Toxic Births

March 21st, 2006 | researchmaterial

The New York Times published the toxicity of breast milk: found to contain “paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, wood preservatives, toilet deodorizers, cosmetic additives, gasoline byproducts, rocket fuel, termite poisons, fungicides and flame retardants”. Want to hear the worst part? These chemicals will remain in human tissue for decades long enough for these babies to pass the PCBs and chemical onto their own children.

If that is not enough to rattle you take a look at Maggie Fox, Reuters article dated July 14, 2005. The article is based on a study made by testing the umbilical cords of 10 unborn babies. These results will surprise you. “Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests,” the report said…

17 Responses to “Toxic Births”

  1. Give a new meaning to “born retarded”

  2. No, it’s the same old meaning with a nice new list of causes.

    It’s a good job that the human body is as fault-tolerant as it is (most of the time). Amazing, actually. Through simple natural selection (enforced in the womb) the only people left in a few hundred years will be those who can chug cans of carbonated benzine and thrive on lungfuls of carbon monoxide. We’ll have new arse-like organs all over our bodies for the daily collection and expulsion of tumours. Babies will be born earlier and earlier as it becomes advantageous to spend less time in the filthy wombs of their mothers.

    Should be an interesting few centuries, really.

  3. This is why I don’t do the dry-cleaning thing, I don’t wear unnatural fibers, I refuse to dress my children in chemically treated fire-retardant pyjamas (EW - stupid American rules about this are assinine) - and I limit my consumption of soft drinks…

    when I was pregnant with my son, I quit a high-paying job, because I was daily exposed to diesel fumes from trucks and other fumes from forklifts in a warehouse/manufacturing environment - I KNEW it would affect me and my baby. The world is full of all kinds of SHIT. Not surprising it ends up in breastmilk.

  4. Sounds like a plan, Lara. It’s really a shame that, in spite of all that you do to prevent it, everyone else around you adds to the problem.

  5. I heard something a few years ago, but never got confirmation, that there are now so many extra hormones being pumped into the world that girls as young as four sometimes start showing signs of puberty. If anyone can confirm/deny this with proof, please do.

  6. This information is completely meaningless without knowing the actual dosage of the chemicals involved. SUNLIGHT causes cancer if you get enough dosage, people. Trace amounts of carcinogens aren’t necessarily anything to concern youself with. Indeed, there’s a growing body of evidence that low-level exposure to carcinogens actually creates a lower incidence of cancer.

    Soli - “heard something a few years ago, but never got confirmation, that there are now so many extra hormones being pumped into the world that girls as young as four sometimes start showing signs of puberty. If anyone can confirm/deny this with proof, please do.”

    There was a hypothesis that hormones might be contributing to early puberty. However, the general consensus now, if memory serves, is that early onset of puberty in girls is actually linked to childhood obesity. Estrogen collects in fat cells, and so with more children being on the heavy side, the girls have more estrogen in their system and hit puberty earlier. To my knowledge, there has not been anybody who’s reached puberty at the age of four.

  7. Alex Knapp put all of our minds to rest. But let’s not forget that the problem of chemical contamination of tissue cells and breast milk is only going to get worse if we do not take action.

    Best

  8. Mud, leaves, and insects also contain natural toxins. Keep this in mind before getting all tree-hugging on us.

  9. Yeah, if God wanted us to be cancer-free He wouldn’t have invented the Star Wars program.

    But when you consume it in high quantities, anything can be dangerous. Like bananas or pornography or asbestos.
    The solution is simple: BAN EVERYTHING!

  10. Especially bananas.
    And porn.

    In fact, banana porn and all forms of bananakakke.

    (Yes, this entire comment was just a flimsy pretext to use the word bananakakke.)

  11. “We’ll have new arse-like organs all over our bodies for the daily collection and expulsion of tumours.”

    (((good: i won’t have to carry my rot around all the time…i can UNLOAD it…it’s grand making my problem, your problem)))

    “Babies will be born earlier and earlier as it becomes advantageous to spend less time in the filthy wombs of their mothers.”

    (((good: the sooner the little bastards slither out, the sooner we can get them WORKING…the machine needs new cogs…so what if the cogs are misshapen…work, damnit!)))

  12. “We’ll have new arse-like organs all over our bodies for the daily collection and expulsion of tumours.”

    (((another good thing: each of these expulsions can be cataloged and tagged, ’spimed’ if you will…the better to track them as they go their merry ways…it’s important to see what kind of trouble my mobile pustules get into.)))

    (((and: if we want, we can ‘borgifiy’ our independent tumors…why should the gov. have all the fun? i want my cancerous, mechanized spimes capable of self-defense, AND reporting back any nastiness they get into…i want it all…imagine a whole world of mobile, cancerous, self-defending, net-linked tumors and afterbirths, roaming the countryside and cityscapes…now that’s anarchy! anarchy we can enjoy from the comfort of our hovels by way of the streaming video and the v-blog.)))

    (((it truly is a wonderful life!)))

  13. Yes it is, Mitch.

    Yes it is.

  14. Well im glad by mother never breast fed me as a child, i’ve already suffered the injustice brought on my body as an unborn child within my mother’s womb when she drank insanely when her mother died during her pregnancy with me inside her.I was born with arthritus and couldn’t walk till i was 4.i say decrease the amount of toxins and other pollutants we spill into the air to try and reduce this indecent onslought to our future generations.

  15. i would like to breast feed my children when the time comes but im afraid that ive taken in too much shit during my life to allow this. oh well c la vie.

  16. the breast versus the bottle: not much difference these days…in either case the baby will still have to choke down additives and enhancers…same with everything else

    i smoke…which cigarette do i prefer: the ‘natural’ unenhanced kind, or the one full to overflowing with formaldehyde and preservatives?

    without the shit we deplore, we’d all fall apart

    we’re toxicity embodied

    our ears are full of it…our bellies swollen with it…our heads addicted to it

    i say: well, why the hell not…

  17. Breast-fed babies still turn out significantly healthier than formula-fed babies, even in polluted areas where breastmilk contains toxins. (Added bonus: breastfeeding doesn’t pollute during the manufacturing process.)

    http://www.lalecheleague.org/Release/contaminants.html

    CBC recently posted a pretty good in-depth report about cancer and environmental toxins. No big surprises, but it’s great to see a mainstream article call bullshit on everyone from drug companies to cancer societies.

    http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/health/cancer/index.html

    Towards the end, they give consumer tips for avoiding cancer-causing toxins…

    http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/health/cancer/whatyou.html

Positive Reinforcement Therapy

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

This one goes out to Nadya, Zo, and especially Courtney Riot, our beloved creative director. Hang in there, babies.


Post tags: Coilhouse, Serious Business

?I?m bad? I?m a man? I HATE my penis.?

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

Well hello there!

PrimalScreeeeeamEEEEEAAYYYAAGH

Do you lack healthy boundaries? Are you guilty of the compulsive overshare? All-too-eager to share gory, palpating details with complete strangers that no one besides your own mother and/or proctologist would ever want to know?

Non-consensual rape anecdote telling. Tactical uterus hurling in lieu of real intimate contact. The “I wasn’t breast fed enough so now I need to publicly air my personal anguish to feel properly nurtured and validated” power point presentation. “Cry For Help” cutting (across the street, not down the road). Cloaking references to life-shattering trauma in Obfuscating Yet Ominous Faerie Singsong? (patented by Tori Amos). “Fuck You Daddy, I’m a Suicide Girl Now!” blog posts. Spontaneous primal scream therapy in the supermarket. If you have ever attempted one or more of these maneuvers, chance are, you’re a TMI Avenger.

Relax. You’re among friends. And you’re gonna loooove Body Memories. A squirm-inducing, low budget indie film directed by the same fella who brought us one of the most fabulous independent documentaries of the decade, Body Memories is…

…one man’s journey inward to find meaning in his life. He becomes an archeologist of the soul, digging through the layers of his past. Evocative images blend with a riveting performance that uncovers family secrets and buried traumas.

Enjoy.

(More clips under the cut.)


Read the rest of “I’m bad… I’m a man… I HATE my penis.”


Post tags: Crackpot Visionary, Culture, Film, Gender, Sexuality, Silly-looking types, Surreal, Testing your faith

Miss Piggy?s Teaches of Peaches

Coilhouse - 20 Nov 09

Every time an issue of the magazine goes to print, things somehow turn Highly Inappropriate here at Coilhouse. This is apparent to anyone who was there on Twitter during the hours of our final revision deadline last night. And it’s only going to get worse before Issue 04’s out.So to celebrate, a video of Miss Piggy singing “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches. It’s that kind of day.

[via Shannon]


Post tags: Madness, Music, Puppetry

claytoncubitt: Will Blanche, ?The Newly Constructed Towers of...

Brian Wood - 20 Nov 09



claytoncubitt:

Will Blanche, ?The Newly Constructed Towers of the World Trade Center Seen From the South Side on West Street, May, 1973? (via These Americans)

See also:Mitch Epstein, ?West Side Highway, New York City? [looking towards World Trade Center] 1977

Percy Jackson trailer

Kung Fu Monkey - 20 Nov 09

Seriously, if I were 12, this would have melted my brain. I love this trailer.

JOURNAL: How to Break and Open Source Insurgency

John Robb - 20 Nov 09

Short Answer:  divide it.

It's long been my contention that Iraq was stabilized at an acceptable level of controlled chaos due to a happy accident by al Qaeda (in an attempt to expand/lead the loose insurgency in a new direction).  What did they do?   They blew up the Golden Mosque in Samara in 2006.  This act of symbolic terrorism did indeed disrupt social networks as anticipated, however the consequences were ultimately disastrous for the Iraqi open source insurgency.  

Baghdad_Ethnic_2007_late_smThe reason for this is it broke the dynamics of the open source insurgency in ways the US and Iraqi government's COIN efforts could not.  First, it created a permanent split between Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups/militias.  Coopetition ended.  Second, it motivated large Shiite militias to start an ethnic cleansing of Sunni areas.  This put acute pressure on Sunni guerrilla groups who were too small (by design to avoid US counter-pressure) to defend themselves against large militias operating in the open.  The result was an opening, very close to the one I described in my 2005 NYTimes OpEd, that allowed the US to convert Sunni guerrilla groups into militias that were not loyal to the central government (in direct contradiction to its COIN manual).   

It's a nice example of the dynamics of many to many conflict, social network disruption, and the development open source counterinsurgency.

See this excellent description at the blog, "Musings on Iraq" for more detail on the ethnic cleansing operations.  It also includes this money quote: "the majority of the Sunni insurgency gave up and switched sides to align with the Americans rather than face annihilation at the hands of the Shiite militias, Al Qaeda in Iraq, or the United States."

NOTE:  it's pretty clear from the above that social network disruption (either through attacks on symbolic targets or blood and guts terrorism) is like playing horseshoes with live hand grenades.  It's ultimately a losing strategy for advancing an open source insurgency.  Social network disruption is very likely to break standing order 6:  don't fork the insurgency.

Twitter Updates for 2009-11-20

Girl Farts - 20 Nov 09

LINKS: 20 NOV 09

John Robb - 20 Nov 09

Some random items of interest:

  • Vigilante militias in Rio are displacing the drug gangs -- favelas under the control of militias has grown from 108 in 2005 to 400 in 2008 (out of 965).  Why?  They have a better (albeit parasitic) conflict/business model than the drug gangs since they act as a substitute for missing public goods/services normally supplied by the government.  First, they provide a minimal level of security and conflict adjudication.  Second, they make more money than the drug gangs by "taxing" everything from propane to cable TV to the gray market.  
  • US gray economy estimated at $1 Trillion (not including criminal, outside of the evasion of taxes and regulation, activities) and growing faster than the "legal" economy.  
  • Proposal and wiki for an open source fabrication lab.
  • Somali pirates are expanding operations into the Indian ocean.  The combination of positive feedback loops (maritime insurance + rapid payoffs by crisis negotiators) and legal ambiguity (the biggest fear of a western navy and governments is that they might arrest a pirate -- prompting a massive/expensive legal tussle with few certain penalties and the forced extension of a visa to the former pirate once he is released from his short incarceration).  Is a franchise model for other locales possible?
  • Yes-we-can-secede
  • A business group in Ciudad Juarez asks for UN peacekeepers.  Hilarious. "Ciudad Juarez, population 1.5 million, has an average of seven homicides a day, with the total at 1,986 for this year through mid-October."
  • Seccession.net.  County based secession effort.  

Untitled Post

blissblog - 20 Nov 09

Yume no Byouin Project

Jean Snow - 20 Nov 09

Yume no Byouin Project

Beautiful (and simple) site design featuring the illustrative work of Yorifuji Bunpei. Via Paul Baron.