kinda, Arnie, I agree with you...generalizing is not a solution and there are a variety of influences that cause illnesses...

yet i need to say not to underrate the damage that chemicals can do... we are much more knowledgeable now... and i say let's use that knowledge....

it's anecdotal, yeah, but personal... i was ill in the late 80's but improving slowly with help from a great doc in Gt. Barrington(amazing how there are crossroads in your life)....when my health took a severe downturn in 1991...it took nearly a year and my smart doc from GB to figure it out... pesticide exposure... from alot of negligently sprayed stuff in my apartment building...
how did they know?..... blood tests showed the pesticide gremlins... "normal" levels were around 33 and mine were 99... get better?.... long slow detoxing... years he told me...

my public defender who was fighting to reduce the spraying until i could move.... gave me a list of lawyers.... and they all couldn't take this guy to court because of exactly what you said.... that A to B connection.... probable cause.... the same issue that was facing the attorneys in the Grace case that became a movie... those kids dying with leukemia in Woburn, MA from the toxins leaking from the waste dump of the Grace company(the families won that case, but the lawyers went bankrupt)....

anyway, with time I've improved but have permanent damage... this is not a story to inspire fear....my circumstances were unusual, i was already ill, my immune system compromised...... but only to inspire taking care of one's self and family and friends...


sometimes no one can draw a straight firm line from A to B... but it doesn't mean it isn't okay to assume it... when it makes sense to you... we were ignorant about chemicals and global warming and now we're less ignorant.... bravo.... follow your heart, make your best guesses in weighing the negatives and positives....so you can live the best, healthiest life you and the planet can....

What else would a backhalf do?

That would be a wonderful idea. I also think that we, as consumers could think long and hard about thing such as "new and inovative, time and energy saving," products before we rush in any buy whatever the corporations want to sell us. More money is probably spent on advertising than on any other one thing in the world. We know the corporations are not trying to do us any favors. If these things didn't make a lot of people very rich very quickly, they might try harder to sell things that we really need, that won't hurt us and out children and grandchildren in the future.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that anything and everything is bad, if consumed or done to excess. You can die from drinking excessive amounts of WATER! So, all things in moderation...to spread out whatever effect they have on your health. That's about all you can do!

It's true there were probably several factors which may have led to my sister and me both developing breast cancer--overweight, low vitamin D, hormones, whatever, and we've both done a lot of reading on the issue. The possibility of insecticide exposure when we were young and it's possible risks has long been something we both suspected as a contributing factor, and in October a study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives which found "a significant link between women's exposure to DDT as young girls and the development of breast cancer later in life." I'm quoting the Washington Post here. The study differed from earlier studies, which found no link, by focusing on the age of exposure, and found "that DDT increases the risk of breast cancer in adulthood only if the exposure occurred at a young age, before the breasts were fully devoloped." The risk they found was "a bigger boost in risk than is now attributed to hormone replacement therapy or having a close relative with breast cancer."

We moved to the house by the powerline when I was not quite 3 and my sister was 10. Do I know for sure that that was DDT they were spraying on the powerline? No, but it was in the 50's, when it was widely used, so it's a strong possibility. And like I said, there could be other factors involved here, too. But I just know when I read about that study, my heart stopped for a moment, and a chill ran up my spine, and I said, "That's it!" And that's where I coming from.

I've suspected the heavy doses of hormones in the first birth control pills back in the late '60's. The doseages have changed dramatically over the years. Now my girls are advised to never take any hormones-nither birth control or hormone replacement. Not only can I not take hormone replacement therapy any longer, I've been put on Arimadex-which blocks any hormone production in my body. It sux and I want my hormones, damn cancer! I'm also on 8 other prescription drugs, no wonder I feel rotten so often.

Article on artificial growth hormones in milk:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... e-you.aspx

I also think there are several factors but we are often misinformed.
For example, Chernobyl disaster in spring 1986; the day after the TV announced that, here in France, we were protected from the radioactive cloud by an anticyclone, but they did not say that the cloud had moved "the cloud stopped at the border!!) The government did not take any emergency measures. So everybody ate vegetables, drank milk…
It's only in 2000 that National Institute estimated that it could be the cause of the increase of thyroïd cancer .
It’s the same with pesticides or insecticides, there are some debates about that. But as long as the studies will be conducted by the companies which sell the chemical products, it will be difficult to have right informations. Unfortunately, in some cases, the profits are ahead of public health!