1

POISONS IN YOUR HOME

ARE YOU SAFE?

First 3 Chapters

By

Andrew Zubriczky Independent Health Research Scholar

2 Poisons in your home: Are you safe? Introduction:

Did you know that your home environment could be making you sick? If it can make you
sick, are you really safe? And, if indeed you are sick, how can you get better? These are the questions we hope to answer within the pages of this booklet. The title can at first glance seem too strong, and may be viewed as alarmist or sensational, focusing on our fears and sensitivities. I want to assure each and every reader that this booklet was not written to sound the alarm; although, this warning has been ringing mainly on deaf ears these past three decades. Our purpose is simply to educate and inform. And, to provide timely health and safety data to a concerned public at risk within their home environment. Yes, there are in fact many poisons within the average home/apt environment. Not all are marked with a skull and crossbones warning label. Unfortunately, we have taken many of these poisonous substances for granted. We casually live with them, inhale them, ingest them, and absorb them into our bodies. They have become an insidious fact of our every-day existence. Research findings continue to indicate that most of these foreign chemicals (foreign to our bodies), and biological substances/contaminants are simply not healthy. Included, also as poisons, are the various forms of electromagnetic radiation- and their effects. These poisons and their exposures, taken collectively, can in fact cause all manner of general, vague, and non-descript symptoms; which, if left unchanged over time can lead to cellular, tissue, and organ degradation. They can even influence our alertness and moods, causing anxiety, and depression. Please keep in mind that I am not just focusing on our acute poisonings. I would also like you to consider the following: without even knowing it, you and your family may be slowly being poisoned by your toxic environment; where each small insult, even a brief contact or exposure, to a considered pollutant, can over time, lead to discernable signs of their bioaccumulation within your body. A few factors determine the extent of their effects on your health: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The nature of the individual poison or toxin. The amount or volume of your exposure. The length of contact and exposure, usually measured in years. Other health issues you may have, or not know about. And, the degree to which you live in a closed-in or weather-tight home environment?

As this is a booklet and not a book, we will attempt to keep all the information presented, concise and timely, informative and understandable, and hopefully, interesting. While providing you and your family with healthier living choices; it is designed to be used in every home. But, unlike the use of a first-aid kit or smoke detector, the crises and danger to your health is ongoing. We can only help make you aware of the most critical risks and dangers. It will then be up to you and your family, to monitor and change your home environment, by way of healthier living choices. Perhaps, even to do more research if necessary, and become better informed. We hope to

3 motivate you to better health with the data we provide. We wish you a safe and healthy home environment. Chapter 1: Our Dangerous home environment

No one is safe any longer within his or her home environment. Our desire to live a more comfortable lifestyle and utilize whatever science and technology can give us, to improve the quality of our lives and homes, has created more than we expected. Unwittingly, we have made a pact with the devil. We have sacrificed our bodies and health for the sake of being a conspicuous consumer. Our desire and need for things for our bodies and our homes have created bourgeoning industries built from the use of chemicals, plastics and resins, to service every aspect of our every-day lives. Our consumption of manufactured goods, made from chemical synthetics, is literally killing us. Caveat emptor!
Every nook and cranny of every home and apt contains some degree of poisonous or toxic/biological substances, regardless of how clean they may appear. Without exaggeration, the numbers of these individual poisons and toxins are in the hundreds. These poisons lie in wait within each room, hallway and closet of every home. They are not just under your sink or inside a storage bin marked as poisonous. I am not just referring to chlorine bleach, or a list of a dozen or so cleaning products we use every day within our homes. Nor am I necessarily focusing on the inside of our medicine cabinets. I am talking about things that we take for granted, unknowingly and unsuspectingly. Biologically speaking, our bodies have not adapted well to the continuous toxic insults we subject them to day after day, especially in a closed-in or weather-tight environment. In our attempt to conserve energy, and to protect us from the outdoor elements, we have created tightly sealed homes and apts. This is where and why; we sealed our fate. Our health requires that there be proper airexchange and air circulation taking place regularly within a tightly sealed home and apt. Otherwise, the synergistic effects of these poisons can eventually produce to a lesser or greater degree toxic effects on our bodies. And, those with poor health or a compromised Immune system are the first effected. Many health scientists and researchers, based on their most recent findings, conclude that there is no-safe level of a poison or toxin within our environments. Each exposure, no matter how small or microscopic can possibly over time, contribute to cellular degeneration. And, thereafter create other ill effects within of our bodies. Can we ever hope to create a totally germ or chemically free sterile environment within our homes? Is this the ideal we should even strive for? I dont think so. I believe that we can never escape our environments; we can only learn to bring them under our control. The only way we can truly take responsibility for our dangerous home environment is by becoming better informed about its risks and effects. It is our sincere hope that the information presented will lead you and your family to a more conscious way of living within our ever-increasing poisonous home environment.

Chapter 2: The Bathroom

Statistically speaking, the bathroom is one of the least safe places within the home. More injuries and fatalities occur in this room than within any other room. But, this is not the main reason why it is the most dangerous to your health.

4 One of the least suspecting ways in which we become poisoned in the bathroom comes by way of our drug cabinets. The plethora of pharmaceuticals within these cabinets is literally enough to drug and or kill an entire family. Yet, there they sit on the shelf patiently waiting to be ingested, properly or improperly, depending on the mood of the person taking them. Little do they know or even realize the untold interactions and possibly even deadly consequences these drugs can produce. In North America alone over 100,000 people die every single year just from taking these medications as prescribed. Never mind the unintended contraindications or interactions of these with alcohol and or with other medications. And, these figures also do not count the yearly thousands of fatal and deliberate drug overdoses from this cabinet of Parma Plenty. The bathroom by far is the most deadly of places within our homes. These pharmaceutical wonder pills, designed and sanctioned by modern medicine are taking their toll on the lives of millions of unsuspecting people. Hundreds of thousands are affected yearly, while millions are silently poisoned to a lesser or greater degree. Its about time we took our health and our familys health into our own hands. Its about time we learned the truth about these poisonous little pills. Presently over 10,000 patented drugs are available to the consumer, for everything that ails them. Each drug has its own list of side effects and contraindications. Each drug has the potential of adversely affecting your health. Do we really need these many drugs? Is our health so bad that we need to fortify it with synthetic chemicals? As early as 1998, a US medical report estimated that adverse reactions to prescription drugs are killing about 106,000 Americans each year -- roughly three times as many as are killed by automobiles. This makes prescription drugs the fourth leading killer in the U.S., after heart disease, cancer, and stroke. The report included only drugs that were given properly and under normal circumstances, excluding drugs that were administered in error or taken in attempted suicides. (When errors of administration are included, the death toll may be as high as 140,000 per year. Such errors include prescribing the wrong drug or the wrong dosage; giving medications to the wrong person; giving medications to the right person but in the wrong quantities or the wrong frequencies, and so forth.)

Mike Fillon, writing in Ephedra Fact And Fiction (2003), had this to say about our ever increasing drug use: According to a report prepared by the National Institute for Health Care Management, a nonprofit research foundation created by the Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plans, the fifty most-advertised prescription medicines contributed significantly last year to the increase in the nation's spending on drugs. The increases in the sales of the fifty drugs that were most heavily advertised to consumers accounted for almost half the $20.8 billion increase (italics added) in drug spending last year, according to the study. The remainder of the spending increase came from 9,850 prescription medicines that companies did not advertise, or advertised very little. The study attributed the spending increase to a boost in the number of prescriptions for the fifty drugs, and not from a rise in their price. Why are they the most advertised? Because they do the most good, or because they generate the most profit?
Would it surprise you to learn that just a handful of these medications alone have been responsible for over 200,000 deaths in North America within the past 6 years? Lets examine one of the most popular of these drugs called Vioxx, a heart medication manufactured by the pharmaceutical

5 company Merck. Vioxx was used as a prescription medicine to relieve the signs and symptoms of arthritis, acute pain in adults, and painful menstrual cycles. Its been in the news since November 2004, because of the startling revelations made by of one of the FDAs own scientist, 20 year veteran, turned whistleblower, Dr. David Graham. The US drug approval agency, the FDA, originally approved Vioxx in May 1999. Dr. Graham, testifying before a US Senate Finance Committee in 2004, estimated that Vioxx alone may have caused about 55,000 deaths, more than the 28,000 earlier projected by the FDA. Dr. Graham also indicated that Vioxx may have been responsible for as many as 160,000 heart attacks, strokes and deaths, combined. Again, we are talking about just one drug, Vioxx. It may result in the largest class action case estimated to be worth between $5-50 US billion. The headlines at the time suggested that millions of unsuspecting users of this drug became human guinea pigs in an experiment of cover-up and corporate greed. Never mind the cost in human lives! Dr. Graham went on to warn of five other drugs that he claimed were too unsafe to remain on sale. They were the anti-cholesterol drug Crestor, the pain pill Bextra, the obesity pill Meridia, the asthma drug Serevent and the acne drug Accutane. Could any of these become the next Vioxx? Anyone can do their own preliminary research on the Internet for any drug they are taking or thinking of taking. Youll be surprised by the results! We definitely do not need 10,000 drugs to treat our ever increasing health symptoms. Our recommendations based on the above evidence suggest that we limit our need and usage of pharmaceuticals. Try healthier less invasive alternatives. Why not consider natural remedies for your complaints and ailments instead of synthetic drugs? Why become a statistic?

Less toxic perhaps, but nevertheless ever present within our bathroom is our use of water to wash, bath and shower with. We take our water too much for granted, believing in ignorance is bliss. Water is the most precious life giving and life-sustaining medium on our planet. Life flourishes and or dies because of it or lack of it. Analyzed Glacial water from 10,000 years ago is pure H20; it is dramatically different to what we casually accept as treated sewage water today. To say that tap water is clean is a lie. To suggest that it is safe to drink, shower and bath in is dangerously misleading based on the following fact. "U.S. drinking water contains more than 2100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer." This is according to a report by the Ralph Nader Study Group after reviewing over 10000 documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act.
Our water is usually treated at our citys local treatment plant, where chlorine is added to disinfect it, and most of the suspended sedimentary particles are removed. Ultra-violet radiation is also used in some locals to kill off most of the remaining organic pathogens. What we dont do is actually purify our water. We dont clean-out the many non-organic, synthetic cocktail of chemicals from our industrial waste run-offs. Our water within our bathrooms, and its thousands of known chemical contaminants, is affecting our health. These chemicals, the by-products of our pharmaceutical, petroleum, and agricultural industries, are known or suspected of being carcinogens (cancer causing), mutagens, and teratogens. Without sounding overly technical, mutagens are simply agents and or substances that mutate our DNA, altering unpredictably, some part of our genetic code. Teratogens, are similar agents, they can be a virus, a drug/chemical, or exist in the form of radiation. These substances may also have the potential for causing reproductive damage in humans. They specifically move beyond the placental wall, and can cause the malformation of a fetus or embryo.

6 During a bath we silently sit within this mix of chemicals suspended in water. The hot water we bath in opens up our pores, making these substances more easily absorbed by our bodies through our skin. And, during a hot shower, the chlorine in the water, added during its treatment at source, is changed into chloroform, another probable carcinogen in humans. It has been shown to cause liver, kidney, and thyroid cancer in animals. It is important to note here again, that many scientists believe there are no safe levels of exposure to these carcinogens, mutagens, or teratogens. Our need and desire for clean water has created many innovative and affordable technologies to address our worries and concerns. We can now finally, affordably, bath and shower in clean, chlorinated free water. Shower nozzle attachments can be purchased to not only filter out chlorine and other similar organochlorinated substances, but to also conserve up to 50% of the water flowing out of the faucet. Under the sink water filters in the bathroom can give us cleaner water for washing and cleansing. Larger devices, some portable, can also be attached under your bathtub or in your basement to purify the water you bath in, making it free of most contaminants. Rational and affordable solutions now exist to limit your families exposure to most of these potential poisons. Another health concern within the bathroom is the existence of mold and mildew, and the spread of biological germs and contaminants. Molds are small organisms found almost everywhere, inside and outside the home. They can be nearly any color white, orange, green or black. Molds are beneficial to our environment and are needed to break down dead matter. Very tiny and lightweight, mold spores travel easily through the air. Unfortunately, they can be inhaled and cause allergic symptoms such as watery eyes, a runny nose, sneezing, nasal congestion, itching, coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing, headache and fatigue. Those most at risk are infants and children, the elderly, immune compromised individuals, and those with respiratory conditions.

Sensitive areas in the bathroom should be kept dry and disinfected with a natural non-toxic disinfectant. Substitutes for ammonia and bleach should be found; and they should never be mixed together. A toxic gas will form poisoning its victim.
Tens of millions of North Americans, suffer from hay fever, asthma, and other allergic diseases. Many of these conditions are caused by exposure to allergens in the indoor environments of our homes. Biological contaminants in the form of bacteria, viruses and germs can easily be transmitted within a bathroom. Measures should be taken to limit the transmission of these from person to person by way of our bathroom appliances, as well as our unhygienic health practices. The appliances as well as our hands should be cleaned after each usage. Anything we touch can be another source point for transmission. A natural hand disinfectant should be made available. The doorknobs should also be cleaned and disinfected regularly. We must be both aware and diligent to protect ourselves from the possible spread of infectious diseases. Please keep in mind, we now live in a global village; the world has become a much smaller place to live in. The bathroom is one of the most dangerous places in our home, and as such, should be the first place in the home we address, regarding our health risks and concerns. In conclusion, the bathroom is also the receptacle for two other categories of potentially poisonous products: Cleaners, cleansers, disinfectants, detergents, deodorizers, bleaches, etc.; and our body products: sprays, lotions, crmes, soaps, deodorants, hair colorings, bath and shower gels, etc. Suffice it to say that the average bathroom can contain dozens of these individual products. We inhale their vapors, rub them on our skin, wash and lather with them; we ingest and absorb them into our bodies. Little by little, these products chemicals, invade our cells and effect their proper functioning;

7 they bio-accumulate within our tissues, eventually overtime, and with continued exposure, they can even cause organ damage. Each product, one for one, more than likely contains a multi-syllabic list of chemical substances. And each chemical is usually tested on animals to determine its half-life dose. This refers to how much of the chemical or substance does it take to kill off 50% of the tested animals in any group tested. This is Toxicology 101. The ratio, the amount of the substance to the kilogram weight of the exposed body determines its relative toxicity. Extrapolated to humans this data is the basis of our health standards and policies with regard to our exposures to these chemicals and substances. We have data on one chemical, one substance, sometimes the combination of one or more other substances and the resultant. Know one knows for sure; no politician, no medical practitioner, no eminent toxicologist is certain that the combined exposures to all these chemicals is in any way healthy for us. Your environment may be making you sick. Read the labels; become informed about what you are using within your space and on or in your body. Become familiar with those technical sounding words we all have difficulty pronouncing and remembering. Know your environment and what is contained in and around it. Do more research and investigation. We can no longer just trust the assurances of our well-meaning health officials when it comes to poisons in our home.

Chapter 3: The Kitchen

The heart and soul of every home is its kitchen. It is a place of nourishment, comfort and happy family gatherings. It is a safe place we take too much for granted. Next to the bathroom, it is the most dangerous place within the home. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses globally and 325,000 illnesses and 5,000 deaths a year in US alone. Some studies have shown that only 10% of all food poisonings actually get reported, diagnosed and treated. Most food poisoning symptoms are usually attributed to other misdiagnosed causes. The actual figures of illness and deaths from foods may be ten times greater than our statistics show.
Knowing that water is the source of life, and that all living matter decays, clearly means that the kitchen can easily become a breeding ground for all manner of germs, bacteria, and fungi. Some of which can make us very sick and or susceptible to other opportunistic germs within this environment. Most of us, without even realizing it, are probably under the weather many times a month, due to the foods we have eaten and the way in which we have prepared them. In the kitchen, Cleanliness is next to Godliness. The first rule in my kitchen is to always, always, always, keep all food preparation areas clean and free of cross contamination from other food sources. I dont mind washing wooden or stone cutting boards over and over again; or using multiple plates to keep foods separate; or washing my hands repeatedly; or if I have an open cut on my hands by wearing disposable gloves if necessary. Caution should be exercised when using toxic chemical disinfectants in the home. There are a number of issues, which suggest that inappropriate use or overuse of chemical disinfectants should be avoided. These relate to the development of resistant microbial strains, a lowering of our natural immunity, and other environmental factors. These issues will each be further developed as they relate to your health and well being. As I prepare my food, my taps and faucets, sinks and countertops, are all kept clean and sanitized with scalding hot water in the form of a steamer, and or a natural disinfectant.

8 (Vinegar, Citrus/Lime juice, Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide also known as H202, or even Ionized Water, with its antiseptic properties can be used to keep all areas clean.) According to the 6th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, The average kitchen dishcloth can contain 4 billion living germs. In fact, germ guru Charles P. Gerba, Ph.D., a
professor of microbiology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says you're more likely to get sick in your home than nearly anywhere else (except maybe hospitals) . In his research, Gerba found 200 times

more fecal bacteria on the average cutting board in the home than on the toilet seat. Similarly, his other findings indicate that the common household sponge may contain 320 million opportunistic bacterial pathogens, enough of which can easily be transferred from the sponge to your hand to your eyes or mouth to make you sick. Cleaning these products is as simple as running them through the dishwasher, or swabbing them with alcohol to disinfect them if you don't want to use bleach. A food grade Hydrogen Peroxide can also be used to briefly soak them in, or wipe them down with. The Main Causes of Food Poisoning Are: Preparing foods too far in advance Not cooking foods properly Storing food wrongly; so bacteria can grow rapidly Cross contamination of foods after cooking Infection from people handling the foods due to poor hygiene

As our kitchen is the busiest of places within a home where faucets, taps, countertops,
cupboards, door knobs, other knobs, dish cloths, sponges, scouring pads, and handles get continually touched by everyone preparing or handling food. It is a place of serious concern for our health and safety. Kitchen pathogens are easily transmitted. The elderly, young children, and those with health issues/compromised immune systems, can easily become sick because of unsanitary or poor hygienic food preparation practices. To know more about these germs and proper safe food-handling methods just follow the links to the various web sites at the end of this chapter. They will provide you with a more in depth look into how you can protect your health from these opportunistic invaders. Growing interest and concern about control of infectious disease in the domestic setting has lead an international group of experts to form the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH). Through its international initiatives the IFH is working to raise awareness of the fundamental role that home hygiene plays in preventing infectious disease, and to promote understanding of good hygiene practice in situations where infection risk exists including food hygiene, general hygiene, personal hygiene and the care of the sick and other at risk groups. The IFH is also seeking to promote research into areas of home hygiene which are currently not well understood and facilitate debate and consensus on issues relating to home hygiene. IHF web site Realistically speaking, our foods alone, probably account for millions of illnesses and tens of thousands of deaths every year in North America. We live through the food we eat and the liquids we drink. What we put into our bodies determines our health, or lack of. Evolutionarily speaking, our bodies have evolved needing certain nutrients, basics building blocks for survival. Our bodies are not used to the other 100,000 or so manmade chemicals in our environment. Our DNAs, the code of life, is not made from synthetic cancer causing chemicals. The food industry alone is responsible for over 10,000 permissible additives in the foods we eat. The average supermarket today contains over 20,000 individually packaged and processed food products available to the consumer.

9 All full of additives. We unwittingly consume hundreds of these additives daily. Not all are as safe, as they have been made to look. Fresh foods grown locally, organically, do not need thousands of additives to extend or enhance their life or appearance; they do not need to be irradiated and genetically modified. They are eaten fresh and are rich with life sustaining nutrients and enzymes. For the sake of time and convenience we allow our foods to become adulterated. For the sake of increased profits, the food industry is willing to put our health at risk. We buy into more than just the foods we purchase for consumption. We have become part of an unprecedented chemistry experiment. How will our bodies deal with all these chemicals we have subjected them to? We are sick and getting sicker, yet the source of our illness is not easily diagnosable or traceable to the foods we eat and the chemicals that sustain them. Lets have a real hard close look into our kitchens and the way we eat. Perhaps having a second look may mean a healthier way of life. The water we drink from our faucets and cook with is contaminated/polluted with thousands of cancer causing chemicals. These do become absorbed into our bodies. Unfortunately, not all bodies have strong enough or effective enough detoxification systems to eliminate or neutralize their combined effects. These poisons gradually, incrementally build up within our bodies, causing our immune systems to become compromised. Sooner or later, these poisonous assaults begin to wreak havoc on our cells, tissues and organs. Sickness inevitably follows. Clean, safe water for drinking and cooking with is the first step in creating a less toxic living environment.

The sale of water has become BIG business! Wars have already started for the lack of it, and
desperate need for it, by many water poor countries around the world. Water borne diseases due to infectious and polluted water are the number one killer of children and adults worldwide. Tens of millions die yearly because of dirty water. In North America, we know our water is bad for us so we buy into bottled water, we drink it by the gallons, and most manufacturers cannot keep up with the demand. It has become a band-aid solution for our serious water needs. But buyer beware, not all bottled water is the same, and not all water filters, purifiers, produce the clean and safe water our bodies need for optimum health. Water is synonymous with life; it is the medium in which most of life evolves from in one form or another. It is life sustaining, it is life preserving. We take our water too much for granted! Your health and families health is directly proportional to the cleanliness of your water. Ignorance and or indifference to our water needs are no longer a viable solution to our health imperatives. Our survivals desperately depend on clean water, free of cancer causing chemicals and other organic pollutants. We can no longer just rely on the assurances of our governments, soothing us into complacency about the safety of our water. We need to find out for ourselves what is clean water and why it is absolutely necessary for optimum health within our homes. We have provided a list of various websites and resources at the end of this chapter to help you cost effectively insure the highest quality of safe and clean drinking water in your home for your family. Not all water is clean and safe to drink, regardless of the claims, or its source. Find out as much as you can about the water you drink and cook with. Discover for yourself how to keep your water safe and clean. We can no longer take our water for granted; our healths, as well as our lives now depend on it!

10 The list is long; too long for what we have allowed to be included in our food supply. Pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, hormones, emulsifiers, dyes, flavor enhancers, coloring agents, preservatives, bonding agents, sweeteners, fillers, synthetic spices, synthetic vitamins, and hundreds of other chemical additives, all designed to enhance your food experience and make huge profits for the food industry. Unfortunately, all of these much needed agents and ingredients leave behind their chemical traces within our bodies after ingestion. We become that which we eat, our choice, for eating high on the affluent food chain. Healthy living comes about by healthy eating, and a sacred regard for life, all life. Eating fresh locally grown organic foods season to season is the best way to insure your familys health. Illuminating packaged and processed foods that may contain dozens of foreign chemical additives, synthetically designed to taste better or have a longer shelf life is the only true natural solution to our desperate cries for better health. As a nation that spends well in access of One Trillion dollars every year on our health care, we should already know, that sickness has now become a way of life. Foods heal, and foods promote the growth of life. Genetically modified and irradiated foods no longer have life, and should not be expected to sustain it. Processing our foods for the sake of time and convenience is not the answer to our health imperatives. If we expect to live long and healthy lives, it starts by the food choices we make within our kitchens.

Resources and Web sites: For a general description of the basic chemistry behind water pollutants and their effects on our environment please follow this link: www.lennotech.com. We put many things down our drains and sewers that lead right back into our drinking water. Find out what you can do to protect the quality of your drinking water. This web site demonstrates how easy it is to stop pollution at its source: www.sccdistrict.com/resubwt.htm Environment Canada has a very thorough web site dedicated to answering most questions related to clean fresh water in our environment: www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/manage/poll/e_poll.htm Water pollution is so pervasive that even the pharmaceuticals we flush down our toilets ends up back in our drinking water. www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000401/fob1.asp For an in depth yet simple explanation on molds and fungi in your home please go to this very informative web site: www.aehf.com/articles/molds.html Another extremely informative web site deals with natural ways to help keep your home clean and healthy: www.foreverhealthy.net/html/archives/articles/disenfect.asp