School Challenges and Victories

Avoiding chemical toxins is important for people of all ages, but may be especially crucial for children and teenagers, because their brains are still developing and because smaller bodies can detoxify less before becoming overwhelmed. For this reason, schools are an important focus in the battle for cleaner, healthier air.

This is a good news/bad news post focusing on two recent school stories. The first comes from Investigate West and addresses  the dangers of building schools near large roadways and their associated pollutants. The author notes that evidence links proximity to heavily-traveled roads to asthma, lung problems and higher absenteeism among students but that, despite the evidence, policymakers in many locations have ignored clearly-presented risks and continue to build schools where exposure to traffic fumes is high.

At least six states have addressed the placement of school buildings near major traffic sources. California prohibits their construction within 500 feet of freeways under most circumstances and five other states have some sort of similar guidelines. In eight states, building near a major roadway is not prohibited, but school districts are asked to consider the issue.

The article notes that 36 states have no restrictions on building schools near environmental hazards. It also notes that in 2008 and 2009, separate groups of officials meeting in Olympia, Washington and Washington, D.C. considered restricting construction of schools near major roadways, but decided against taking action. An environmental health expert guessed at the reason. He noted, “They didn’t want to open that Pandora’s box. They knew that if they were to put exclusion criteria in there, it would raise these questions about schools already sitting in these hazardous zones, and reasonably so. Parents would say, ’My kids are at risk.’ And then what?”

The second story is a video that comes from a Fox affiliate station in Nashville and addresses cleaning products. The mother of a chemically sensitive child is interviewed and reports that, after four years of trying, she was able to convince her son’s school to replace toxic cleaning products with safer ones. A worker from Whole Foods Market is also interviewed and notes that the demand for safer cleaning products is growing. Finally, a specialist certified with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) talks about the cumulative effects of exposures and how the rates of learning disabilities, autism, asthma, and other conditions have skyrocketed.

Hurray for helpful news stories and for small victories with cleaning products. Boo for inaction on the part of policymakers. Hurray for mothers who work hard to protect their children. Boo for everything that makes it harder for them to do so. 

Safer Schools

 August is back-to-school time for many, and a good time to discuss safer schools and school supplies. Many "school supplies" are items commonly used by people of all ages, whether at home, school, or work, and the principles used to make a school healthy apply to all buildings. Being aware of less toxic options is important for everyone. Here's some help:

• The Healthy Schools Network is a national environmental health organization focused on ensuring that every child has a healthy learning environment. Informational guides, posters and reports can be downloaded or ordered from their Healthy Schools/Healthy Kids Clearinghouse,

• The Environmental Protection Agency provides information on creating healthy indoor environments in schools. They help schools connect through the National Schools Network and provide an “IAQ Tools for Schools” action kit which can be downloaded or ordered free of charge.

• Schools wanting help designing  a non-toxic pest management program can find it on a page associated with The Best Control. The program is available to any school district.

• A group called NonToxic Revolution, concerned primarily with stopping breast and other cancers, offers students help in starting campus clubs.

• The Environmental Working Group  offers information on making healthier choices when purchasing a variety of products, including backpacks, lunch boxes, beverage bottles, markers, pencils, pens, notebooks, binders, paper products, and glue.

• The Center for Health, Environment, and Justice focuses on products made with PVC (vinyl). Their back-to-school guide to  PVC-Free School Supplies lists less-toxic options for a wide range of common items, including binders, name badges, paper clips, pencil cases, glasses, sneakers, cellphones, computer monitors, flash drives, raincoats, and umbrellas.

• MCS America provides a brief and simple-to-understand factsheet with 10 tips for keeping school environments and chemically sensitive students healthy.

Lowering the toxic load is important for people of all ages, but the younger the student, the more important it is to take the issue seriously. Seemingly small changes in an environment can sometimes make a big difference in the mental and physical state of those who inhabit it. Let’s keep our students healthy and give them the best chance possible to grow, thrive, and learn. 

Protecting the Children

I'm returning to the blog world after a hiatus caused by a computer crash. I would love to celebrate my return with an upbeat, positive post, but I can't quite make myself write it. As much as I would prefer to put it far from my mind, I just can't ignore the story of what happened to 23 children in India last week. They went to school, ate lunch, and died. Their lives mattered and we owe it to them to learn what we can from their tragedy.

Although some initial reports on the story speculated that the children died from bacterial food poisoning, it didn't take long for officials to blame pesticide contamination for the deaths. Authorities have now confirmed that cooking oil used to prepare the lunch was contaminated with an agricultural pesticide. At this writing, it’s still unknown how the pesticide contaminated the oil, but one theory is that the container which held the oil may have been previously used for storing the dangerous chemical.

There are thousands of potentially harmful chemicals produced, but few are as potentially dangerous as pesticides, which are specifically designed to kill. As I noted in a previous blog post, the chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz was a pesticide. Organophosphates (the type implicated in the India poisonings) are especially dangerous, but all commercial pesticides are capable of causing great harm.

Unfortunately, the incident in India is not unique. In 1999, children in Peru died in very similar circumstances. Schoolchildren between the ages of 3 and 14 ate a school-provided breakfast which was later determined to be contaminated with an organophosphate insecticide. Of the village's 48 children, 24 lost their lives to the chemical that day.

Pesticide-related deaths are not just a third-world problem, and the types of pesticides causing fatalities are not always what people might imagine. A report by The Center for Public Integrity notes that products (pesticides) used to treat head lice have been linked to "conditions ranging from headaches to death."  In an article entitled "The Hazards of Treating Head Lice", a mother shares the heartbreaking story of losing her son to leukemia and the association she believes exists between head lice treatment and his condition.

No, these are not pleasant stories. They are hard to think about and hard for me to write about. But surely these stories teach us something. They teach us that the issue of chemical toxicity is not just an academic one, but one with real-life consequences that can be larger than we might imagine. Most of us don't handle agricultural chemicals regularly, but it's common to use other types of pesticides without much thought. Do you immediately grab a can of bug spray when you see a bug in the house?  Do you use "weed and feed" type products on your lawn to discourage dandelions?  If so, I urge you to rethink those practices, if not for yourself, then for the children who might come in contact with the chemicals. A fact sheet on Weed and Feed notes that children are especially at risk from lawn chemical dangers because they play on lawns, put their hands into their mouths, and take in more chemicals in proportion to their body weight than adults do.

We can't change the tragic events that killed the children in India, Peru, and elsewhere, but we can do our part to make the world safer from chemical toxins. Let's not just read the headlines and move on. Let's pause, pray, and put into practice what we know.

The Coach

This is the time of year when many professional football coaches are hired and fired. I've been reading about coaching changes this week, which reminded me of another coach who made the news a number of years ago. This is his story.

Dan Allen was the head football coach at The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. By all accounts, Allen was a fine Christian man. He founded chapters of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at two schools and was active in the organization.

In the spring of 2001, the gymnasium floor in the field house where Allen's office was located was resurfaced. The process took about a week. Allen was not warned about the toxicity of products used or told to avoid the area.

Allen was 45 years old and in good health at the time. When the resurfacing began, he experienced dizziness, headaches, nausea, and disorientation. In the months that followed, he had weakness and fatigue that were debilitating enough that he began to search for medical answers. His headaches became chronic and he lost feeling in one of his toes.

Allen began a series of medical tests, but the diagnosis was elusive. The as-yet-unnamed condition began to affect his neuromuscular system and he developed mobility challenges. He needed a cane to walk.

In 2002, Allen took a four-week medical leave of absence to seek diagnosis and treatment. He was eventually diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, likely set in motion by the solvents used in resurfacing the gym floor. He returned to coach the final four games of the season, but his health continued to decline. Allen and his wife discovered, as do many with MCS, that the treatments that proved most helpful were not covered by health insurance. They depleted their life savings and took a second mortgage on their house.

By the beginning of the 2003 football season, Coach Allen was unable to walk, dress, or feed himself. He couldn't move his right hand, but with his left, he was able to drive an electric wheelchair. In May of 2004, Dan Allen lost his fight. He passed away at his home at the age of 48, leaving a wife and three children behind.

There are some important points raised by Dan Allen's story. The first is that chemical injury and MCS are very real. Special interests with deep pockets fight hard to invalidate MCS (see the previous post entitled The Misinformation Campaign for more information), but the truth is that common chemicals can cause a huge array of health problems and can even kill. The author of a Boston Globe column entitled "This Nice-Guy Coach Got a Very Bad Break" put it this way:

"Imagine being hit with this. And then imagine being told by members of the medical establishment that you did not have a certifiable disease and that you may instead be suffering from 'a psychosomatic disorder brought on by stress.' Some psychosomatic illness. The man is dead."

Another point to take from Allen's experience is that no one is too strong to be impacted by toxins. In another Boston Globe story, entitled "Crusader's Toughest Fight," Allen is quoted as saying, "It has been a year and a half of pure hell. I have watched myself deteriorate to the point where I can't walk. Here I am, supposed to be this macho football coach. I was invincible, right? Nothing was going to happen to me. And the scary thing is, it could happen to anybody."

Allen wanted us all to learn from his misfortune. In the previously referenced column, he was quoted as saying, "I really believe some things happen for a reason. Maybe because I’m a public figure, my role is to get information out there on MCS."

Allen's family has continued that mission. They began the Dan Allen Foundation, which they term "A Foundation for Faith, Family, and Hope.”  On their website they state that they exist "for the purpose of raising awareness of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Disorder (MCS) and similar neurological disorders caused by exposure to environmental toxins, chemicals, and pollutants.

We can honor Dan Allen's memory by limiting our use of toxins and by warning others of the chemicals that may harm them. The job of a coach is to instruct and guide. If we allow Allen's story to change our behavior, he will still be coaching, and his death will have not have been in vain.