Our Toxic Legacy

Beatrice Trum Hunter

Description

Lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium are major toxic metals. All are environmental pollutants that can inflict harm on humans and other living creatures as well as adversely affect our air, water, soil, and food supply. They can poison not only us but also our progeny developing in the womb. They can break down the body's basic functions. This book describes the unique characteristics of each of the four major toxic metals, identifies the likely sources of our exposure, and offers in-depth, evidence based information, methods to test for its presence, and therapies to rid ti from our bodies.

Sujets

• Médecine
• Médecine de laboratoire
• Medical
• Toxicology

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781591203339
• Langue: English

Extrait

OUR
TOXIC
Legacy
How Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, and Cadmium Harm Our Health
B EATRICE T RUM H UNTER
The information contained in this book is based upon the research and personal and professional experiences of the author. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other healthcare provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a healthcare professional.
The publisher does not advocate the use of any particular healthcare protocol but believes the information in this book should be available to the public. The publisher and author are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book. Should the reader have any questions concerning the appropriateness of any procedures or preparation mentioned, the author and the publisher strongly suggest consulting a professional healthcare advisor.
Basic Health Publications, Inc.
28812 Top of the World Drive
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
949-715-7327 • www.basichealthpub.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hunter, Beatrice Trum.
Our toxic legacy : how lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium harm our health /
Beatrice Trum Hunter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59120-284-4
1. Heavy metals—Toxicology. 2. Heavy metals--Environmental aspects.
I. Title.
RA1231.M52H88      2011
615.9'253_c23
                                                    2011023633
Copyright © 2011 Beatrice Trum Hunter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
Editor: Cheryl Hirsch Typesetting/Book design: Gary A. Rosenberg Cover design: Mike Stromberg
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to Paul D. Granoff, M.D. Dan M. Granoff, M.D. and Gary C. Granoff, Esq. with appreciation, admiration, and affection
Contents
Preface
1.  Lead: The Cause of a Vast and Silent Epidemic
A Brief History of Lead’s Uses
Sources of Lead Exposure
Lead and Human Health
2.  Mercury: Destroyer of Body and Mind
Mercury through the Ages
Sources of Mercury Exposure
Mercury and Human Health
3.  Arsenic: A Jekyll and Hyde Metal
A Murderous History
Sources of Arsenic Exposure
Arsenic and Human Health
4.  Cadmium: A Biologically Non-Essential, Non-Beneficial Human Toxin
Sources of Cadmium Exposure
Cadmium and Human Health
Glossary of Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Measures
Main Sources
About the Author
Preface
Lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium are major toxic metals. All are environmental pollutants that can inflict harm on humans and other living creatures as well as adversely affect our air, water, soil, and food supply. Two of them_lead and mercury_are neurotoxins. They can poison not only us but also our progeny developing in the womb. The other two_arsenic and cadmium_have some carcinogenic forms. All four metals can break down the body’s basic functions.
This book demonstrates the failure of federal regulatory agencies to be proactive rather than reactive. The pattern has been to act too little and too late. Regulations have been lax, delayed, or not enforced. The regulations, themselves, have been formulated to accommodate economic interests rather than to protect public health based on sound science.
There have been a few success stories, notably with lead. Today, most gasoline is unleaded, house paint is no longer manufactured with lead, and food cans are lead free due to banning of the use of lead solder for this purpose. However, these victories are small, compared with what needs to be done.
Herbert L. Needleman, a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, researcher, and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center with whom the reader will become acquainted, remarked about lead toxicity that “unlike genetic, infectious, or metabolic disease, it is not a biologic mystery … It is a completely preventable disease; the mystery resides in its continued existence.” The same can be said of mercury, arsenic, and cadmium toxicity.
—Beatrice Trum Hunter July 2011
CHAPTER 1

LEAD: The Cause of a Vast and Silent Epidemic
L ead (Pb) is present in the earth’s crust. Through the millennia, it remained there, locked in ore. Lead was the first metal to be extracted from its ore, because where lead is deposited, so too is silver. The early mining of lead introduced humans to metal technology.
Lead is not a required nutrient. Nor is there any known biological function for lead. There may be no threshold concentration for its toxicity. Derek Bryce-Smith, professor of chemistry at the University of Reading, England, appraised the metal succinctly, “the only good lead is no lead.” Scientifically, the only appropriate absorption level of lead is zero.
Despite the harmful health aspects of lead, it is an attractive metal. It is malleable and durable, with thousands of uses. In addition, by extracting lead from ore, silver is released as well.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF LEAD’S USES
LEAD IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
Lead was prized in the ancient world. The Greek mines at Laurium were in operation well before 3000 B.C. The British Museum has a lead statue found in Turkey that dates back to about 6000 B.C. The wealth of the Persian kings is attributed to their abundance of lead/silver deposits. The Persians introduced silver coinage in about 750 B.C. This development was a major stimulus for further mining. By Roman times, nearly all the major lead/silver deposits in the Mediterranean and western European areas had been discovered, and extraction from these mines continued throughout the centuries. The Romans used lead mined in Britain for pipes to supply water to public baths.

Silver taken from lead ore became the chief unit of exchange in the Middle East. A technique to extract the silver from lead ore was called cupellation. The metallic mixture was oxidized at high temperatures, and the base metal (lead) separated from the noble metal (silver) by absorption into the walls of a cupel cup. The technique spread to other parts of the ancient world, and remained as a dominant process to recover silver for nearly 5,000 years.
Lead Poisoning and Rome’s Decline
Old bones, old Roman recipes, and remnants of old lead-lined pots provide some clues of the numerous environmental exposures to lead, especially of the upper classes, during the Roman Empire (27 B.C.-393 A.D.). Some historians attribute lead poisoning as a major factor in the Roman Empire’s decline.
Lead was used for water pipes, roofing, containers, cups, statuettes, tokens, coins, lids, sieves, household repair aids, solder, paint, cosmetics, external medications, boxes, markers, writing tablets, and coffins, as well as in many alloys with copper (lead bronze) and with tin (pewter).
The most significant uses of lead were in the kitchens of the upper classes, and in their foods and beverages. Lead was present in wine and other drinks made from fruit or honey, olive oil, grape syrup, and preserved fruits. Lead was in the amphoras, containers used to store these items, as well as in the cooking pots. The heat in cooking greatly increased the absorption of lead, especially if the pots were scraped from time to time to prevent burning of thick liquids such as grape syrup, used to sweeten and preserve foods and beverages.
Wine was a major delivery system for lead. The Romans boiled unfermented grape juice (called must) into a concentrate, using solid lead pots. The resulting sweet syrup was added to wine to give it bouquet and strength. By killing any microorganisms present in the grape juice that would cause the wine to spoil, the syrup prolonged the wine’s shelflife. The grape syrup was used, too, to preserve olives, plums, cherries, apples, pears, peaches, and quinces. The grape syrup also was an ingredient in many luxury dishes, as reflected in a cookbook written by the epicure, Marcus Gavius Apicius.
Minor amounts of lead in wine came from the leaded storage and drinking vessels, from the lead-contaminated water mixed with wine, from the grape syrup used to cement the amphora’s stopper, from the leaden clamps used inside and outside of a mended cracked amphora, and perhaps even from the leaded parts in the winepress. Grapes and wine, being acidic, readily leached lead.

There was some recognition of the toxicity of the wine, though not necessarily of its lead content. In the earlier Republic times, wives were advised not to drink wine. This admonition was from the observation that wine-drinking women bore fewer children. Wine-drinking women tended to be gaunt (a sign of lead poisoning), whereas non-wine drinking obese women were more fertile. Also, there were warnings that certain Greek-made wines produced sterility, miscarriage, constipation, headache, and insomnia—all possible symptoms of lead intoxication.
Later, after the Republic was followed by the Empire, the advisory to wives was ignored. Wine, which had once been a rare luxury, became an everyday drink for the upper classes, including the wives.
Drinking water was another source of lead exposure. The water was brought from the countryside to cities in lead-lined aquaducts, and then through lead piping into buildings. The lead roofs of homes collected rainwater as well as decaying vegetation that would make the water acidic and capable of leaching lead from the roof or from acidic volcanic basaltic dust from soil. Hard alkaline water does not leach lead.
The grape syrup was not only used in the kitchen, but was a panacea as well. A weak drink made by boiling down the grape syrup with seawater was given to invalids. Also, it was a favorite drink of courtesans. Myrrh added to the grape syrup made a special drink for women. Grape syrup-e