Your Exposure To Toxic Chemicals

February 5, 2010

Interview with Dr. Gary Ginsberg, author of the book What's Toxic, What's Not

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Mike Carruthers:
Toxic chemicals - there is fear, concern and some confusion surrounding the topic.

Gary Ginsberg:
The exposure to toxic chemicals, if anything has gone down over the past fifteen to twenty years; it's a myth that things have never been worse than now.
 

Dr. Gary Ginsberg, Senior Toxicologist for the Connecticut Department of Public Health and author of the book, What's Toxic, What's Not…

Our exposure historically to pesticides, PCB's, mercury, and dioxins was much higher thirty years ago - so we've made a lot of progress.

However, there are a lot of toxic chemicals we should be concerned about.

Like lead in paint (which is a big risk for children) still, three hundred thousand children are lead poisoned every year from lead paint. But then you also have radon that comes in to the ground into some homes - that's the second leading cause of lung cancer in our country.

Dr. Ginsberg says radon is the greatest environmental cancer risk to the general public.

Every home should have a radon test. Radon is not something that you can predict community-by-community. We've heard of houses right next to each other, one house having a lot of radon and the next house not having any. It's a simple one-time test; it's best if it's done in the wintertime. And the beautiful thing about it is that if there is a radon problem, it's totally fixable, it's not a big expense; then you can breathe a lot easier.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here