M3.1 Biomonitoring

I know that I have mentioned this about other videos and articles, but this video is pretty alarming. I was pretty concerned that the children who got their blood tested had higher levels of chemicals in their blood compared to their parents. As a parent, it is pretty alarming to know that my son's favorite toys or him crawling on our rug at home or at daycare might be harming him. It's not general knowledge to know the type of materials that are used to make the toys or furniture that we buy. We don't really stop and think "What is this made of?" when we are out shopping for basic things like toys and furniture. As consumers, we should be aware of all these things to assure we are buying products that are not going to harm us.

In a hypothetical situation where my blood was taken and high levels of chemicals were found, I would ask "How? How did all these chemicals get into my body?" and I would also be concerned. Like I mentioned in a previous blog, I had a testicular tumor years ago and one testicle was removed in order to resolve the issue. Since then my doctors told me that I would have difficulty reproducing since my sperm count was low and that may or may not increase. Knowing that my sperm count is low, I can only imagine that any chemicals like dioxins, DDT, PCBs, and phthalates would harm my reproductive system even more, or even these high levels of chemicals were the reason for a low sperm count. There is so much that we can do to reduce our risks of being exposed to these chemicals. We have control over the things we buy at our home, where we live, and the public spaces that we visit. But we do not have control over everything, we can not tell business not to use products with certain chemicals and materials. We have limited control of the exposure we received to these chemicals, but having the knowledge we can inform others in order to reduce the amount of chemicals going into our bodies.