The truth of the matter is that toxic chemicals are now found at low levels in countless applications, in everything from personal care products and cooking pots and pans to electronics, furniture, clothing, building materials and children’s toys. They make their way into our bodies through our food, air and water. From the moment we get up from a good night’s sleep under wrinkle resistant sheets (which are treated with the known carcinogen formaldehyde) to the time we go to bed at night after a snack of microwave popcorn (the interior of the bag being coated with an indestructible chemical that builds up in our bodies), pollution surrounds us.
Far from escaping it when we shut our front door at night, we’ve unwittingly welcomed these toxins into our homes in countless ways. In a particularly graphic example, it’s been estimated that by the time the average woman grabs her morning coffee, she has applied 126 different chemicals in 12 different products to her face, body and hair.
And the result? Not surprisingly, a large and growing body of scientific research links exposure to toxic chemicals to many ailments that plague people, including several forms of cancer,reproductive problems and birth defects, respiratory illnesses such as asthma and neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
We have all become guinea pigs in a vast and uncontrolled experiment.
At this moment in history, the image conjured up by the word “pollution” is just as properly an innocent rubber duck as it is a giant smoke stack.
-From the book Slow Death by Rubber Duck
Table of Contents
Foreword by Theo Colborn, Co-Author of “Our Stolen Future”
Acknowledgments
Introduction
one: Pollution Then and Now
two: Rubber Duck Wars
three: The World’s Slipperiest Substance
four: The New PCBs
five: Quicksilver, Slow Death
six: Germophobia
seven: Risky Business: , 4-D and the Sound of Science
eight: Mother Knows Best
nine: Detox
Resource Guide/Further Reading