You are what you eat

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to be acknowledged by the medical establishment. A growing number of indoor workers are experiencing symptoms ranging from headaches, rashes, nausea, blurred vision, and disorientation, to respiratory problems, chronic fatigue, and pain.

The Environmental Protection agency has its own indoor-air problem in its Waterside Mall headquarters in Washington, D.C. One hundred workers complained of severe reactions, and over 1000 of the 5000 employees there were found to have serious health complaints when surveyed.

"Sick Building Syndrome"

In November 1988, Dr. Sherri Rogers spoke at a local hospital outside Washington, D.C., on the topic, "Environmental Illness, An Epidemic in Disguise." In her talk she described to the audience a fairly new phenomenon that has the medical profession baffled. She attributed the syndrome to toxicity from the environment.

Sick Building Syndrome occurs at work. When the worker leaves the building, the symptoms are usually alleviated. It appears, however, that long exposures to toxic indoor pollutants can initiate a disease process where the immune system breaks down (not to be confused with AIDS) and the worker begins to react to all chemicals or becomes sensitive to multiple chemicals even while away from the initial environment that initiated the disease.

Thus it has been called the 20th-century disease, as its victims are truly allergic to our modern toxic environment. Given the fact that the office workforce is predominantly female, approximately 70 percent of those with this illness are women.

At almost every meal, we swallow traces of the 815 million pounds of pesticides used annually in this country. They are dusted on crops to kill pests, sprayed on stored food to retard fungi, and sprinkled on animal feed to avoid rot.

Each year 500,000 people worldwide are poisoned by chemicals in their food and 10,000 people die (not counting those affected by long-term illnesses such as cancer). In the United States alone, 45,000 are poisoned and 200 die annually.

Dr. Stephen Collins, a biology professor, claims that "using pesticides is like becoming an addict—we kill all the natural predators and then we can't do without the pesticides."

In addition, the modern food supply is contaminated with dangerous food additives. Over 3000 food additives are in use by the food industry. More than 90 percent of them have no food value at all.

Since World War II, a massive high-tech food processing industry has been developed. After a slow start, there was a swift transition to a man-made diet, as the demand for fast foods escalated.

James Bellini indicates in "High Tech Holocaust" that 75 percent of the average daily food intake in the developed world today is of processed foods that have been chemically treated and altered. Meat products are widely adulterated and made palatable by the addition of monosodium glutamate, which can cause serious health problems. Workers in the food industry face risks from handling these chemicals and additives in a more concentrated form.

The goal of the food industry is profit. It is not in their interest to inform people of suspected risks that food additives may cause. Just as in the manufacturing industry, there is heavy competition and a drive to capture markets with new food products before their health risks are known.

The market is dominated by a small number of immense corporations and retailing chains who depend on high-tech processing to substitute inferior food products for high quality ones and to disguise this change with additives to make them more attractive.

As in every other aspect of the environmental crisis, low-income groups suffer the most from cheap packaged food products. As big business seeks to produce food products with longer shelf lives, many dangerous practices such as the irradiation of food are being experimented with.

Pollutants increase nutrient needs greatly. Thus, at a time when a healthy body is necessary to withstand toxic insults in the environment, the American diet is slowly eroding the body's defenses.—L.T.

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are regularly exposed to known carcinogens. Health Administration (OSHA) was almost dismantled by President Reagan, and its power has been severely limited by federal court decisions. But there is no other agency