A Quote by Rachel Carson
We are rightly appalled by the genetic effects of radiation; how then, can we be indifferent to the same effect in chemicals we disseminate widely in our environment?
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
Environmental science is telling us a lot about our future and what it could look like, whether we're talking about global warming (the current poster child for the environment) or a loss of genetic diversity in our food supplies, or the effects of low-dose chemicals on human development.
Genes do make a contribution to the IQ score - but a flower needs soil. The environment for poor people is so overwhelmingly powerful, it washes out the genetic effect. There is a genetic contribution to IQ, but you can't detect it when you're living in a deprived environment.
You are not exposed to one chemical at a time, but a complex mixture of chemicals that changes day by day, hour by hour, depending on where you are and the environment you are in... In the United States alone it is estimated that over 72,000 different chemicals are used regularly. Two thousand five hundred new chemicals are introduced annually-and of these, only 15 are partially tested for their safety. Not one of the chemicals in use today has been adequately tested for these intergenerational effects that are initiated in the womb.
Printing novel DNA might open the way to achievements once only conceivable in science fiction: designer bacteria that can produce new chemicals, such as more efficient fuels, or synthetic versions of our cells that make us resistant to the effects of radiation.
We are working to understand and regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl synthetic chemicals, known as PFAS and PFOS, used to make water-repellent fabrics and non-stick products. These chemicals have been in prevalent use since the 1940s, but we need to learn more about their potential effects on human health and the environment.
According to the 2000 'Report of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation,' the long-lasting effects of nuclear testing can be qualified in simple scientific terms: 'Radiation exposure can damage living cells, causing death in some of them and modifying others.'
Ionizing radiation may well be the most important single cause of cancer, birth defects, and genetic disorders... The stakes for human health are very, very high in radiation matters. It is essential that people take no chance that conflict-of-interest is producing radiation databases which...cannot be trusted.
The Great Culling of the human race already has begun. It is being done through chemicals added to our drinking water, food, medicines, and the air we breathe - chemicals that have the known effect of reducing fertility and shortening lifespan.
The chemicals that are running our body and our brain are the same chemicals that are involved in emotion. And that says to me that . . . wed better pay more attention to emotions with respect to health.
We're exposed and carry in our bodies multiple chemicals, and we have to understand how they interact. Both how they individually interact and the thousands of effects they can produce when they interact with the receptors that run our bodies.
Antioxidants are chemicals that break down or neutralize the damaging effects of free radicals - chemicals produced as a byproduct of normal cellular metabolism.
Nuclear industry proponents often assert that low doses of radiation (eg below 100mSV) produce no ill effects and are therefore safe. But , as the US National Academy of Sciences BEIR VII report has concluded, no dose of radiation is safe, however small, including background radiation; exposure is cumulative and adds to an individual's risk of developing cancer.
There are allowable limits for radiation going - I mean there's radiation all around us. There's radiation from your television set. There's radiation from your computer. There's radiation actually occurring in the ground.
We stopped cleaning our houses with lemon water and vinegar like our mothers did, and we clean with chemicals. We're breathing chemicals, and then everyone wonders why cancer is the biggest killer.
Chemicals are not currently tested for their endocrine disruption potential before they are approved for use and enter our environment, and there are endocrine disruptors in a vast array of products we come into contact with every day, including organochlorine pesticides, plastics, fuels, and other industrial chemicals.
It is vitally important that we can continue to say, with absolute conviction, that organic farming delivers the highest quality, best-tasting food, produced without artificial chemicals or genetic modification, and with respect for animal welfare and the environment, while helping to maintain the landscape and rural communities.
Related Authors
Bert Holldobler Quotes
German
Biologist
Francisco J. Ayala Quotes
American
Biologist
Francisco Varela Quotes
Chilean
Biologist
George Schaller Quotes
American
Biologist
Jacques Loeb Quotes
American
Biologist
Marc Hauser Quotes
American
Biologist
Michael Ghiselin Quotes
American
Biologist
Peter Lawrence Quotes
British
Biologist
Richard Lewontin Quotes
American
Biologist
Robert Trivers Quotes
American
Biologist
Sandra Steingraber Quotes
American
Biologist
Stuart Kauffman Quotes
American
Biologist
Stuart L. Pimm Quotes
American
Biologist
Suzanne Cory Quotes
Australian
Biologist