SUSTAINING*VALUES

How unthinkingly we accept toxins and other pollutants into our surroundings–into the air we breathe, the fabrics we put on our bodies, the foods and the non-foods that we ingest. Astonishingly, this is so, even now, when we have the Clean Air Act , the Clean Water Act and such governmental agencies as the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency EPA),the Occupational and Safety and Health Administration commonly believed to be on alert, safeguarding the quality of our citizen existence.

I recall the time when we, the public, acted most cautiously with poisons that were part of commercially available products. Preparations of many kinds, for the garden, for first aid and other home applications, were marked so that the buyer was alert to the nature of the item and would handle it accordingly. Such items typically carried the mark of a skull and crossed bones, and the user knew the package contained something deemed to make it probably injurious to one’s health, even life, if not used properly. If my experience is a fair indication, children were taught to regard that symbol with considerable awe.

Lynn Lawson describes for us a very different world in her book-length and updated treatments of her experience of illness from exposure to the chemicals that pervade our surroundings: Staying Well in a Toxic World.