Examples that expose the chilling realities of the cognitive realities of the color of environmental racism. I have a lot of things to say, not all of them im going to get to tonight and i have slides i want to show you. Is it turned on . Probably. Can you hear me now . Okay, thank you. So im not going to have time for all my slides. If i skip over any, raise it in he q a and well talk it. No time to do more tonight but the issue is fascinating as well as very important. So let fasten your seatbelts. Environmental justice movement. Can you hear me in the back . Okay. The Environmental Justice movement. 1982, ashton, north carolina, the people who lived there became victims of corporate crime. New york city housed a corporation whose chief decided to get in a truck and drive all night in the dead of night to illegally dump pcbs along the rhode island in north carolina. Didnt want to pay the money to dispose of them legally. They were highly toxic. North carolina decide toed the and legendded the tainted soil and located in as spend, north carolina. Why as spend . Aced spade it was the best site for it. Didnt explain scientific reasones. Didnt say to the ground would be more likely to absorb it quickly. Better chan of is not affecting wildlife. Said its he this site. People say we know why they chose us, because were black and i think they were right. They decide theyd werent going to take it lying down and in 1982 we saw a resurgence of the Civil Rights Movement as they held placards, no pcbs, on allowed. Thes to be dragged off passively by police and the sheriff invoked law and order as he talked but the lawlessness of the protesters. But they were the victims of a corporate crime. And this is the kind of event that has played out throughout the country, consistently. In ashton they received six weeks of tv publicity and laws introduced in Congress Based on the plight and it wasnt only the people of ashton, the africanamerican. The whites who didnt live in the town but were sympathetic to their cause, joined them and were arrested. The kind of confederation that sometimes is effective in counteracting this but in ashtons case it wasnt. So the 1982 the people of ashton are still fighting for justice. And what happened there, happens all across the country. So, what kind of chemicals am i talking but no there are at least 200 chemicals in the become. A professor of Public Health both in denmark and arvad school of Public Health and catalogue ruled the noxious chemicals being used in the country which most of them. Have not been tested. 60,000 have not been tested for human harms. In the european but the problem is when you tell corporations we think a certain chemical is harming people, we think the pcbs, or the other things that are harming people, they immediately insmoke their scientist its invoke it would be far too expensive to do the testing. The Scientists Say they need higher and higher levels of proof. Okay you give us that one test, but there might still be occasion to doubt it. We need another test. That it can good onen definitely, and the problem if that in the European Union this doesnt happen because the law stipulates that chemicalled have to be tested before theres interaction with humans, in this country we only test them after somebody was been harmed. Testing the chemicals before hand is an example of the precautionary principle. That prison is something that is decried and criticized very harshly by corporations in this country, and by their scientists. Its important to note that the scientists im talking about are not just scientists on the payroll of corporations. Also scientists whose work its fund bid the corporations so very often you think theres am, friction between the scientists and what environmentalists say, but some of these scientists are actually more akin to employee odd the corporation than independent scientists. So you have to know which scientistor talking about before you can determine our objective and unbiased their work is likely to be. And that whole concept is the title of the book is doubt this product, the sewing of doubt is often cloaked in numbers and confusing charts, et cetera. Arig mow phobia mean most people with sale this and cant argue with the number bed facts is the numbers often cloak a political agenda, not a scientific quest. So, i say africanamericans and hispanics and native americans are disproportionately exposed to these toxic chemicals. Including the 200 that phillip tied directly to cog any enough disorders, loss of intelligence, behavioral disorders, but only recently have good studies shown this how acutely this is true. Its very interesting that the medical literature as well as the newspapers and magazines tend to describe the expose shower of people who are poor or low socioeconomic status, but were not talking about socialow economics here. I mean, that sounds better than saying that theyreing exposed because of their race, about if you look at the reality, the incomes of people exposed, white people with an income around 10,000 per year, extremely poor people, have less far less exposure to environmental toxins than africanamericans with income of roughly 60,000 a year. So, even middle class suburban africanamericans suffer having these toxic spewing factories and corporate dumps, Super Fund Sites in their communes. Being middle class and having money does not protect you. Poverty is certainly a risk factor but race is a much larger one. I dont want to smith poverty, though, when it comes to cognition, recent evidence shows that poverty is not only likely to be paired with lower cognition for ropes that seem clearly to be socioeconomic. If youre very poor, the chance that your mothers nutrition was optimal are less. I youer is the chance you had prek enrich immigrant is list. I if youre poor many thing that would increase intelligence are going to be denied you. But directly, poverty directly affects cognition. Studies have shown something rather startling which frankly i dont pretend to yet understand but the studied are consistent enough and theres very strong. When you have a lot of correlation that lends power to your argument, and a thats what happened wives poverty. Theyre something but being poor that assails cognition and its interesting. One of the way is understand it best is when i look at some of the withs to the poor which seem nonsense cal to us. One study talk but the fact poor panel handle money differently. If you are very poor and you have a windfall you win the lottery, you get an insurance settlement, the way you handle the funds are going to be very different on average than the person who has middle class. Poor people dissipate their funds quickly. Quickly buy the things that need or want, before the money runs out. Which is a product of an entire life spent trying to make dollars stretch to fill necessities without the luxury of thinking about putting aside money for tomorrow. That does not cheng when you get a windfall. City nothing think thing longterm texas things like that mean pat poverty is a risk factor but not the chief one. And also of course many, many a factors no one is pretending that environmental toxicity alone is degrading intelligence of people of color because i said no one is pretending that only environmental toxicity debraids the intelligence of people of color. There are many, many other factors operating on them about environmental toxicity is a very strong fact youre and its a largely unacknowledged one. We havent paid attention to it. And even more importantly, its one that is addressable. The are things one cant do much about but exposure to load to mercury, arsenic, agent pathogens that erode gel intense, exposure to chemicals known to degrade behavior and intelligence if can change that. Thats not something that is set in stone. I if we chose to enact laws to protect people and to enforce them, we would see things change very quickly. In fact we have seen that. When lead paint was used in gas, even though the industry knew it was highly toxic, automobiles and other vehicles belched lead in the air in a form that was readily accessible to the brains of children, and when the law finally banned lead in fuels, we saw iqs rise and saw murder rates fall. Kenneth drum has been kevin drumon did a good series of articles where the documented closely how intelligence and behavioral problems and crimes rise and fall with the presence of lead in the atmosphere. When lead began being used in paint very heavily in the interiors, we saw i qs fall again. So, this is a addressable problem. We can do something about if we choose. To but we havent chose. To one reason not to the only win but the run wont is delightful people called the her red tareans. They her red her red tarans who believe that her ready is genetic her redty, is genetic, inhate. You are born with all the intelligence you ooh and can that iq and intelligence are the same beingout are born with the intellectual youll ever have and its racially mideastated. So black people, they point out, have iqs on average 15 points lower than white people and thats true. Black iqs on average are 15 points lower them question is what does that sunshine they say it means that were less intelligent and that well never change. Its genetic, never change. And thats showing their first major error theyve cooperate know much but genetics if that can thing having a genetic problem with never change because many genetic problems, diseases,ing we chang if your child is born with a he will be doomed to a lifetime of mental disability unless you withhold a ever think of a diet coda soda can and say it contains findal aline because people who had this condition cant take it they have to avoid ump if they avoid is, their intelligencees same is a everybody ems. Genetic condition but readily addressedly changing their diet. Near sightedness can be a genetic condition. But glasses, right, contact lenses, will level the playing field. So, these scientist are dramatically wrong in saying that genetic cannot be remedied net question is it genetic . They flag the 15point gap in i qu but have forgotten in 1924 we closed the 15point gam in iq within one generation and we did it very cheaply. We did it by adding iodine to salt. Now, iodine to salt. Eye diced salt. Eye odiced. So with didnt know we were increasing iq, we set out to get rid of got got temperatures so we gavea got and recruit foes army who were being tested discovered that people from areas with the 15point lower iq now had the same iq as the rest of the nation, the gap closed and cost two or three dollar per ton, extremely cheap and rapid and extremely simple. And a testament to power of environmental score sures to effect intelligence and affect i. Q. Its addressable. The her red hereditaryans they say blacks and whites will always have a 15point gam but theyre wrong. A book what written in which he discussed what is now called the discussed how in the west, in the united states, we gained three points i. Q. Every decade. Are people getting smart center not very lookly. People are actually learning more and i. Q. Is a good gauge of how much you have learned. Its not a good gauge of what intellectual cant you have. Its a game of what youve have been able to do with that. That makes it other meaningful metric even though its racially bias. Its a meaningful metric nor looking at achievement, not ability. So thats what if have done. One interesting side note i fine very interesting is that when your look at how racial groups have been characterized as smart or dumb, accord ago to their i. Q. , richard lynn wrote a book comparing the i. Q. S people in most countries 0 earth. If you look at the book, every country in africa has an average i. Q. Under 70. One exception, south africa, where a lot of whites live. So, this was his claim. What does it mean hope you say that the residents of a continent have i. Q. S under 70 . 70 is that level under which people are considered memory retarded so he is saying all of africa is memory rye mentally retarded. His wrong. The tens were nonsense tall. In oathopen ya the i. Q. Was determined by going 100 children in a single orphanage in oathopeny. The children there had escaped had been or fanned, escaped famine, war, traumatized and many of them did not have at their prime laing, language the test was given in, clear not not going to get accurate results and these their results. Look at miss back today, you will find that was the result. When people protested, he raised i. Q. S by three points. But clearly these are not accurate assessments. But yet theyre used very universally and theyre not accurate even if that are were accurate they would mean nothing but you cant compare i. Q. S in Different Countries and different cultures. You cant do it. I. Q. Measures in the west in this country, i. Q. Measures how well you read, how well you manipulate numbers, the kind of things that important to us in terms of intelligence but if you good to different country others things are important. Some countries dont have much literacy, but if you go at the countries spun like me would be at a mall disang because thats can read the environment if if became a farmer id starve to death very quickly. But in fact one expert put it well, he said i. Q. Will tell you if you will be a good office worker, wont tell you if youll be a good farmer. You end with something impossible to sort out combination of factors. Noted be generals but able to read, other things, even nutrition. And a good example of how i. Q. Is dependent on things we tend not to take innt what happened in kenya. One area in kenya saw an i. Q. Raise of 14 points in one decade. Far too quickly to be ascribable to genetic. What happened in kenya was in that area of kenya, there were very Important Health measures undertaken that reduced ineffect shoes disease and reduced now traditional deficiency. People were healthier, people were eating better and their i. Q. S rose. Now i would would exposure to Infectious Disease affect outside ky heres why. Theres something called the parasite stress theory of intelligence. If you are a newborn child, spends 87 of the metabolic budget building a brain, building a brain that is a complex task. Humans spend two and a half years doing this. But 87 of this energy if youre infected with a pathogen, say you have malaria, now you have another metabolically expensive toast do to fugue off the infection. The baby cant do breath and the brain suffers. It will be mall formed, problemmed with it if the baby will end up with deficiencies that may not become until its an adult. So Infectious Disease affects el intelligence and we dont acknowledge thats in writing about intelligence. Thats why in book i talk bit path jeopardies that people of color path generals people of color irexposed to and its one of the thing that erodes intelligence. Dr. Petitioner, the head of the Tropical Medicine Department at baylor told me that in his first year class, hell show the medical students videos, and they look like videos you would find by going to thailand or going to an area where people are poor and diseaseridden. He said theyre actually areas videos of houston. And you see the same thing. You see housing that has allows vermin to come in tires with water that support glowing of malaria, the same thing, row depths in houses that carry virus that can transmit lung problems and roaches exacerbate asthma. You think asthma and lung disease, how is that tied to intelligence and directly because a person has asthma has bouts hypoxia where they cant breathe for a while, and the brain actually is cheated of air. Without oxygen the brain begins to die. Neurons begin to die and over time someone with asthma can suffer brain damage from erioted bouts of hypoxia. The same thing happens the hanta virus. Hypertension is very common among africanamericans and hinges. Enough paid to the cognitive effects. I youve have hypertension your blood vessels in your brain become less eless stake over time, cant carry oxygen, and the same thing happen. Starve of oxygen and brain portions begin to day. All these things christian to a lower intelligence and i. Q. And are preventible. We fast forward here. One of the interesting things that happened in flint, among many interesting things, something thats very common in the history ive seen of this exposure to toxins. Very often affected people are blamed for their own exposure. I know it sounds completely absurd but happens time and time again. In president in you had fill stare who said, the reason why the water is dirty is because these n works are dont nwords dont pay their bills and cant afford to clean the water. But even worse for a Health Department officials who said, well, these women bring in their children and the children have high levels of lead but the women myth have done it themselves. Maybe the put a leidening fishing weight in the childs mouth to increase lead leveled. Wanted to cash in by suing the state or city. Profound indifference, blame the victim mentality. When lead was found to be very toxic, and the lead industry was defending itself, one of the tropes was its a black problem and in a way it was because whites had been able to move to the suburbs and live in knew housing that had no lead paint. Black people were trapped in cities but he said it was a black problem because black parents were he like to teach hem how to to use lead safe live but they couldnt be taught and theyre really slop sloppy and dirty. They let let dust accumulate. That was the gospel, a black problem they brought upon themselves no scientific basis but is was a powerful argument and very, very frequent argument we still encounter today. So, in flint, one bomb behave distraught when he found out her child has exposed to lead and lostby points the school nurse said killing a few i. Q. Opinion is not the end of the world, indifference. And bruce lamb fear decided to catalogue what happeneds when you lose a few i. Q. Point. Know the end of the world but could the end of childs hopes and dreams. The child becomes slower to learn and develops behavioral problems but lead is cumulative. It will get worse ore time with lead accumulate economic looked at the population as a whole. What happens to america with an average fivepoint drop in i. Q. This number if gifted children is cut in half. Number of memory retard children skyrockets. So the sear you problem and the few serious problem and few points is something 0 dedismissed. Its very significant. Is nothing to be dismissed. Its very significant. There are lot of reasons why children are more vulnerable. But to summarize a few as the brain develops theyre a lot another complicated geographic cav changes going on musician rones changing, and these windows of development are very key and exposure on a certain day can have profound effects. On the wrong day, an exposure can mean that a certain brain structure will not be formed. Theres evidence although no proof, not sure anyone its looking for profit. In ashston several children were diagnosed with the people there told me they have who brains if dont note what that means be suspect that means the corpus that unites two hemispheres never completely formed. One of the last talk to tours that form. Some people it doesnt form until their 20s or 30s and exposure toxic chemicals seemed to keep imforgot form. For Children Brain exposure can be devastating the same exposure to an adult would not harm them. And that is important because industry scientist is will sometimes say things like, youre getting all worked up over one drop in 148 agent bathtubs full 0 water. Its nothing. Thats not nothing to a fetus. Thats enough to harm the braun of a fetus if it happens on the rang day and thats an important point to make. They count on people not being aware of that. How am i doing on time . Okay. I want to wind up in a minute because i want plenty of tomb for q a. One i want to point out fetal alcohol syndrome and the associated conditions that are less severe but neurologically just as bad. Very early on i talked to a researcher about fetal alcohol syndrome and said i was wanted to find out how common it might be. She said theres nothing there she said dont worry. She said, only childrens alcoholics get it, and africanamerican women are less like to be alcoholics than other women. We native american women have a problem with fetal alcohol sip syndrome but not africanamerican women. Fount that too pat. I looked into it and found that sure enough, the dr. Carl bell at chicago said ive been writing about this for years, there is rampant fetal alcohol sin dream in black children. Its not being diagnosed. What happens is that the child is exposed to alcohol for self reasoned. Dont have to be an alcoholic for your child to have this condition of most mothers who children have these are not alcoholic if youre in pregnant and dont know if for a month or two which happens, social drinking can expose your child to the required level of alcohol. And so also when these children are born, unlike a disease like sickle cell or good example issue use in the book is when child is born, we put silver nitrate in its eyes in case it has gonorrhea to protect the eye. Most mother dont have gonorrhea but its a cheap and simple way of protecting all children. But when a child is born we dont test for fetal alcohol syndrome except from native american women. We test them. Now, one could say, okay, well, that is supported by the knowledge they have a higher rate. I say higher than what . We dont know the rate in africanamerican women. It could be hire than that than native american women but if you don look for it,ow wont fine out and at robert bowlard said to me absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, toso the research alleged does not look for issues clearly there. And were not going to see them until researchers look for them. That also happened when it came to fishing. My own father and his friends, when we lived in inner city area, and his friend bought a boat and they would routinely go hunting and go fishing in the exurban areas outside the city. Theyd bring home venison and issue fish. My dad had seven people to feed and when when i talked to an expert she said, blacks dont do subsis stance fishing. Out wont find that. I along at the national dat and i didnt find it was right but looked in local data it and was everyone. So we have a paucity of National Data because were north finding them and pretend they dont exist. So we dont know loot of these risk factors but we know enough that for example we could we have mercury emitting coal fired plans and we had been doing fairly good job of closing them down. When trump took office, there were only four left, and theyre already timelines for closing them down. The epa under trump rolled back every one of them. Two or the days ago the trump epa decided to stop surprise inspections at Chemical Plants. Now theyre going to warn the plant and warn the state when they do an inspection, which means that its not going to be very efficient. Theyll know the epa is coming and we know its going to happen there so the epa is being gutted. And this is really completely unacceptable and quite dangerous because Public Health philosophy has changed. 50 years ago Public Health would confront the corporations and they conferenced the government. Theyd say, youre doing michigan that is noxious, harming people, have to stop it and pass laws to stop it, and they would apply pressure. Today theres a focus on personal responsibility. A good thing in and of itself but nobody who is threaten evidence by a mercury belching plan or air plugs has the power to stop it. Devote the last two chapters telling people what they can do to reduce the exposures in their home and to mobilize as communities. To get Political Action. Because only Political Action will work. We need to make the government accountable and need to make corporations accountable but corporations exist to make money. Frankly it would be followish to expect them to operate with human health as their main agenda weapon know theyre not going to do that. We cant expect that but its a governments job to make sure they do. And right you now the government has chose innocent do it. Scootsed a a epa, scott prosecutor who had been saying he vowed to close the epa, where pore concerned but helping businesses make even more money than we are about the fact we are killing and crippling our people. All our people. Not just people of color. But people of color are bearing the brunt of it. So, i think thats really important. Its important to understand that we can do something and that we have to do something. I hear people say, but its not going to work. How can and you expect anything to change. Thats exactly what they said about the civil rights mom. Right now we have these rose cor el glasses bit i was there and Martin Luther king who is beloved now, he was vilified as a communist, immoral, cheat, communist lover, vilified as a horrible person and people who went out and marched and protested, well, a lot of people were invoke law and order, they lawbreakers, theyre trying to go too fast. There was not a lot of support for these people. Although we like to think now there was and something we are facing the same situation now. An uphill battle but a battle we have to win. Thank you for listening to me. [applause] any questions . Yes. I go to the bring her a mic. Yes. The dna proved the a number of years ago i shouldnt say a lot of years ago but i dont know. Maybe just 20 years ago, proved that all humans began in subsouth africa. And that may be about 100,000 years ago, some of them started migrating out. And as they migrated north, they got a little friend of the land of the blackness and as they went farther and farther south, they even got white. That is called the white. Should talk more loudly. I can hear you. Everybody heard . Yes. Okay. Youre doing fine. Thank you. But the number of people who you talked about still know, races, thats what the slavers talk about. Exactly. And taught us, taught everybody, two races, blacks and white. Theres no one race. We started with the black and became the white. The same everything about us, in us all. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much for writing this book. So, an important topic. I spent a lot of time researching roundup, which youre talking about environmental toxins that are sort of its a side effect that it get into our system. This is actually built to defoliate but now put on our food. And so ear all eating it and its building up in our systems. Can you talk a little bit about that as well . Were going forcefed toxic chemical. Its a good example of a chemical that should have been test evidence before its unleashed on the environment. Monsanto was able to esaid that. Why . You need only look at the leadership at monsanto. Its resolving door. One year theyre an official at monsanto and next year theyre in at the government. The epa head was a former chief executive officer of monsanto. So, unfortunately, we dont force them to test on humans and this is the kind of thing that happens. From the beginning people were complaining about the affects on animals and humans, and scientistness he pay of monsanto would refute that to the satisfaction of the government and thats what happened. If you look at the European Union, typically, like i said, theyll test a chemical first but what happen the European Union and in india they were able to good there and convince them to use this chemical before what i consider adequate safety and testing was done. The good part good thing is many European Countries dont allow blanket permission for a chemical use, lean jean patent. They will gave limited permission and then reevaluate in the light of what happens to humans after that. Thats what happened with. They revoked the able to use it because there war halve problems. Some of the chemicals im turn become the book lists the 200 that grant jean talk but and very different modes of action but a lot of them on pesticides in particular are harmful because theyre doing what they were designed to do. Designed to kill insects, to kill other animals and insects and us, we evolved after we he einvolve the neurotransmitters she same effect on i insected it has on us, the same vulnerabilities and really good example of why we need test chemicals early on. Thank you very much for this very important book. Im looking forward to reading it. Was curious when you talked about i. Q. S in Different Countries, and how do they get that data . Most people arent tested for i. Q. , are they . And wouldnt it veriy among different country inside. Of course it varies because Different Countries have Different Things that people are trained to do. So, the country people score low because people in general dont read and dont manipulate numbers, might be the country where even a child will walk out interest a felled and tell you all kinds of things about betts time to plant and what animalled are safe, which is poisonous. Thats intelligence. Remember he gave you of eatopenna. 100 children postare whole country the victims of famine and orphaning and war . You thats not representative and yet thats exactly the kind of tests that were used. Didnt conduct their own fresh tests. They found old tests, some very old, that had been done that looked to me like anecdotal data. Some missionaries or some explorers win out and decided that the bushmen were very unintelligence, they used data like that. So, it wasnt scientifically rigorous at all. Who was doing the testing dirks jeer hereditary, its by richard lynn, and its dish have the type of my book very stafford. Look the appendix of the book and he lest this tests and get a good idea how sloppily they one ducted and hap hards a data gathering was, and what i find really shameful is the fact you have socalled legitimate scientists using the data. Who frankly some know better but theyre using it anyway. Thank you. Sure. A few comments. Sugar, so much sugar in everything but why the roman empire in rome, all the plates i discuss that. And pipes or lead. Even del cassys anywhere foot. Infuse pace tries with lead. Their wine was led. Thats cot met tick was lead. Lead was very yaful in the tomorrow of ancient rome and some some people thought the decline helped the decline of the empire. People became less intelligent. Thats the theory. Test evidence with culture so when you jewish people came from europe, came from very poor places, extremely poor and it was the i. Q. , embe siles women sighses. But they were not. Or right, the i. Q. S all measure or something. Its a construct and not a very good one its not universal. And youre right, i mean, thats a good example of blame the victim. Because the jewish people in the situations, they would after being herded into areas wherety there wasnt sufficient hygiene, and no health care they were blamed for having diseases. Now your vectors of disease. Other people. Its abe sudden gruesomeunder unintelligent we have been starved so your right. This blame the victim mentality paired with the tendency to ascribe lower intelligence to people who are not members of Minority Groups that are not respected. Thats the parallel. Look at the i. Q. , what it does correlate really well with is whether you have a despised group. When jews were despised Minority Group theyre called low i. Q. When it was no longer the case hey that high gwynns. What is really good example is asia i. Q. Which is lauded at the heist i. Q. S and hereditarians say were not racist. We say that asias they highest i. Q. So we cant be racisted but frank woo has a very interesting take he said the high i. Q. Of some asian groups is always married to some kind of quality that are rep he helpsible. You have a high i. Q. But youre crafty. You have high q but your someone who works day and night and not a fair competitor for a normal person who is wellrounded. A high i. Q. But you are like competitive, blood thirty and come thirsty and competitive. Its not compliment though asia and only brought up in discussion for purpose of shaming blacks and hispanics. So, really interesting dynamic going on there. Thank you. Thank you. I want to retire. Where should i go live . But live in scandanavia by the sea. Where they have maintain your intelligence and be happy. Id go there if i had the money if could i afford it. Any other questions . Yes. What suggestions do you have for poor black people who dont have access to healthier feud but theyre exposed to lead . What can they da right now. Okay. In one chap their of my book i discuss this at length. But one thing they a lot of things to do. First of all you can get tested, second of all, have your water tested. Have your find loud the interior paint in your home has lead in it. I tell how to do that in the book. Then go to the county or the city where you live and if theres a problem there if you have high lead in your paint or the water, you tell them about it and most cities have rules on stipulating that someone has to take care of it. People dont know that so they dont know to go to them. So report the problem and then the other thing its buy a water filter. There are many different types. Ed had a roommate bought a 4 00 water filter but she smoked. She would tell me that water would kill you, dragging on a cigarette but i looked into them and if you own your home, some of those filtered might about a good investment. If youre reining doesnt make sense too much expensive but there are cheaper filtered that are very effective at separating out lead and but when was an editor at consumer reported discovered that certain brands of water filter actually add leed to the water. Unbelievable. In the book i tell you about sites to go to make sure your water filter will really do what you want it to to do and we safe and nutrition is very important. Being undernor youred and exploded to read will exas exexacerbate. Calcium can impede the lead in your bone but you can prevent that from happening and you can also make sure you take enough vitamins and supplemented. The right vitamins vitamins and. S and spell that out is there are things to do but its not anywhere near as good as not being exposed to lead in the first place which is i would we need the government to step in and make sure that doesnt happen in the future. Any other questions . Due you have some examples of governments that have been responsive . I think japan. Some of you lobly heard of minamata . Back in the dawn of time, i remember reading about this and it was horrible situation where people in a small town in japan an island they began having very strange neurology contractual disease, very bad, very profound. People could no longer move, and couldnt blink, couldnt talk, and they discovered itself was because of mercury poisoning. The mercury came from a Chemical Plant and part exacerbated by the fact that people there lived off seafood. The mercury was going into the fish, also leaking into the water and they were being bombarded by mercury and young people, children had the worst devastation, hurt adults tattoo but babies were totally immobile. Horrible situation. Japan stepped in, forced the proud polluters to stop polluting and fined enemy way that was meaningful. Not the just its a slap on the wrist and a cost of didnting into. Find them have live and grave survivors a great deal of money, enough for them have medical care for the rest of their lives inch ash tony we head people exposed to mercury and bad profound harm as well, they didnt give them enough money to take care of them the whole life its. Adults not 9,000, children got 2 thump2. Thousand for a lifelong disability. So japan is one country that addressed the problem. Other countries are good at preventing the problem. Scandanavia and other countries ace well. Any other questions . Yes. Are any therefore studies done about health, gender, women typically left out. Way back when but they were more focused on male reaction to things a 0 posed to female. I talk about nat in the book. The studies where are women were focused on, yes, you can guess what they were. Mothers, right . The whole try tradition of treating women like walking wombs. Its good they studied Maternal Health but if youre not studying other aspects youre send a message youre only valuable because over the child youre carrying but a lot of studies in women and some of them have been really helpful, some very contradictory. The big contradictory one i talk about in the book i really was rereluctant but bottom line is, a lot of people fish to help feed their families, and pediatricians say, okay, you should only eat a certain amount of fish because it has mercury in it and you want to keep your consumption low. Other Public Health people say, no, pregnant women should eat the fish despite the mercury because studies have shown the babies are better off because of the omega three oils in firs counteract the mercury expect sure. Youre getting two different messages. Thats really a problem in my book if dont know who is right but i know they need get together and come up with a single answer thats actually helpful to people. And then i also write about the fact at that time all these study that are done in women of exposure to children, not all, some eave a faintly punitive air to them. Looking at womens drinking is important. But should we not maybe be looking at mens drinking and smoking, too. Guest im always curious about is effect of a partner, male partners drinking and smoking on the fetus . If he is around a lot and smoking, its not a danger, too . Do we know whether the harms of alcohol to fetus is something that is transmeterred in special . We dont know because nobody is asking soso many exposures not looked thats men that could affect the fetus be we dont look at those. Thats a problem inch terms of the other studies, some of the study are better than others. The best studies, the ones in air pollution, some of them have looked at both men and women, and looked for any didnt find any but thats good look at women, too. Others are supposed to but it would really depend on how good the researcher is in maintaining parity. So good question. Hello. Hi. Go up to the microphone. Were you able to find study that looked at personal care product inside. Yes, quite few. I guess the take home message its dont wear lipstick which i do. Cosmetics problematic, some are really good but you have to its not very transparent in terms of who is being careful to not have problematic chemicals in their cosmetics and then, too, some cosmetics by their very naturer is harmel. Talc is a good example. A lot people saying mother say use talc after the shower but we now it accuses Ovarian Cancer and at love 0 women have green up using it. So, you have a lot of problems with cost semitics and if cosmetics and their he law stipulates they have to be tested and the law stipulates that being taint means its will be banned, then well be protected but when the law does not stipulate that and women dont have to know what the ingredients are, if you look at the label,some will list every infreen, some list very few, very opaque. So, yeah, cosmetics are jungle. If grew to some firms like the body shop, which irvery transparent but the ingredients, im comfortable using theirs products bus you know whats there and you can look it up if you have a question. But thats a big problem. Its really an issue. After the talc exposure, i just knew they would pass better laws but that didnt happen. One reason why i asked, harriet and i know each other from earlier this year. Is there just limited studies but the studies that were aware of, some done by Breast Cancer prevention program, some done by silent spring institute, seem to show that at least of the limited group of products that were in these 501 c 3 nonprofit funded research, the worst products were ones designedded for black women and girls. You know, that makes sense because for hair dyes that are dark are more carcinogenic. So africanamerican women are more likely to use those. Also, some of the africanamerican companies that have been marketed to africanamerican women, the products are made abroad, so you dont have the same legal responsibility to report them and thats a problem. I dont want to say any names. Dont want to spend my life in court but you can go on the internet some see for yourself. Rowling right, thats absolutely true. Thankfully even though its hard to get the government to act sometimes, thankfully there are some nonprofits who actually are pretty good at certain things, and Environmental Working Group claims to test 80,000 personal Care Products and rate them. So if you go to ewg. Org, you can see what theyve tested and. I dont know how good their tests are. I think i have enemy any book. Chapter 6 and 7. Okay. Youre right. There groups like earth justice, so there are ways to get good answers. I think we have been allotted our last question. Sorry. Thank you you have questions you werent able to get up, please feel free to hop in line. Can we get one more round of applause to her . [applause] thank you. Becomes available at the register. Please fold your chairs and lean them up against the become shelfs and shell be at the table and happy to sign. [inaudible conversations] book tv asks rep testify buddy carter what are you reading . Well toking twos. I just finerned a book that i enjoyed very much. Its written by thomas carlisle. Its a book actually a biography