By Peter Montague
In 1987, about 45% of US residents were living with one or more chronic conditions (a term that includes chronic diseases and impairments). In 1935, the proportion was 22%, so chronic conditions have approximately doubled during the last 60 years. The majority of people with chronic conditions are not disabled, nor elderly. In fact, one out of every four children in the US now lives with a chronic condition.
The cost of chronic conditions in 1990 was estimated to be US$659 billion — nearly three quarters of all US health-care costs. (The entire US military budget is $250 billion per year.)
Perhaps it is time we looked seriously at prevention as an approach to chronic conditions.
Humans and other vertebrates come equipped with a complicated immune system which prevents diseases that might be caused by pathogens (bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites) or cancerous cells. We are constantly exposed to hundreds of pathogens, but our immune system recognises swiftly isolates them and removes them from our bodies.
If the immune system is damaged, it can allow pathogens to overwhelm our defences and make us sick. Under other circumstances (which are poorly understood), the immune system goes haywire and attacks its host, causing major damage of a different kind, known as "auto-immune" diseases. These include insulin-dependent diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus erythematosus, schleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis and about a dozen others.
A third class of immune disorders is "hypersensitivity reactions", or allergic reactions, such as asthma, hay fever (allergic rhinitis) and food allergies.
As early as 1984, the US National Toxicology Program (within the US Department of Health and Human Services) observed that chemical damage to the immune system can have far-reaching consequences for an individual, leaving him or her vulnerable to attack by bacteria and viruses, at heightened risk of cancer and even predisposed to develop AIDS.
Unfortunately, during the past 50 years, corporations have been permitted to release more and more industrial chemicals and consumer products that damage the immune systems of birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish and mammals, including humans.
The immune system itself has only been fully recognised since the 1950s, and it wasn't until the 1970s that all the major components and activities of the immune system were identified. Many of these are not well understood even today.
Public health authorities have still not established consistent criteria for measuring damage to the immune system, which allows corporate polluters a lot of "wiggle room" when they are asked to stop releasing — or to clean up past releases of — immunotoxic chemicals such as PCBs, cadmium and mercury. (PCBs were outlawed in the US in 1976. Unfortunately, large quantities of them persist in the environment to this day.)
A new study of immunotoxic chemicals affecting mammals appeared earlier this year in Environmental Science and Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society.
Since 1987, large numbers of dolphins, seals and sea turtles have been killed by disease in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
In this new study, researchers examined carcasses of bottlenose dolphins found dead on Atlantic and Gulf coast beaches in Florida, 1989-1994. They found elevated levels of tin, a toxic metal that has been used for the past 40 years to paint the bottoms of boats and ships to prevent the growth of barnacles and slime.
The tin found in bottlenose dolphins was compared to the tin found in spotted dolphins and pygmy sperm whales, which spend their lives far offshore. The bottlenose dolphins had higher levels of tin, presumably because they spend their lives close to shore, where anti-fouling paint from boats and ships has contaminated bottom sediments and local food chains.
The researchers conclude that the tin compounds combined with PCBs and the pesticide DDT, which are also found at high levels in dolphins, and together may have deprived the dolphins of their main defence against disease, their immune systems.
Other common agents and contaminants known to harm the immune system include:
- <~>Ultraviolet light from the sun — the kind of light that is increasing because chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have damaged the planet's ozone shield. Ultraviolet sunlight striking the inhabited portions of the planet has increased 5% to 10% in recent years.
- <~>Dioxin and PCBs. As mentioned, PCBs are still present in many parts of the environment at toxic levels. Dioxins are created as unwanted by-products of incineration, metal smelting and the manufacture of many pesticides. Dioxins and PCBs are carcinogenic and powerfully immunotoxic in many animals, including humans.
In monkeys (marmosets), changes in white blood cells associated with the immune system can be measured at dioxin levels 25% below the level already found in average US residents. Mice with body burdens 25% below the amount already found in US residents display an increased susceptibility to infections by viruses, presumably because their immune system has been damaged.
- <~>Agent Orange — the chemical used by the US in Vietnam to defoliate the jungle — damages the immune system. Vietnam veterans have an above-average likelihood of being struck by diabetes — a serious immune system disease.
In the general population in the US, the incidence of diabetes doubled between 1964 and 1981. Agent Orange is composed of two pesticides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. Though 2,4,5-T was banned in the US in the early 1980s, 2,4-D is still most the popular herbicide used to kill broad-leaf weeds, such as dandelions, in lawns.
- <~>In 1996, a study of pesticides and the immune system, published by the World Resources Institute, showed that many common pesticides degrade the immune systems of laboratory animals, wildlife and humans. All major classes of pesticides — organochlorines such as DDT, organophosphates such as malathion and carbamates such as aldicarb — were immunotoxic.
- <~>Exposure to fibres of asbestos and fibreglass damages the immune system. These effects may be more common than cancer caused by exposure to such fibres, but have been largely ignored in favour of cancer studies.
- <~>Organochlorine chemicals, including those known as "endocrine disrupters", damage the immune system. In addition, common chlorine-containing chemicals such as perchloroethylene (dry cleaning fluid), trichlorethylene (a common industrial solvent) and chloroform (created in drinking water when it is chlorinated to kill germs) can damage the immune system.
Since 1970, the US has spent 98% of its health dollars trying to cure diseases and only 2% trying to prevent them. During this same period, many diseases connected to the immune system such as asthma and diabetes have increased dramatically, and deaths from infectious diseases (not including AIDS) have increased 22%. These seem to be strong indications that immune disorders are increasing.
The US government does not seem prepared to cope with these problems. To prevent damage to the immune system would require strong action to curb the release of immunotoxic chemicals into the environment. This would require a government that is independent of, and stronger than, the corporations releasing the chemicals.
[From Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly. Like Green Left Weekly, Rachel's is a non-profit publication which distributes information without charge on the internet and depends on the generosity of readers to survive. If you are able to help keep this valuable resource in existence, send your contribution to Environmental Research Foundation, PO Box 5036, Annapolis, Maryland 21403-7036, USA. In the United States, donations to ERF are tax deductible.]