Each nurse, and each client, has a unique and personal story to tell. Everyone has an explanatory narrative that encompasses the multidimensional layers of being human. Listening to our own story and the story of others reveals the storyteller’s beliefs and worldview and opens doors to exploring and expanding possibilities for growth and change in our movement toward wholeness. Within our holistic nursing worldview, we embrace the interconnectedness of body, mind, and spirit, knowing that when there is disharmony or disruption in our internal or external environment, we are out of balance. As living beings, we are a reflection of our world, and any environmental assault directly affects our energetic patterns and well-being.

When considering the environment, it is imperative to listen and respond to a larger story, not only as practitioners, but also as members of humankind. This reaffirms what we deeply know through all the senses as we ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be an Earth citizen? What are our beliefs about health when we tell our story? Do we consider all of the possible influences that affect our daily lives, and those with whom we live and work? How can we face the great ecological crises of our time (as recently witnessed and experienced in Japan)? How does each of our stories contribute to the larger story? How does changing our own story lead to planetary change?” When we embrace the matrix of our own being, we can understand, respond to, and participate in positive actions, raising the level of consciousness of our oneness with the universe. Richard Tarnas, a philosopher and historian of Western thought, helped bring this existential human predicament into consciousness.¹

There are two versions of the evolution of human consciousness. Both are basic truths and deep patterns in the psyche that inform an individual’s day-to-day experience in various ways. One is progress and heroic advance, characterized by gradual, progressive, and familiar
milestones of discovery and accomplishment: the harnessing of electricity and nuclear fission, for example. Generally, this equates with everincreasing and refined knowledge and is thought to bring a sense of fulfillment and well-being. The scientific mind is the apex of this worldview, having its roots in ancient Greece and a flourishing in the European Enlightenment of the 1700s. The modern mind is known for individualistic democracy, power, and emancipation. Inventiveness, endurance, will to succeed, and adventuresome spirit are sources for pride. The “miracles of modern medicine” are found here.

The second version of the evolution of human consciousness is the fall and tragic separation, which is a deep wounding or schism that separates humankind from nature. Manifestations of this version include exploitation of the natural environment, devastation of indigenous cultures, and an increasingly unhappy state of the human soul. Through the lens of tragic separation, humanity and nature are seen as having suffered grievously under an increasingly dualistic domination of thought and society. The worst consequences of this development are directly derived from the hegemony of modern industrial society and empowered by science and technology.

All individuals are challenged, although they may not recognize it, to reconcile these perspectives in their day-to-day lives. The two perspectives are both occurring simultaneously although not always at the level of awareness. For example, it is possible for a family to decide to maintain heroic life support systems, beyond all parameters of the natural dignity of dying, while their deeper desire is that their loved one be at peace. Both are apprehensions of a deeper, larger, and more complex story. Gain and loss have been working together simultaneously. As nurses, we are aware of pervasive and intense suffering, not only in our own inner work, but beyond, to the transpersonal and collective unconscious. Currently, the whole planet is in a transformative crisis.

Several core elements drive the multidimensional crisis. The modern mind—the mind of progress—originates in the worldview that there is a radical and irreconcilable distinction between the human self as subject and the world as object. In contrast, the primal worldview is that spirit or soul permeates the entire universe, within which the soul is embedded. The modern mind condemns this as a naive epistemologic error—childish, immature, and to be outgrown. The wisdom of the modern mind asserts that the human self is the exclusive repository of conscious intelligence; all meaning in the universe comes from the human subject. This is the classic existentialist assumption that, without humankind, the universe is meaningless.

Typically, a modern person’s allegiance is to science, in the belief that science rules the cosmos and objective world, while poetry, music, and spiritual strivings inhabit the internal world. Our cherished Western autonomy, offspring of the progress perspective, has been purchased at a staggering price: gradual dilution and diminution of soul, meaning, and spirit. Thus, the purpose of the entire world is exclusive to the human self. Everything else is “out there,” resulting in the demise of the metaphysical world and the disenchantment of the cosmos. Whether in conscious awareness or not, the greatest demand of modern time is to reconcile the imperatives of the two versions of what it means to be human. Must everyone choose and align themselves with one or the other? Must everyone consign themselves to an existence where “progress” is purchased with the coin of soul loss?

Modern culture itself is immersed in a rite of the most epochal and profound kind: the entire path of human civilization has taken humankind, the planet, and all its members into a trajectory of complete alienation that is part of the mythic death and rebirth story. Something new is being formed, however, that is a new participative and holistic vision of the universe amply reflected by contemporary scientific and philosophic insights. In this emerging view, the human self is both highly differentiated, yet reembedded in a participatory, meaning-laden universe. Throughout human history, all cultures have embedded within their collective psyche a connectedness to nature for survival of not only the human species but for the life of planet Earth.

Holistic nursing honors human history as part of our collective story that we carry in our cellular memory, with all its triumph and vulnerability. Holistic nurses strive for clarity of meaning, values, beliefs, and relationships.
The roots and intention of nursing in caring for others is to honor the totality of the individual and support creating environments that promote healing. Florence Nightingale, through her 13 canons, gave the most basic instruction of all: “The art of nursing requires us to alter the environment safely.”² In Notes on Nursing, Florence Nightingale wrote, “No amount of medical knowledge will lessen the accountability for nurses to do what nurses do, that is, manage the environment to promote positive life processes.” This is our collective story as nurses, and it is the foundation on which nursing stands. Today, we are being called on and guided as 21st-century Nightingales to reclaim our highest aspirations, values, ethics, thought, and activity, to lead the way on this highest calling to heal our planet and all that dwell here today and for any foreseeable future.

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, understood what we recognize today as ecological medicine and environmental health, involving the health of not only humans, but of all species and ecosystems with which we are connected physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Nurses have always been sensitive to environmental issues. Historically, nurses have been primarily concerned with health promotion, sanitation, and improvement in the quality of life for all people. Our modern world raises new issues and concerns for nurses, ranging from the use of increasingly toxic substances to high-technology machinery.

Dossey, in her seminal, scholarly works on Nightingale, delineates many of Nightingale’s tenets. One of these was “the precautionary principle.” It implies that when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures shall be taken, even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. The precautionary principle boils down to “better safe than sorry.” Nightingale wrote specifically on observations of hazards in the environment and the nurse’s responsibility: “If you think a patient is being poisoned by a copper kettle, cut off all possible connection to avoid further injury.”³ The essence of the precautionary principle is if there is a suspicion about a harmful environment or exposure, even though all of the evidence is not in, remove the person from the situation or stop the use of suspected harmful exposures.

Nightingale understood that nurses have a duty as well as an ethical and moral responsibility to take anticipatory actions to prevent harm; the burden of proof for a new technology, process, activity, or chemical lies with the proponents, not with the public. The precautionary principle always inquires about alternatives. Precautionary decision making is open, informed, and democratic and must include all affected parties. The first sentence of the Preface in Nightingale’s third edition of Notes on Hospitals (1863) reads as follows:

Dossey goes on to tell us that Nightingale doesn’t say a little harm or negligible harm; she says no harm. This anticipates the precautionary principle, which emphasizes that zero tolerance for the contamination of our environments is acceptable, not minimal or moderate contamination.⁴

Nightingale focused not only on problems, but sought solutions that guide us today. Nightingale engaged in what we today call risk assessment and on facts on which we base environmental decisions. Nurses are working with others to determine the degree of risk that is acceptable and asking questions such as “What is considered safe drinking water in hospitals and in homes?” “How much atmospheric pollution is safe in urban environments?” However, we must remember that the precautionary principle advocates zero degradation of the environment because of the uncertainty of risk assessment.⁵ Precautionary principle proponents and health policy analysts today advocate that it is incumbent on those introducing a new chemical or technology to demonstrate that it is safe, and not for the rest of us to prove it is harmful.⁶

Environmental initiatives and movements are part of a general societal intention to have a habitable planet, now and in years to come. These movements remain largely grassroots, or citizen driven, addressing impacts as they relate to humankind and Earth jurisprudence. Any benefit for the rest of the biotic community is a by-product from that frame of reference. The holistic outlook, as has been stated, recognizes all systems as interacting. If one part is affected, change of a greater or lesser magnitude occurs everywhere.

The roots of the environmental movement in the United States can be attributed to Native American cultures and traditions deeply honoring the feminine nurturing Earth for sustaining life for present and future generations. The conservation movement of the 1800s continued this tradition and was inspired by writers and artists such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson to preserve indigenous territories and the wilderness from the expansion of the times. As the vast American wilderness began to be explored, settled, and exploited, the idea that some wild spaces had to be preserved for future generations began to take on great significance. The national park system arose from this new awareness and declared land that could remain pristine as well as promote tourism. By 1916, the Interior Department was responsible for 14 national parks. There was not much societal activity for more than 50 years until the 1960s and 1970s, when activists elucidated the dangers of DDT and other hazardous materials—polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury, lead, and other heavy metals. In 1976, the Environmental Protection Agency was established and environmental legislation and state and federal protection agencies widened the focus from preservation to protection and banned the pesticide DDT, what would later be classified as a “hormonal disruptor” and a carcinogen, and removed lead from paint in 1978.⁷

In June 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report Preventing disease through healthy environments— towards an estimate of the environmental burden of disease, the most comprehensive and systematic study yet undertaken on how preventable environmental hazards contribute to a wide range of diseases and injuries. By focusing on the environmental causes of disease, and how various diseases are influenced by environmental factors, the analysis breaks new ground in understanding the interactions between environment and health. The estimate reflects how much death, illness and disability could be realistically avoided every year as a result of better environmental management.

The report stated that nearly one-quarter of global disease is caused by environmental exposures, and “well targeted interventions can prevent much of the environmental risk,” saving suffering and millions of lives every year.¹⁰

Over the past century, humans have introduced a large number of chemical substances
into the environment; with the intention of creating “better living through chemistry”. Many of these substances are by-products of waste from industrial and agricultural processes. Today, chemical compounds are ubiquitous in our food, air, and water and have now found their way into every person and species. The bioaccumulation of these compounds is fueling metabolic and systemic dysfunctions and disease states. The systems most affected by these toxic compounds include the immune, neurological, and endocrine systems. This toxic “body burden” can trigger autoimmune reactivity, asthma, allergies, cancers, cognitive deficits, mood changes, neurological illness, reproductive dysfunction,¹⁰ glucose dysregulation, and obesity.¹¹

We can no longer deny or avoid the environmental chaos that is occurring on a planetary level in these times. We read daily about nuclear disasters, global water crises, famines from loss of land, disappearance of the Earth’s rain forests, coastal devastation from toxic waste, climate change, and the long list of endangered species that could include humans, if actions are not taken soon.

To make a list of problems or to dwell on the environmental global crises is not a solution; a more life-affirming exercise is to clarify individual and collective goals for healing our planet, beginning with our individual actions and working toward attainable goals for oneself, family, and community. Human beings are characterized by the ability to choose and change; the same minds that have created the technology and our modern world can create new solutions. Rather than continue down our current environmental path, the past need not be perpetuated. Human beings can elect and select life-affirming ways, use their inventive genius to reinvent a world that can sustain present and future generations, nurturing ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually.

A very different world could be created by using alternative strategies and technologies that could offer the same essential services that chemicals and current energy sources provide.

In less than one lifetime, production of synthetic organic chemicals (e.g., dyes, plastics, pesticides, and solvents) has increased more than 1,000-fold in the United States alone. According to the National Toxicology Program, more than 80,000 chemicals are registered for use in the United States. Each year, an estimated 2,000 new ones are introduced for use in such everyday items as foods, personal care products, prescription drugs, household cleaners, and lawn care products, and most are never tested for their impact on human health. In addition, many chemicals are emitted as by-products of production or incineration (particularly relevant to the hospital industry). Some chemicals, such as life-saving medications, can have direct health benefits. Others, such as pesticides and herbicides, are designed to be usefully lethal. The most pernicious and pervasive were not meant to come into human contact. When PCBs were created in 1929, for example, they were intended for use only in electrical wiring, lubricants, and liquid seals. Although many chemicals, including DDT and PCBs, have been banned by the Environmental Protection Agency since 1978, they can still be found in human blood samples today along with 250 other synthetic chemicals in the bodies of almost everyone in the industrial world. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conservatively estimates that Americans of all ages carry a body burden of at least 148 chemicals, some of them banned for decades.¹²

Many chemicals in use today have not yet been classified as harmful to human health, although recent reports based on current research are sounding the alarm and many organizations are hopeful that consumer activism will gain momentum and fuel legislation for formulating a new environmental and public health policy.

One of the reasons that it is difficult to study the link between environmental conditions and illness or disease is that there are so many intervening variables. Hundreds of substances along with lifestyle factors and individual genetic pre-dispositions are involved. The emerging scientific inquiry in the field of epigenetics provides new insights into how our genes are influenced to express themselves under environmental stress. Furthermore, not all toxic substances and environmental conditions induce immediate untoward reactions; many toxins seem to
cause disease later, perhaps years after the initial exposure. Many chemical substances do not appear harmful at low-level exposures, but it is not well understood how small amounts of repeated chemical exposures when combined with other substances work synergistically over time. Breathing asbestos fibers, for example, seldom causes immediate symptoms, but often has resulted in serious chronic disease many years later. Environmental elements known to be hazardous include lead, cigarette smoke, silica, benzene, mercury, chlorine, formaldehyde, poor lighting, stress, and noise. Converging themes from the fields of environmental health and human ecology and health highlight opportunities for innovation and advancement in environmental health theory, research, and practice.¹³

The Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals 2009 and the Updated Tables, released in February 2011, together are the most comprehensive assessment of environmental chemical exposure in the U.S. population. The Fourth Report includes the findings from national samples for 1999-2000, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004. The blood and urine samples were collected from participants in the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which obtains and releases health-related data from a nationally representative sample in 2-year cycles. For the first time, the CDC has tracked national exposure levels of the U.S. population for 27 different substances—some to be proven carcinogens. The CDC report expresses hopes the data will help public health officials better understand the relationship between chemical exposures and health consequences—and to ultimately help legislate for more effective public policy decisions.¹⁴

In June 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services added formaldehyde, styrene, and six other substances to its Report on Carcinogens after scientists discovered that exposure to the substances can increase the risk of developing certain cancers. Formaldehyde is a colorless, flammable, strong-smelling chemical widely used to make resins for household items, such as composite wood products, paper product coatings, plastics, synthetic fibers, and textile finishes. It is also commonly used as a preservative in medical laboratories, mortuaries, and some consumer products, including hairstraightening products.

A number of cohort studies involving workers exposed to formaldehyde have recently been completed. One study, conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), looked at 25,619 workers in industries with the potential for occupational formaldehyde exposure and estimated each worker’s exposure to the chemical while at work . The results showed an increased risk of death due to leukemia, particularly myeloid leukemia, among workers exposed to formaldehyde.¹⁵

Childhood is a sequence of life stages from conception through fetal development, infancy, and adolescence, as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. Children are the most vulnerable to environmental exposures for the following reasons:

Dr. Phillip Landrigan, director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center, dean for Global Health, chair of Preventive Medicine, professor of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and an international leader on children’s health and the environment, has written extensively and advocated for updated federal regulation of pesticides in food. He has repeatedly expressed that the public is rightly concerned about possible health impacts from frequent exposures through our food supply. He reports on a trio of peer-reviewed studies published June 2011 that found children exposed in the womb to high levels of a class of pesticides known as organophosphates had lower average intelligence than other children by the time they reached age 7 years. Researchers found that exposure during pregnancy may impair a child’s
cognitive development. “If exposure to pesticides are harming children, it doesn’t matter if the levels are below the legal limit set by the government,” says Landrigan, whose research in the 1990s compelled the federal government to tighten pesticide standards significantly.¹⁶ Since that time, new and more potent pesticides have been introduced to the global market, including a new generation of pesticide-induced genetically modified organisms to “protect” crops from external threats. Research on the threat to the health of humans and other species with this new technology has many researchers and scientists apprehensive about the potential deleterious effects.¹⁷ Dr. Landrigan and Lynn R. Goldman, dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University, have proposed a three-pronged approach to reduce the burden of disease and rein in the effects of toxic chemicals in the environment:

Pesticide exposure in our food supply is not only associated with neurological and learning disabilities. Increasingly, research studies show increased risk of several types of cancers from airborne exposure via pesticide drift, including brain cancer from home pesticide and insecticide use, leukemia from home and garden pesticides, and nonlymphocytic leukemia from extermination use.¹⁸ The authors report positive associations with exposures during pregnancy to pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides, and positive associations with childhood exposures to pesticides and insecticides. It has long been established that many pesticides cause cancer in animals. A new study finds that children who live in homes where their parents use pesticides are twice as likely to develop brain cancer versus those who live in residences in which no pesticides are used. It appears to cause an elevated risk for certain types of cancers and positive associations with exposures during pregnancy to pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides, and positive associations with childhood exposures to pesticides and insecticides, and leukemias.¹⁹ The risk of childhood brain cancer increases with exposures received from either parent. Studies show that risk was significantly lower with fathers who washed immediately after the pesticide exposure or wore protective clothing versus those who never or only sometimes took precautions. The parents assessed in this study were generally in contact with the pesticides through residential exposure, including lawn and garden care.²⁰,²¹,²²

In an earlier study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with the American Red Cross, two medical laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in the umbilical cord blood of 10 babies born in U.S. hospitals between August and September 2004. Tests revealed a total of 287 different chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage. This study represents the first reported cord blood tests for targeted chemicals and the first reported detections in cord blood for multiple compounds. Among those found were eight perfluorochemicals used as stain and oil repellents in fast-food packaging, clothes, and textiles—including the Teflon chemical PFOA, recently characterized as a likely human carcinogen by the EPA’s Science Advisory Board—; dozens of widely used brominated flame retardants and their toxic by-products; and numerous pesticides and plastics including bisphenol A. Of the 287 chemicals detected in umbilical cord blood, 180 have been shown to cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or postnatal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens,
developmental toxins, and neurotoxins have never been studied.²³,²⁴

Human beings and animals are most vulnerable to hormonal disruption during prenatal development when a fetus is undergoing rapid, hormonally orchestrated change. Other critical windows of development when the endocrine system is particularly sensitive to hormonal disruption include early life, puberty, pregnancy, and lactation.²⁵

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), endocrine disruptors are chemicals that may interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. Endocrine disruptors may pose the greatest risk during prenatal and early postnatal development when organ and neural systems are forming. Diethylstilbesterol (DES), a drug with strong estrogenic properties administered to pregnant women until 1971 to prevent miscarriages, is a tragic example. Female children of mothers who took DES during pregnancy have a higher incidence of certain forms of ovarian, cervical, and vaginal cancer.²⁶

A wide range of substances, both natural and man-made, is thought to cause endocrine disruption, including pharmaceuticals, polychlorinated biphenyls, DDT, dieldrin, atrazine and other pesticides and herbicides, and plasticizers such as bisphenol A and phthalates. Endocrine disruptors are found in many everyday products, including plastic bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flame retardants, food, toys, cosmetics, pesticides, and industrial chemicals and by-products such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins, and phenols. Many endocrine disruptors affect sex hormone function and reproduction, according to the findings of multigeneration animal studies. The full effects of endocrine disruptors are not completely understood because they have been around only for a few generations. A recently published article in Environmental Health Perspectives reports the conclusions of an international research team on the current science related to early-life environmental exposures and mammary gland development, preconception, in utero development, childhood, and reproductive years.²⁷

In 2009, at its 91st annual meeting, the Endocrine Society, a research-based medical association, issued a strong statement citing the science on the adverse effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals and offered guidelines and recommendations intended to educate and increase awareness. According to Robert M. Carey, president of the Endocrine Society and professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, “Endocrine-disrupting chemicals interfere with hormone biosynthesis, metabolism and action resulting in adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune effects in humans and wildlife. Endocrine disrupting chemicals include substances in our environment, food and consumer products.”²⁸

One such chemical described in the statement, bisphenol A, a chemical that permeates our lives, is widely used in the manufacturing of plastics including baby bottles, toys, and metal cans. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 95% of Americans have detectable levels of bisphenol A in their bodies. In a recent CDC study, the observed BPA levels detected—0.1 to 9 parts per billion (ppb)—were at and above the concentrations known to reliably cause adverse effects in laboratory experiments

The evidence of the mechanisms of action and the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on male and female reproduction, thyroid function, metabolism, and obesity are well documented.²⁸

Known to be estrogenic since the mid-1930s, BPA serves as a chemical building block and a polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resin in technology applications, paints and adhesives, and as a protective coating in many products. For more than 20 years, researchers in the scientific community have expressed concerns about its safety in consumer products.²⁹ In September 2010, Canada and, soon thereafter, the European Union declared BPA a toxic substance and banned BPA use in baby bottles, expressing fears that it may harm the health of children.³⁰ Numerous studies indicate that the chemical leaches into food and disrupts hormones. States including Maine, New York, and Minnesota have
introduced legislation to ban children’s products containing BPA. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released information to help parents reduce children’s BPA exposures. In 2010, in response to consumer concerns, Walmart banned BPA plastic baby bottles, and General Mills, a major corporation in the food industry, is currently seeking new technology to make canned food products without BPA.

After being pressed to reevaluate its position by the National Toxicology Program, in January 2010, the FDA expressed “some concern” about the potential effects of BPA on the “brain, behavior, and prostate gland in fetuses, infants, and young children.” The agency states that it will not issue a ban on BPA. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) position supports the FDA’s decision, insisting that a ban on BPA is unnecessary. According to the ACC, research indicates that BPA is “perfectly safe.”³¹

Prenatal exposure of rats to BPA results in increases in the number of precancerous lesions and in situ tumors (carcinomas) as well as increased number of mammary tumors following adulthood exposures to subthreshold doses (lower than that needed to induce tumors) of known carcinogens. Epigenetic changes in mammary tissue were measured following several generations. Exposures to BPA in adulthood also enhance the rate of growth and proliferation of existing hormone-sensitive mammary tumors, suggesting multiple mechanisms by which BPA may affect breast cancer development. This suggests that exposures to bisphenol A in utero is a predictor of breast cancer in adulthood.³²

Over the past few years, leading researchers specializing in issues related to hormone disruption and women’s reproductive health have convened to address why conception rates fell 44% in the United States between 1960 and 2002.³³ Hormone disruptors can affect both parents, and scientists have linked fertility problems to exposure to BPA, DDT, DES, cigarette smoke, and PCBs.³⁴ Early puberty, known as precocious puberty in the scientific literature, is another growing concern. The onset of the age of puberty has declined over the last half century, and girls today begin to develop breast buds 2 years earlier than they did 40 years ago. Girls who go through puberty early have increased risk for depression, obesity, polycystic ovarian syndrome, breast cancer, and experimentation with sex and drugs at a younger age. The hormonal cues that initiate the onset of puberty are sensitive to a variety of environmental influences.³⁵ Prepubertal stages of development, such as in the womb and early life, are thought to be vulnerable windows for triggers of hormonal disruption. In human studies, early puberty is linked to greater cumulative estrogenic exposure to multiple contaminants, such as phthalates, BPA, and organochlorine pesticides among others.³⁶

Atrazine, a potent endocrine disruptor chemical, is the most common herbicide used globally. In the United States, 34 million kilograms of atrazine are used yearly, mostly on cotton, corn, sorghum, sugarcane, pineapple, Christmas trees, and golf course greens. Atrazine poses serious health safety concerns, and the chemical has been banned by the European Union, and even Switzerland, where atrazine’s leading manufacturer is headquartered. Atrazine is an organic compound in the triazine family of herbicides. It has been shown to inhibit electron transport, which then blocks photosynthesis. Increased concern about the safety of atrazine arose after monitoring programs found the chemical in drinking water and several scientific studies demonstrated the pollutant’s ability to emasculate amphibians and fish. Male frogs were found to have egg sacs and other abnormal sexual characteristics. More recent studies have shown an association with birth defects in male newborns including hypospadias. In view of several compelling scientific studies, the EPA is reinvestigating atrazine, although the industry denies all reports. In 2009, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) analyzed results of surface water and drinking water monitoring data for atrazine and found pervasive contamination of watersheds and drinking water systems across the Midwest and southern United States.³⁷

Breast cancer incidence rates in the United States increased more than 40% between 1973 and 1998. In 2008, a women’s lifetime risk of breast cancer was 1 in 8. Breast cancer arises from genetic, lifestyle, and environmental causes, several of which relate to lifetime exposure to hormones.⁴⁴

Contrary to popular belief, only about 5% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a link to the “breast cancer gene.” Contributing factors that increase breast cancer risk include having children late in life and early onset of puberty. Exposure to radiation from chest x-rays during childhood and taking hormone replacement therapy are also known risk factors, along with alcohol abuse, tobacco exposure, and second-hand smoke exposure. Breast cancer rates are higher in women who are obese and women who gain excess weight during adulthood. Yet, the vast majority of women will never know the cause of their disease. The degree of alarm within the scientific community concerning the dangers of hormone-disrupting environmental pollutants as major contributors to breast cancer in younger women was evident when Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), a European umbrella group of nongovernmental research organizations, released a report in 2010 stating, “We will not be able to reduce the risk of breast cancer without addressing preventable causes, particularly exposure to chemicals.”⁴⁵

Prevention is a solution that requires addressing the real issues surrounding the global increase in breast cancer and all cancers. Public health education, corporate responsibility, and governmental regulation of harmful chemicals must be included in addressing rising rates of cancer. According to the latest research, cumulative toxic exposures often beginning in utero show clear links to increased risks for breast cancer later in life.⁴⁶

Research also links the role of the environment to the rise in testicular and prostate cancers in men.⁴⁷ To compound the problem of our toxic environment, we refine and process away much of the nutritional value in our food supply and replace it with imitation foods lacking protective phytonutrients that can filter, neutralize, and detoxify many of these potentially harmful chemicals. Products too often are filled with artificial colorings, preservatives, flavorings, and many unlisted industrial ingredients. Our modern poor-quality diet, combined with agricultural pesticides and animals being raised on antibiotics, chemical feed, and growth hormones, may dispose many of us to a toxic body burden, stressing the body’s ability to detoxify and eliminate these products. According to Dr. Walter Willett at the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Institute for Cancer Research, a review of 4,500 scientific studies on diet and nutrition concludes in a 650-page report that 40% of cancers are avoidable. The document states, “The bottom line: eat a plant based diet, maintain moderate weight throughout life, and get some exercise.”

The most challenging aspect to creating healthier environments includes discovering how to eliminate many of these compounds from the environment. The good news is that cancer and other health problems can be reduced by lifestyle interventions that can lower exposures to environmental toxicants and enhance our innate immune surveillance systems, increasing cellular energy for healthy metabolism and improving detoxification pathways through nutrition, stress reduction, and exercise.⁴⁷,⁴⁸

The following list shows the everyday products that contain endocrine disruptors that people can try to avoid or eliminate from their lives when possible:

Scientists and advocacy groups are informing the public and advocating for the precautionary principle while demanding health policy actions and regulation of the chemical industry.

Following is a review of the prevention strategies that can be implemented: