The social do-gooders that bleat about the cost of smoking on our health system ignore completely the effects of chemical pollution on health.

I'm willing to bet that the chemically contaminated environment contributes a much greater cost to the health system than even smoking does.

If your a baby boomer, you were of the last generation to be born without the wholesale acceptance of chemical pollution in the plastics age.The food your parents ate whilst you were in the womb, was not as contaminated with heavy metals,dioxin, ddt, and compounds found in plastics etc. Your mothers milk was not contaminated with the fire retardant chemicals found in her highly flammable synthetic clothing.

The real truth is that your children and their children etc may never live as long as you will or enjoy the healthy life that you have had.

I urge all boomers to look around their descendants and consider how many individuals in their family may be, or are already effected or afflicted with unexplained and difficult to deal with health issues.

The fact is "it is not just, what we expose ourselves too after we are born that counts" when it comes to health, "but what we continue to expose our children too before they are born that counts most ".

Continuing good health will be increasingly dependent upon your genetic durability and the medical profession will one day understand this fully. As the human organism becomes more fragile with each passing generation and the environment becomes more toxic , greater numbers of people will be affected and eventually, instead of the dominant species crawling out of the primeval slime our replacement will devolve from the chemical soup.

To continue with my consistent theme "it is big business and greed that continues exploitation beyond the womb, or worse, to the very egg and sperm, and should be held accountable. Not provided with sanctity or benefits.

Govt's must act, and people must vote for Govt's that will make them stop!.
If it is not past the point of no return already.

The Anti Smoking Lobby tends to blame smokers for all the Pollution.
Rules and Regulations are well on the way yo being Prohabition against smoking. The Government collects a lot of tax money from smokers. If everyone stopped buying cigarettes the Goverment would add the taxws they lose from cigarettes and add tax to an commodity everyone uses such as bread milk etc.

>>I'm willing to bet that the chemically contaminated environment contributes a much greater cost to the health system than even smoking does.<<

thinker 2,

You mean there's something worse than directly inhaling into the lungs a product that has hundreds of highly toxic compounds? I'm not doubting that there are toxic compounds in the environment and that they need attention, but worse than smoking? All I can say is good on the do-gooders.

>>The fact is "it is not just, what we expose ourselves too after we are born that counts" when it comes to health, "but what we continue to expose our children too before they are born that counts most ".<<

There's a science called epigenetics that deals with linking physical causation with effects on the genes in the human body. It's postulated that everything you consume deposits a chemical marker in your body's cells. It's not surprising, then, that what affects a person the most is what children are passed by way of their genes and what they eat etc from an early age. And, imagine the affect on children whose parents or grandparents smoked!

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Speaking of toxic pollution, Australian Story over the last two weeks highlighted the contamination of the waterways at St Helens in Tasmania. It would appear, after a long process of elimination, that the fresh water washing down into the bay from the catchment was in fact highly toxic and responsible for killing oysters at the mouth of the river. St Helens also has a high incidence of very rare cancers in humans and yet only has about 3000 people. There are also incidents of mouth cancer in Tasmanian Devils in the area. Something was suss.

(TBC)

(Cont)

Three concerned people got together to take samples of the water. They traced the toxin back to a eucalypt plantation at the head of one of the branches of the river. It would appear that a high concentration of leaf material from a particular type of introduced eucalypt species is the culprit. There's also the idea that genetic improvement was involved in cultivating the trees. So far the Tassie Government has said, after doing its own studies, that indeed the water is toxic, but because it comes from a natural source, it isn't an issue. Just restating: it isn't an issue.

Here’s the height of buck-passing and excuses for playing dumb. Toxic means toxic. It doesn’t matter how it got there, it must be dealt with. Just as we don’t eat poisonous toadstools, if something alien invades our lifestyles we deal with it. The Government inaction would appear to be due to the fact that the toxin is caused by a Government decision allowing the plantation to be grown in that location. At best, the Government is stalling so that they can mobilise some action to fix the problem. At worst, they’re covering their backsides.

People could do something about this situation by expressing a strong desire to root out the problem. Literally, in this case.

Thank you RobP. I was about to follow up my first post by referring to the Tasmanian situation and absolutely agree. As for the smoking reference in my first post I was trying to draw attention by comparison with the health effects of chemical pollution, badly.

What's interesting about the St Helens disaster is the fact the GM trees are involved. I did watch Australian Story.The science presented by the doctor and the oyster farmers was compelling if not conclusive regarding the difference between these so called improved tree's and the natural version.The river is now entering the ocean as GM outfall with as yet unknown effects on environment other than we already know that the outfall kills or maims anything in the immediate vicinity.

The other issue is of course that the official response claims that the poisoning is "entirely natural", but it isn't natural to have so many tree's of the same species covering such an area and/or genetically modifying them.

Ironically after watching A.S. I flicked past a commercial station and watched a beer ad that assured me that there was something different about Tasmanian water.

Thanks RobP also for offering a solution. I agree what else can be done?. These quick grow and possibly more toxic than usual gums, might be a little hard to get rid of, and end up on the noxious weeds listing.

As for rooting out the problem literally that should go for the culprits as well as the tree's.

cheers T