hello and welcome to worlds apart most of us have heard about the plastic pollution of the oceans but something similar is happening to our bodies as well chemicals and in plastic bottles metal cans could not it's detergents lotto bloodstreams and may cause long lasting damage is reversing this micro pollution any easier than saving the oceans from the plastic bags well to discuss that i'm now joined by dr lee i'm not a just sunday director of the division of environmental pediatrics at new york university's school of medicine dr just and it's good to have you on the show thank you very much for talking to us thank you for having me now you're best known for

your studies on. how they can make us we consume in our daily lives a fact our bodies for example by disrupting our hormonal systems in these particular filled how much do we know how much do we not know and do we know what we don't know hormones are our signaling molecules that time and again serve so many functions in our bodies and their current destructors are synthetic chemicals that disrupt those signals and thereby contribute to disease and disability across the life span there is what we know and what we don't know but what little we know suggests that over a thousand chemicals can disrupt the hormones in our bodies now originally back in the one nine hundred fifty s. and sixty's we thought that these were once offs we know about an episode of the pharmaceutical death will still best roll which was used in pregnant women that was later found to induce cancers in young girls and we. that that was

a rare event and we thought these events occurred at high levels of exposure but now we know about a broader suite of these chemicals that can do such damage even at lower levels of exposure the reason i'm asking this question is because in the united states in particular there are several very prominent examples in public health when that fishel science and regulations seem to be out of sync with believe the reality of the food pyramid and its buys for carbohydrates would be one such example is the kind of advise that you are advocating still a bit of a dissident science or is it already and the stablished view well we have international bodies that have documented the public health threat posed by under christmas shopping chemicals first it was the end of current society back in two thousand and nine through its scientific statement that's an international body of seventeen thousand science scientists that have documented the disease burden that is likely to occur then the world health organization in the united nations

environment program published this report in two thousand and twelve and it was welcomed by the united nations body on chemicals management and then most recently the american academy of pediatrics documented the urgent threat of these chemicals in foods so this is not a fringe element this is a mainstream scientific phenomenon now i mentioned before the pyramid before which is skewed in favor of carbohydrates and there is an increasing number of american scientists who believe that. kind of advise have been a major contribution to the obesity crisis in your country and also around the world i have to say for what i understand the micro plastics make problem even worse is that right well we know now that chemicals that occur in plastic containers don't just get into foods when they warp or stretch we know that even microwaving plastic or using certain types of plastics with foods can lead.

delete xing into the foods and ultimately into our bodies and we know in particular that certain plastics that make chemical soft called valleys disrupt the basic male sex hormone testosterone can also disrupt metabolism making people have a propensity to be fatter well that sounds very very scary is there anything we as consumers can do to minimize that kind of exposure the great news in the book that i've just written is that there are safe and simple steps we can all take to limit our exposures to concern so avoiding canned food is a great way to get rid of bisphenol including bisphenol a which has received a lot of attention in the news of voiding certain types of plastics in foods particular with the recycling numbers three six and seven three s. for which we've talked about six is for styrene a known carcinogen and seven are for the bisphenol as well as other chemicals of concern in addition we've talked about microwaving plastics also avoiding machine

dishwashing plastic food containers because that can at sure scratch the plastic at a smaller micro microscopic level leading to increasing leeching into foods now you just mentioned your book and i know that it puts you in the crosshairs of the american chemistry council which is the industry group that claimed that the research into hormone disruptors by you and others has been lacking in quote scientific quality credibility and reliability those are pretty serious allegations with somebody with the ok democrat entrails how do you take it well you've seen an immediate response by esteem and scientists in the field defending the book and that speaks to the extremely strong scientific evidence that we have to date the second under current society scientific statement had one thousand three hundred thirty one scientific references supporting it were. at

a point similar to climate change five or ten years ago where the sciences commute accumulated such that there's a greater than ninety nine percent probability that these chemicals contribute to disease so it's naturally you might say unnatural to see that kind of statement on behalf of the products almost defending their products but the reality is that we all need to pay attention to this emerging public health threat and take the actions on our own behalf to protect ourselves well do you think that kind of. comment on your book is it triggered by the lack of knowledge is it triggered by the lack of understanding or do you suspect that they may be some commercial interests at play here it's clear that there are large financial stakes if you will but that's misleading in some respects we've already seen an outcry for safer chemicals in products and we've seen

a great rapid increase in green chemistry where products are being evaluated not just about their ability to work in a real life environment but about the lifecycle of those chemicals in the environment and their implications for human health and we're seeing new companies emerge and that's where the economic realities become very positive for human health you're starting to see market share grow for companies that are doing the right thing mommy half of human health and selecting safer and greedy and so in their materials well that me also be it one of the reasons why a big company is fighting it so hard i know that it took a few day kids between the discovery of the link between smoking and lung cancer and the introduction of stricter tobacco rules and i think it's now well established big tobacco was deliberately spreading misinformation. why are

industry friendly scientists and it continued doing its harmful practices abroad even after regulations were introduced in the united states is that relevant and knowledge here is it something to be mindful of it's absolutely relevant we've seen the same story with lead even as best as the irony here by the way is that there is an end to criticism of being chemical that arose in exposure because of the tobacco wars and because of the use of tobacco we saw a spike in people dying in fires and so california put in a requirement requiring flame retardants be added to mattresses and other materials to prevent the spread of fires now it turned out that didn't really actually help save lives and it actually set up a legacy while while people especially children were being exposed to flame retardant chemicals that disrupt thyroid hormone which is crucial for brain development and children well let me let me ask you about the standard that these

companies have to meet before putting a product on the market by the presumed innocent until proven guilty or do they have to prove that their products are saved before they appear on the shelf. until late twenty sixteen the environmental protection agency had that innocent until proven guilty framework in place and president obama signed into law an update to the toxic substances control act for chemicals used in many goods and materials but in the united states we actually have more of a swiss cheese framework b. environmental protection agency only covers part of the universe of chemicals when it comes to safety when it comes to food some particular the food and drug administration through its own regulation has a lot of oversight over the chemicals in particular that get into the food supply and ultimately into humans and for that regulation we still have almost a nine hundred fifty s. if not earlier style of regulation work chemicals are only presumed to have effects

at high levels of exposure and we actually trust the industry to vouch for chemical safety now i do want to ask you about the f.d.a. position a little bit later but before we go there let me pose a question that i assume some businessman may pose to you you know these kind of ecological or epigenetic studies may take years if no day kits to accomplish and if we wait until everything is safe prove business will go out of business how would you respond to that this is not an anti business message this is a message for innovation in products and opportunities for profit actually and margin through innovation we've seen time and again these situations where the costs of innovation or the costs of safer alternatives are presented side by side even for a chemical with bisphenol like bisphenol a we've actually seen even for

a small scale analysis that only looked at two of the health outcomes associated with b.p.a. we saw that a an alternative with out the health effects identified for b.p.a. would actually almost. produced benefits to society that were equal to the costs of b.p. and in some of those analyses we actually found greater benefits to society so this argument that we always have to lose our economic productivity when we do the right thing for human health is completely flawed to this day we're still getting a four percent g.d.p. stimulus globally by getting lead out of paint and gasoline well that's very interesting it does doesn't it just sunday we have to take a short break but we'll be back in just a few moments stay tuned. what

politicians do. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some want to. have to do like to be the person this is like the three of them or people. interested in the lives of. those should. reflect there's someone else living inside of me controlling my body. the byproduct of. that drug because like severe depression. because it literally made him into

a zombie it's crazy. you know we don't have to do anything it's not our shoes crazy and all that. piers conair. because. i happened to be interviewed in an effort to understand what happened here the p.m.c. the premier was not contracted to win the award the p.m.c. just came here last contract to train a unit and to create. and then to go into combat and the g.p. limited the. welcome back to worlds apart that leo not there to sunday director of the division

of environmental pediatrics at new york university school of medicine dr sunday in one of your article see you point out around ten thousand perhaps more chemicals allowed to be added to food in the united states but the food and drug administration which oversees that process physically cannot ensure that all of them a safe why is that well that reinforces the reality that we have a complex and almost swiss cheese framework when it comes to regulation in the united states you would think the environmental protection agency would protect everyone from chemicals and all foods and other ingredients but the food and drug administration the u.s. department of agriculture and other entities have substantial oversight in the united states and whereas the e.p.a. updated its regulation very recently the food and drug administration still operates on a framework that assumes that the dose proof makes the proverbial poison and the

reality is that even the f.d.a. his own science suggest effects at low levels of exposure one thing that absolutely astounded me that i didn't know before is that the f.d.a. . a does not have the authority to go up to a data or reassess the safety of chemicals we are already on the market which is quite scary knowing how much both the bio chemical and medical industry is have progress does it mean that once the chemical is on the market it will be on the market for ever unless the producer wants to replace it with something safer well fortunately we're seeing a lot of attention to what we call the generally recognized as safe or grass loophole there are a lot of proposals underway to modernize the food drug and cosmetic act in the united states so that we can have a framework that's clearer and more protective of human health unfortunately that

regulation as is the reality with science becomes out of date as we understand more about the effects especially of low level exposure to chemicals commonly found in the environment now the united states is an important oriented economy of the consumer goods in target or in walmart produced all over the world even the abdi has difficulties keeping track with them mary can produce serious does it have enough bandwidth to keep the foreign producers in check well that also speaks to the reality that the u.s. policy is not the only policy to keep in mind here the european union for example has shown substantial leadership on a number of issues with relation to destructing chemicals and we've seen progress in particular on the criteria that the european union uses for under current destructing chemicals i'm not saying that it's perfect as

a criteria but it's that kind of progress in in science and policy that will protect us all in the long view and again even the united nations own international council for chemicals management has. welcomed a major report documenting the public health of vendor christmas shopping chemicals now but you keep referring to the european or international experience but everybody who has an american experience knows that americans have a very strong cultural philosophical bias against regulation i think the default position is always the last regulation the better do you think that's justified when it comes to public health we're talking about an issue that hits our pocketbooks too we did a series of analyses in the united states documenting that the costs of under current destructing chemicals are three hundred forty billion dollars that's billion with a b. each year and that's a two point three percent tax on our economy simply as

a result of exposures that we can proactively prevent so as much as i would agree with you that the united states tends to be shy when it comes to proactive regulation when it hits our bottom line that seems to move the needle well i think that studies even more interesting when you contrast it with another study if your speech found. under crean disrupting chemicals in the united states. produce disease cost at that twice as much as in europe where the regulation is much tighter i wonder if you faced any pushback on that under study not only from the industry but also from the political class because ultimately these results are a comment on the role of the government. we know that policy predicts exposure exposure predicts disease and disease costs us all as a society what's striking about the difference in our cost estimates between the european union and the united states is the differences in policy that drive those

differences in costs so in the united states we proactively required brominated flame returns to be put into furniture and carpeting among other things and that's resulted in extremely higher levels of those flame retardants in the human bodies of americans as opposed to europeans and that ultimately has affected the cognitive outcomes of literally a generation of american children whereas europe proactively acted to ban those flame retardants from musim products and levels have been much lower as a result the opposite is true interesting enough for certain pesticides where the u.s. for a long time is actually had progressive policy when it comes to limiting pesticides in certain foods well i think there are many many ways in which you can interpret those results i was thinking that when you compare the population of europe and the population of the united states on consumption levels you see a major disbalance there because the american population is smaller but the level

of levels of consumption so much larger do you think there is any link between in. the higher disease costs and the over consumption of beaches frankly is encourage dividend american system well what we've seen most recently is rapidly accelerating evidence that chemical in these products contribute to obesity one example of a prototype chemical that's a so-called of b. sentient is bisphenol a which makes fat cells bigger disrupts the function of a protein that protects in the heart protects the heart called out upon nekton and it's also synthetic estrogen so it can affect body mass in a way that spin. civically effects women more than men so the science is suggesting that the consumption of a variety of products can affect our health independent even of unhealthy diet and poor physical activity i'm not minimizing those factors as important drivers of

the obesity and diabetes epidemic we have a new united states but the science is suggesting that consumption of products that are heavy and laden in these chemical contamination can contribute not just to effects on the developing brain but also to our obesity and diabetes which is epidemic especially in the united states compared to other countries and some would argue man made epidemic because it was also at least in part triggered by the official dietary advice. well the reality here is that we have a population that's literally sicker fatter and poorer and that's the title of the of the book but the knesset here is not all negative there's a lot of positive opportunity there are things we can do in our homes we've already talked about some of them in addition eating organic chem reduce your level of pesticide exposure. and there actually are ways to pick and choose the

priority foods because we know there is a margin of cost when it comes to eating organic there are high priority foods fruits and vegetables such that you don't have to literally burst your budget by eating organic on the foods that matter in addition simply recirculating the air in the home can get rid of the persistent organic pollutants in our homes that are a concern because of their content in carpeting electronics and what have you but there's also in this book a broader call for social change we can control our homes but there are also our workplaces where we spend many hours a day there the schools the buses the subways and all of those environments you might not think you can control your environment but the reality is that if we all speak up imagine if an employer goes to a company and says i don't want that chemical in our cleaning material that's the kind of big buyer change that can actually move the needle on market share and

ultimately drive companies to switch towards those safer chemicals you mentioned the social change and i know that the american academy of pediatrics if we are a member came out with a statement last year warning about the dangers of these micro plastics and i may be wrong but the impression i got was that you guys appeal directly to the parents and to the consumers partly because you didn't believe that did national policy could be changed in a timely manner. there is that's true. clearly we need regulation but there's also the benefit of social change and the faster moving social change sometimes a look at b.p.a. free which is now emblazoned across a lot of labels the reality is that wasn't a scientific movement that was a consumer outcry that led to media attention that then led to the manufacturers

going to the canned providers excuse me to the plastic container providers and getting it out of baby bottles and sippy cups and that is the change that resulted in b.p.a. free more recently we've seen two major supermarket chains get per floor out kill chemicals disrupters out of food packaging simply because of a small study that identified it in five packages in these two supermarket chains those supermarket chains went to their producers their producers changed their ingredients and all of the sudden you seen the change that people believe in so the reality is yes we do eventually need regulation but sometimes a catalyst can come in the form of transparency and knowledge and information to the general public i'm always fascinated by the way the american society works it's very different from my own country and i sometimes see you guys but there are also some negative aspects for example the american. house system is highly privatized

and there is also i think number of examples of putting balance sheets had of patients health for example the abuse of prescription drugs the institutional proffer and for this is there in section over natural birth i mean there and number of examples do you think there are enough interest enough economic incentive to actually lowered the disease cost you study. it does make the issues somewhat trickier but the reality is when you look at a balance sheet that properly documents the costs and the benefits of prevention the funny thing is that the benefits of prevention are large enough generally to outweigh the kinds of costs that we see with synthetic chemicals in the environment . even a small analysis they looked at b.p.a. in aluminum cans found potential benefits to society based even upon

a limited subset of the disease costs that could be reduced as a result of the exposure so as much as i appreciate there are differences in how the us ways and balances these trade offs if the trade offs are transparently vetted and presented in a way that we all can understand it's interesting how the right decisions can actually occur if the evidence is weight correctly now there are many american viewers. for this program but our audience is largely international how is this conversation valid and to people let's say in south africa or pakistan or many other societies where people still rely on the traditional of freshly cooked meals rather than prepackaged or. processed foods dyes the fact dominate the way well the reality is that chemical manufacturing for a long time was in the industrialized countries but now we're seeing

industrializing countries taking on the leadership in producing and using these chemicals the organization for economic cooperation and development projects that the majority of chemical use well actually occur in developing countries by twenty thirty less than just a decade away and the reality is that as these chemicals shift to those countries they shift to frameworks where the regulatory oversight may not be as strong so if there's anything in sychar federal poor that translates over to that audience it's this reality that we need to learn from the perhaps mistakes that we've made in the united states in certain industrialized countries industrialized countries that is and trying to do the right thing this time before we see the same increase in epidemic chronic conditions that we've seen in the united states and elsewhere. well adox at your sunday has been a very interesting conversation thank you very much for being with us thank you for

having me i encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going on our social media pages and hope to see you same place same time here on the world's apart. sextile just financial survival guide. when customers go buy your dear sometimes. good health will reduce and lower. that's undercutting but what's good for market is not good for the global economy.

we settled for the past couple of years from sea dragon to get these islands a prospect but the reality is that may still be a ship and is covered in this fine lair of micro plastics. very. the biggest thing and it shocks me is that we've never had an empty troll. like the contents of the something of an albatross. people obviously come in they just throw them into the water as disposal it may not be harmful for that little fish that eats one fragment of posix but once it makes its way up to us in the food chain it's getting to levels that are harmful.

was. was was. was was. washington urges the un to recognize venezuela self-proclaimed leader. but is met with opposition from russia and the venezuelan. president illegitimate mafia state how indeed can any self respecting government possibly justifies supporting the poisonous regime if they think those represents a threat to peace the shameless and aggressive actions of the united states.