Environmental Health = Human Health
How pollution makes us sick
Written by Paul Padyk, MD, Founder and Board Chair of Toilet Equity
As a physician, the relationship between a healthy environment and healthy people and communities is obvious. I will write briefly about pesticides, lead, mercury, atmospheric nitrogen oxide and ozone compounds at the ground level, and fecal contamination of the ground and water to illustrate my point.
I grew up on Long Island in the 1960s and 70s, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Long Island Sound. Normally, such a maritime environment is prime habitat for ospreys but there were few ospreys when I was a child because the widespread use of the insecticide DDT had caused osprey eggshells to weaken, such that they broke when the parents sat on them to incubate them. With the ban of DDT in 1972, the ospreys began to rebound and are now plentiful along the coastline of Long Island.
Lead is a heavy metal that occurs naturally in the environment. It has also been used extensively in manufacturing processes and was commonly used in water pipes and plumbing fixtures. The federal Safe Drinking Water Act, passed in 1974, authorized the EPA to set national standards for drinking water and set a standard for lead-free pipes. While there is a national standard, the actual removal of lead pipes and fixtures is an ongoing process. In 2014, a water crisis erupted in Flint, Michigan. City officials switched the city water source from the city of Detroit to the Flint River. The Flint River had been chronically contaminated by industry and its corrosive quality caused lead to leach out of old lead-containing water pipes contaminating the Flint city drinking water with lead. Blood levels of lead were significantly elevated in children. Lead is a known neurotoxin with greatest toxicity to developing fetuses and children, whose growing brains are especially susceptible to the heavy metal though adults are not immune to lead toxicity. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful health effects.
Like lead, mercury is a naturally occurring heavy metal that is released into the environment through natural processes like volcano eruptions and forest fires. Human processes contribute to a large burden of environmental mercury. According to the EPA, coal burning power plants are the largest source of manmade mercury emissions, accounting for 44% of all manmade mercury contamination. Atmospheric mercury returns to the ground in rain and particulate fall out, where is accumulates in the soil and water. Organisms absorb the mercury where it is converted into the toxic form of methylmercury. It is especially concentrated in fish, which is a major source of exposure for humans. Mercury is toxic to our nervous, GI, kidney and skin systems. Like lead, it is especially toxic to developing fetuses and children.
Atmospheric nitrogen oxide compounds are a by-product of the burning of hydrocarbons and industrial processes. Car exhaust is a common source. Another common compound that forms when car exhaust combines with sunlight is ozone. Both of these compounds are found in brown clouds of smog that settle on cities during periods of stagnant air movement and bright sunshine. Nitrogen oxide compounds and ozone are irritants to our lungs and significantly worsen lung diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive airway disease (COPD). Those people with asthma or COPD who also have heart disease suffer the most though even people with healthy lungs and heart may develop a cough when nitrogen oxide compounds and ozone levels are high.
Fecal contamination of soil and water is a primary cause of transmission of intestinal diseases like norovirus, Salmonellosis, Shigellosis, Listeriosis, E. coli associated disease like Traveler’s Diarrhea and the more severe E. coli H0157, as well as less common diseases like Hepatitis A infection. Developed countries have extensive methods for managing human feces, such as wastewater treatment plants and underground sewer delivery systems but every year, despite these extensive systems, many people are infected by intestinal bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately, fecal contamination of the ground and water by both humans and animals remains common and is a potential source of infection. Every food-borne vomiting/diarrheal illness had its start as a bacteria or virus in the intestine of another human or animal and somehow breached our societal and individual defenses.
In this short post, I’ve shown the effects of just five different types of pollution and how they ruin human health. There are thousands of other bacterial, viral and chemical contaminants in our environment that have been correlated with or have caused disease in humans. We are a system of highly tuned biochemical reactions which can be fouled by foreign bacteria, viruses and chemicals in our environment. Seeking the cleanest air, water and food should be a high priority for all of us to ensure our best health. At Toilet Equity, we seek to achieve the cleanest water and soil by providing toilet access to those who might otherwise be forced by circumstance to poop on the ground. By providing access to toilets, we reduce open defecation, thereby decreasing human feces contamination of water and soil.
