Q & A with Environmental Summit Keynote Speaker

February 26, 2009

MACOMB, IL -- Ecologist, author and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber (Stine-GRAY-ber), an internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health, will serve as the keynote speaker, at the Sixth Annual Western Illinois University Environmental Summit, "Healthy Planet, Healthy People," Wednesday, April 8.

The summit will be held from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the University Union Grand Ballroom. Steingraber, the author of "Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment," "Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood" and "Post-Diagnosis," will present "Contaminated Without Consent: How Pollutants in Air, Food and Water Violate Human Rights and What We Can Do About It" at noon in the Grand Ballroom. She will also speak at 7 p.m. at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IA. Both presentations are open free to the public.

The following excerpts are from Question-and-Answer session with Steingraber, which is featured on her website at www.steingraber.com.

Q: Your book talks about the chemical contamination of breast milk all around the world. Yet you've chosen to breastfeed both of your children. Why?

A: Speaking as a mother, I can say that breastfeeding has been a joyful, liberating experience. It extends the symbiotic relationship between me and my child, which I felt so keenly while I was pregnant, and it has freed me from the drudgery of buying, preparing and cleaning bottles. Speaking as a biologist, I can say that breast milk is a far better food for babies than its inferior pretender, infant formula. Breast milk is literally alive: it swims with white blood cells that confer protection against disease. It contains special sugars and fats that help knit together neurons in the brain. It protects against diabetes, obesity, juvenile arthritis, and certain cancers. Human milk is unsubstitutable. And yet, it has also become the most chemically contaminated human food on the planet. It is time we had a public conversation about this problem.

Q: A problem that you've called an abuse of human rights. Can you explain?

A: Even if the benefits of breastfeeding still outweigh the risks of not breastfeeding—which they do—the contamination of breast milk infringes on a child's right to safe food and security of person. It violates a sacred communion. The breastfeeding relationship is said to be the strongest of all human bonds. It shouldn't also represent a toxic transfer from mother to infant.

Q: What kind of contaminants are you talking about here?

A: Pesticides, flame-retardants, toilet deodorizers, termite poisons, dry-cleaning fluids, PCBs, dioxins. These are all common contaminants of mother's milk in the United States and other industrialized countries. We scientists don't yet understand the long-term health effects of such chemicals exposures on breastfed children. We do know that the goodness of breast milk has been compromised by their presence. The very substance that is supposed to boost immunity now contains immunosuppressive chemicals. The very substance that is designed to protect a child against cancer now contains carcinogens. Some chemicals even appear capable of interfering with a mother's ability to make milk in the first place.

Q: Why is breast milk more contaminated than, say, cow's milk?

A: The chemical contaminants that most concern me are those that concentrate as they move up the food chain. Human breast milk, which is distilled from the food that mothers eat, exists one rung higher on the human food chain than cow's milk; therefore, it contains more persistent pollutants. On average, breastfed infants ingest each day, for example, 50 times more PCBs per pound of body weight than do their parents.

Q: In the preface to "Having Faith," you say that the body of a pregnant mother is a "habitat." Can you elaborate on this concept?

A: I came to think of the pregnant womb as an interior ocean with a population of one. As with any other habitat, the human uterus is linked through a web of biological connections to other environments. Air, food and water from the larger world flow through it. And so do toxic chemicals. The old idea of the pregnant body as a space capsule sealed against hostile elements—and the developing fetus as its miniature astronaut—really blinded us to the intercourse between the human body and the larger environmental world. The placenta is less a sealed door than a living sponge, the mediator between inner and outer worlds, itself fragile and capable of incurring damage. An ecological understanding of the pregnant body, I think, helps us see more clearly the environmental threats to fetal development.

Q: What are some of these threats?

A: Early in pregnancy, they include exposure to solvents and pesticides. These chemicals are linked to miscarriage and birth defects. Later in pregnancy, they include exposures to chemicals such as lead, mercury and PCBs. These chemicals are linked to brain damage. Exposure to air pollution raises the risk of low birth weight—possibly by interfering with the placenta's ability to transport nutrients. Exposure to PCBs can trigger premature labor; PCBs make the uterus more likely to contract.

Q: So the threats go beyond birth defects?

A: Yes, chemical exposures during prenatal life may alter behavior and the ability to learn later in life. They may create a baby whose body is smaller in size than it should be. They may increase susceptibility to disease. In the case of prematurity, they may change the child's birth date. In some cases, we know that exposures are occurring, but we don't yet know what threats they pose. For example, a new study has uncovered the presence of pesticides, dioxins and PCBs in human amniotic fluid. All these substances are suspected carcinogens, and all have the power to disrupt hormonal messages. Amniotic fluid is that liquid bubble wrap that surrounds the baby throughout pregnancy and is swallowed and absorbed through its skin. We don't yet know what effect this earliest exposure to toxicants has on the developing fetus.

Q: You say that protecting the ecosystem inside a mother's body requires protecting the one outside it. So what can we do to protect it?

A: A lot. For example, the National Research Council recently estimated that 60,000 babies are born each year at risk for neurological problems and learning disabilities due to mercury exposure before birth. By far, our main source of mercury is dietary—especially from fish and seafood. And the single largest source of mercury contamination in fish is coal-burning power plants, which are currently permitted to release as much mercury into the atmosphere as they please. Solving the problem of mercury-damaged children requires us to rethink our energy policies. Similarly, we need to liberate agriculture from its current dependency on neurotoxin pesticides. Renewable energy sources and organic agriculture are part of good prenatal care.

Q: You're talking about political solutions here. What can an individual woman do during the course of her own pregnancy? How would you advise her?

A: She can avoid using pesticides in her home and garden. She can avoid dry-cleaning. She can limit her consumption of tuna fish sandwiches. But in the long term, meaningful change is not going to happen through the sacrifice of individual mothers. We got drunk drivers off the road when mothers got angry and organized and insisted on new public policies—not by asking mothers themselves to give up wine with dinner. The same will happen when mothers get angry and organized about the environmental toxicants that threaten our children.

Q: "Having Faith" makes reference to your identity as a cancer survivor, which was a central focus of your earlier book, "Living Downstream." How has having cancer affected your life as a mother?

A: Motherhood is a very long commitment for those of us accustomed to living one day at a time. That's the part of it that overwhelmed me at first. As I write in the opening passage, one of my first thoughts upon seeing the face of my daughter for the first time was, "Now I cannot die." Another chapter describes my return to the ultrasound table for my amniocentesis. This was the same table where I had previously been scanned for cancer. Now I had to keep telling myself that, this time, signs of growth were a good not a bad thing. Motherhood does share one characteristic with cancer: one's body is no longer one's own. But turning my body over to my babies has proved a far more joyful experience than turning it over to white-coated strangers.

Q: What's next for you?

A: I don't know yet! I still think like a cancer survivor: one day at a time. Understanding how the biological environment penetrates the human body and shapes our destinies will always be my life's work, of that I am sure. I have a lot still to learn.

Posted By: Darcie Shinberger (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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Western Illinois University

Western Illinois University