From 9/11 to melanoma
Europe's "precautionary principle" jostles U.S. imagination
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| Illustration by John Saenz |
The Sierra Club report Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero documents how hundreds of workers are suffering the ill effects of the toxic cloud of debris from the 2001 World Trade Center collapse because the Bush Administration misled them—and the public—about their safety.
Unfortunately, one rarely has to look far to find a case of environmental health deception. Just this past summer in my hometown of Lansing, Mich. there was a remarkable one.
On July 11, 2004, approximately 14,000 Lansing households discovered their drinking water might be contaminated with lead. Just as troubling was the fact that city officials knew about the danger for 12 years but never told them.
Citizens learned about the situation through a local media expose. The irony is that since 1999 Lansing has released annual Consumer Confidence Reports about tap water quality, as required by law. The 2003 report said that the water was fine.
The day after the newspaper broke the story, nearly 500 anxious homeowners besieged the water department with phone calls. The department refuses to identify the 5,000 worst households.
When asked why the city had waited so long to inform residents, Sanford Novick, the water department’s general manager told the Lansing State Journal, “[I]t’s not like people are going to be poisoned to death starting today.”
Where is the public health in this assertion? The late warnings meant parents could not take precautions to prevent possible learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, hearing loss, stunted growth and even mental retardation in their children—possible effects of lead exposure, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Better Safe than Sorry
The precautionary principle goes much further than wearing seatbelts and checking the stove before a long trip, both good precautionary habits.
It is a growing international movement dedicated to protecting humans and the environment from toxic chemicals, radiation, heavy metals (such as lead and mercury), genetically altered organisms and more. Most of these microscopic or invisible threats are poorly understood. Others may be potentially harmful.
Multi-million dollar corporate media campaigns defending potential toxins add to the confusion. The precautionary principle seeks action despite a lack of absolute scientific proof about a potential public health threat.
The precautionary principle shifts the burden of proof. While government agencies usually ask, “how much harm is allowable?” the precautionary principle considers, “how little harm is possible?”
Europe is far ahead of the United States in recognizing the power of precaution. A 2002 European Union report, Late lessons from early warnings: the precautionary principle 1896-2000, detailed 14 case studies—from asbestos to Great Lakes chemical contamination—which demonstrated that “in trying to reduce current and future risks the lessons of history have rarely been used.”
The EU report details the lag times from when a toxin was identified as potentially harmful to when the government took action.
It tells the tale, for example, of Lucy Deane, a British factory inspector, who in 1898 observed “the evil effects of asbestos dust . . .with the sharp glass-like nature of the particles—have been found to be injurious.” One hundred years later, in 1998, the UK government finally banned white asbestos.
Coming to America
On June 17, 2003 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-2 to adopt the precautionary principle as official policy for San Francisco City and County.
Among the resolution’s many provisions was a sweeping declaration: “San Francisco looks forward to the time when the city’s power is generated from renewable sources, when all our waste is recycled, when our vehicles produce only potable water as emissions, when the Bay is free from toxins, and the oceans are free from pollutants.
The precautionary principle provides a means to help us attain these goals as we evaluate future laws and policies in such areas as transportation, construction, land use, planning, water, energy, health care, recreation, purchasing, and public expenditure.”
This goal may be impossible to fully realize, but lays the foundation for its vision. A three-year review of the policy will be available in June.
Precautionary principle measures recently passed in Berkeley, Calif., the Los Angeles School District and Marin County, Calif.
In April 2004 the national precautionary campaign came to Ann Arbor, Mich. with a presentation by Ted Schettler, coauthor of Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment. He addressed a group including citizens appointed by Ann Arbor’s City Council to make recommendations about the precautionary principle. Among them was Matthew Naud, environmental coordinator for Ann Arbor.
Naud is looking for ways to identify environmentally friendly purchasing decisions.
“We’d like to go after big-ticket items, goods that contain mercury, for example. Or [toxic] flame retardants,” he said. “We’re also looking at environmentally preferable carpets and furniture.
But Naud said Ann Arbor’s city budget pales in comparison to the University of Michigan. He said Ann Arbor has about $100 million in its general fund, whereas the U-M hospital budget alone is about $1.8 billion. Any serious effort at success must involve the University.
not just specialization
Universities can help solve environmental health problems, but they can also be obstacles. The aforementioned EU report makes this point in criticizing traditional academic scholarship. “Compartmentalized science, no matter how erudite, is an insufficient base for knowing enough to anticipate or mitigate the impacts of such complex systems: integrated and synthesized knowledge, which pools the wisdom from many natural and social sciences, is a necessary condition for being Homo sapiens.
[J]ust knowing enough is not of itself sufficient: acting wisely, and in good time, is also necessary.”
The precautionary principle includes procedures to evaluate chemicals and other toxins: for example, community conferences and citizen juries—a direct form of citizen participation modeled after criminal juries.
Such devices could help ensure decisions are not restricted to a few small group of professionals or government bureaucrats who may suppress information the community has a right to know.
Using our Imaginations
One wonders what citizen juries might say about various suspected environmental threats. Consider just one: melanoma. There is sufficient evidence to question the dominant view that sunscreen is the best precaution.
Indeed, the use of sunscreen may actually help cause melanoma. In a now classic 1993 Mother Jones magazine article, “Beach Bummer,” medical writer Michael Castleman investigated the historical evidence and found that sunscreens offer a sense of false security and prolong people’s time in the sun by preventing the body’s natural melanoma warning system—sunburn.
Subsequent studies have provided supporting evidence. For example, in the December 16, 2003 Annals of Internal Medicine, Dr. L.K. Dennis of the University of Iowa concluded that “no association was seen between melanoma and sunscreen use,” after she and her colleagues conducted a comprehensive MEDLINE search of articles published from 1966 to 2003 that reported information on sunscreen use and melanoma. There have never been clinical trials to prove the efficacy of sunscreen.
The most effective protection from ultraviolet radiation associated with melanoma is a wide-brimmed hat, clothing and sunglasses. But the sun care industry does not mention this in its marketing.
Australia—which has the greatest incidences of skin cancer per capita—has a “No Hat, No Play” rule. Every child must wear a hat to play outside. Children have begun wearing neck-to-knee swimsuits on beaches and at pools. Lifeguards set an example by wearing wide-brimmed hats, long-sleeved shirts and sitting in the shade. Expansive tents or trees now shade many pools and playgrounds. The rate of skin cancer is down 11 percent over the last 10 years in Australia, mostly among youth who are getting the message.
In an impatient world, long-term solutions to environmental dangers are usually given short shrift. But history bears out success. Perhaps it’s time to introduce the precautionary principle in your hometown.
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