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By COLIN HICKEY, Staff Writer Tuesday, June 12, 2007

enlarge Staff photo by David Leaming

CONCERN: Amy Graham with her children Silvie, left, and Phoebe in the living room at their home in Farmington on Monday. Graham is participating in the Body of Evidence study that seeks to determine toxic levels in Maine residents.

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A plot to a Stephen King novel?

Unfortunately, no.

This is real life. Welcome to the toxic world that surrounds you.

That is the conclusion reached by the authors of "Body of Evidence: A Study of Pollution in Maine People," a study by the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine of the pollution that exists in Maine residents.

Thirteen volunteers from across the state agreed to be tested for 71 toxic chemicals -- coming from five chemical groups found in common products to get a snapshot of just how polluted we might all be.

The answer is highly. Testers found that participants on average had 36 toxic chemicals in their body.

"I was pretty shocked," Lauralee Raymond of Winthrop said of her test results. "Actually my mother and I did the test together, and I guess I'm competitive by nature, and I thought my results would be so much better than my mother's. I eat organic, and I exercise regularly ... but it ended up just the opposite."

Raymond, 28, learned she had among the highest levels of arsenic and mercury in the test group, higher than those of her mother, Vi Raymond.

Yet neither mother nor daughter could be sure how she became chemically polluted.

"We have no idea where it is coming from," Vi Raymond said. "That is the scary part."

For Amy Graham of Farmington, a chemical that acts as a fire retardant proved the toxin of most concern. Graham, while in the low to medium range for most chemicals detected in her, ranked second-highest for one form of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers, or PBDEs, a fire retardant chemical.

"We have carpet in our house," the 35-year-old Graham said, "and that could be a source. But PBDEs are also in furniture, TV, computers, toaster ovens, and anything else that heats up."

In contrast to Raymond, Graham, a mother of two young children who writes children's books, was not shocked by her toxic chemical profile.

"I wasn't surprised," she said. "Certainly, I was open to the possibility that all of the things that they were testing for were in our environment and possibly in me."

Modern life, Graham said, comes with many conveniences. But some of those conveniences, she said, come with a toxic price, and to a large extent, there is no escaping that negative consequence.

"There is very little that I'm able to do," Graham said of the chemicals in her environment. "Having little kids, I'm pretty conscious about toxins, but economically I can't afford to rip all the carpets out of my house. I can cut down on meat and that might be a help, because there are a lot of toxins in meat, but I really don't see that there is a lot I can do in my life right now to make a huge change."

THE DANGER

Phthalates, PBDEs, Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), and Bisphenol A (BPA) are the technical names of four chemical families tested. Metals -- lead, mercury, arsenic -- comprised the fifth family.

For most people, especially those who managed to avoid chemistry in high school, phthalates, PBDEs, PFCs and BPA amount to Egyptian hieroglyphics, strange symbols irrelevant to their lives.

One of central points of the study, however, is these chemical families are pervasive and thus relevant to everybody.

Yet they are also invisible. You can't see the PBDE in your carpet. Nor can you pick out the phthalates in your nail polish or other beauty products.

"There are hidden exposures," former Maine health officer Lani Graham said, "and people can't just walk away from them easily. They can't. It is all around us. It is our culture in part. We pursue certain conveniences, and these products are part of it, and in a way, you can't fault industry.

The emphasis in this country is you are going to lose if you don't get out here as soon as possible with your product. That is what makes a business successful."

The frightening part is these chemicals can harm us, write the authors of the report, a group that includes one of the principal investigators in the study, Rick Donahue, a family physician who currently is a visiting scientist at Harvard School of Public Health.

Learning disabilities, autism, cancer and infertility are among the health problems that can result from having such chemicals in the body, they write.

But perhaps the most difficult question to answer, the study makes clear, is what level the chemical concentration has to be to have a harmful impact.

"Moving from the sources of chemicals inside us to what effects they might have on our health is a formidable, sometimes impossible task for environmental health professionals," the report states. "It can be difficult to come up with easy answers to questions on the health impact of chemicals."

CHALLENGING SCIENCE

Colby College chemistry professor D. Whitney King confirms that point.

Toxicology, he said, is a challenging topic.

"Just because you can measure a chemical (in the body)," he said, "does not mean it is necessarily harmful."

In fact, he said, one of the controversies in scientific literature is the concept of hormesis, the idea that a chemical or activity harmful in high doses can actually be beneficial in low dosages.

One of the prime examples mentioned is drinking, which at moderate levels has been shown to be beneficial to health.

King said where benefits end and harm begins depends on the dose-response curve of the particular chemical in question.

That curve, moreover, is not determined by the chemical alone. The age, gender, ethnicity, and physical condition of the individual, among other factors, all influence the shape of that curve.

There also is the adaptability factor to consider, King said.

"Our bodies are remarkably resilient in defending ourselves," he said, "but only to a point."

Lani Graham agrees that uncertainly abounds when it comes to the impact of industrial chemicals found in people.

"There is a huge amount we don't know," she said.

"Another sad thing about these chemicals that is demonstrated so beautifully with tobacco, and even with lead, is that many times we don't see the impact for decades, because these are impacts, like cancer, that take a while to occur."

What also is unclear, Graham said, is the possible synergistic effect of harboring multiple chemicals in your body.

And the more chemicals that exist in your environment, she said, the more likely that an adverse synergistic reaction could result.

ANGER, FRUSTRATION

Russell Libby, as an organic farmer and executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, is a highly health-conscious individual.

Yet the Mount Vernon resident, another of the study participants, turned out to be the most chemically polluted of the bunch.

Scientists found 41 of the 71 chemicals tested in Libby, although many at low levels.

Libby first described his reaction as anger when discussing his initial response to the test results. But after considering the matter further, he said "frustrated" was a better description.

He and his family, he said, took steps long ago to create a home with as few toxins as possible.

"We have no carpets in the house," he said. "We are careful about cleansers and look to get lower or non-toxic materials whenever possible. And we are careful about diet."

Despite all these steps, Libby could not shield himself from the chemical world around him.

"What this tells me," he said, "is this will require tackling something much larger than my own purchasing and lifestyle decisions."

The Body of Evidence authors call for three actions to prevent pollution in Maine people:

n Close the safety gap -- The idea here is threefold: ban the most harmful chemicals; search for safer substitutes; and mandate that the industry prove the chemicals it uses are safe;

n Close the data gap -- This involves honoring the public's right to know what hazardous chemicals are in products, as well as making industry responsible for proving the safety of the chemicals it uses and releasing health and safety data;

n Close the technology gap -- A call to establish a research center to assess the chemical danger in Maine and to invest in research to develop environmentally safe plastics and other "green" chemistry.

Lauralee Raymond said she sees the study as a starting point to a safer environment.

"There is no point being angry about the past," she said. "I think we need to take a proactive approach and consider what these decisions have done to us and take steps to make our environment safe again."

Colin Hickey -- 861-9205

chickey@centralmaine.com

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