes. The Columbia University biologist used the picture to demonstrate that even before breathing a single breath on its own, a child is already "awash in pollutants" derived from both its parents -- pollutants that could lead to problems like low IQ or cancer.
Thornton, a research fellow in Columbia's Department of Biological Sciences and in the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), now wants to make a case for averting the health impacts of some of the worst chemical offenders, called organochlorines. His new book, Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy (March 2000, The MIT Press, 611 pp., $34.95 cloth), offers an innovative solution to the global problem of toxic chemical contamination -- a new framework for environmental science and policy.
Thornton's focus in the book is on substances called organochlorines, produced when chlorine gas is used in industry to make plastics, paper, pesticides and thousands of other chemicals. Pollution from these processes, which Thornton calls "chlorine chemistry," has gradually built up in the global environment, from our own backyards to the remote rain forests of Africa, from the Hudson River to the North Pole.
The very properties that make organochlorines useful in industry are responsible for their environmental hazards. Because chlorine often makes chemicals more stable, many organochlorines are difficult -- if not impossible -- to break down, so they build up over time in the environment. Their ability to dissolve in oils leads to bioaccumulation, a process by which organochlorines build up in the bodies of living organisms and multiply in concentration as they move up the food chain.
"Since humans are at the top of the food chain, it's no surprise that we're highly contaminated," Thornton said recently.
Organochlorines also tend to be very toxic, Thornton argues. In Pandora's Poison, he builds the case that global organochlorine contamination has already caused severe damage to the health of wildlife. And he marshals a body of epidemiological evidence to argue that pollution has contributed to the worldwide incidence of diseases and conditions in people, including immune system suppression; falling sperm counts and infertility; endometriosis; impaired learning in children; and cancers of the breast, skin and immune system.
The current framework for environmental science and policy fails when it comes to addressing the issues surrounding organochlorines, the author writes. This framework for assessing and regulating toxic chemicals, introduced in the 1970s by industrialized countries, uses tools like risk assessment, pollution control devices and waste disposal technology to license pollution within limits that are predicted to be "acceptable." But regulations that only consider immediate and local health risks cannot adequately address the subtle, long-term global hazards posed by organochlorines, according to Thornton. Because of this deficiency, pollution has slipped through the cracks of the system, causing untold damage to human and wildlife health.
"Global contamination has occurred not because we have no regulations but because we have the wrong kinds," he said.
That's where Thornton's research comes into play. He proposes a new environmental strategy, called the Ecological Paradigm, which considers such issues as the impacts of pollution on complex natural systems, the limitations of scientific assessment methods and flaws associated with pollution control and disposal devices. He suggests a radical reversal of the burden of proof -- instead of presuming the chemicals are safe until they are proven hazardous, they should be presumed hazardous until demonstrated to be safe. After all, he points out, the pharmaceutical industry must convince the Food and Drug Administration that a new drug is safe before putting it on the market. So why shouldn't industrial chemicals -- which could also cause negative health effects -- be scrutinized just as carefully?
This new framework calls for a holistic approach to assessing environmental threats -- a sharp contrast to the narrow focus of the current system. Instead of looking at each chemical on its own, Thornton argues that society should take global action on the production and use of major classes of hazardous chemicals -- beginning with organochlorines.
Rather than licensing pollution, Thornton argues, we should attempt to reduce it as much as possible by using production methods that do not rely on toxic chemicals. He proposes a "chlorine sunset" -- a gradual phase-out of the production of chlorine-based substances, replacing them with safer, economically feasible alternatives. For example, a process called "wet cleaning" is already being used successfully in many places as an alternative to conventional dry cleaning, which uses the chemical perchlorethylene, and "Pandora's Poison" is printed on paper bleached with oxygen, not chlorine.
"Maintaining the status quo will not solve the problems created by the current system," Thornton writes. "It is time to learn from our mistakes and our achievements and build a new set of policies around prevention, precaution and clean production."
According to Thornton, progress is already being made toward that end, but full implementation of a strategy like his will require even larger changes in government and politics.
"There is substantial progress on pieces of the puzzle," he said recently. For instance, some industries are already converting to chlorine-free technologies, and certain countries -- especially in northern Europe -- are making broad policy changes. In addition, he noted, an international agreement on persistent organic pollutants is now in negotiations.
"In this country, official implementation of the entire program I discuss -- both a phase-out of chlorine and a change in the way environmental policy is made -- runs headlong into the existing power structure of politics -- corporate dominance in particular," he said. "With that in mind, the full range of changes necessary to protect the environment will require structural change in government to enhance democracy, including campaign finance reform. That is why I consider democratization of environmental politics an essential aspect of any environmental program."
Even after the publication of Pandora's Poison, Thornton continues to refine the tenets of the Ecological Paradigm. He is now working to generalize his strategy so that it can be applied to other environmental issues like genetic engineering and climate change.
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