Our Dirty Planet, Is There Hope?

YES!

Mar 08, 2023

I was a “distinguished hormone scholar” at The Center For Bio-environmental Research (everyone called it the CBR) at Tulane and Xavier Universities.

They invited me to be part of this illustrious team, as I had written one of the first breakthrough books on the upcoming epidemic of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in our air, water, and food called Hormone Deception (McGraw-Hill, Awakened Medicine Press 2000, 2016).

That prestigious institution put on yearly hormone conferences. For many years they were called Estrogens in the Environment.

For the last several years, the name was e.hormone.

Deans from environmental departments from universities and hormone researchers from all over the world would attend. Share data. Break bread.

The last several years, on the last Saturday evening, I noticed many of these smart, respectable, and hard-working scientists, were getting “shit-faced”, it became replicated scenes.

I inquired why.

The response was unanimous. From all, they saw in the literature and our dirty planet and lack of governmental concern… they felt humanity was doomed.

The head of this “think tank” - as I like to refer to it - the brainchild of the CBR, was the world’s famous expert on everything estrogen, the amazing John McLachlan Ph.D.

Dr. John is an extraordinary thinker. A unique contributing human being.

Dr. John wanted to address all these fears. Always at the forefront. Always an agile thinker!

So, for the last conference, the very last e.hormone, Dr. John called for answers. For hope, for remediation, “doable” ideas.

Hints of Endocrine Disruption

After all, one of the first hints of endocrine disruption came from Dr. Louis J. Guillette Jr’s. amazing work on the polluted Lake Apopka in Florida.

The lake was dirty with lots of run-off chemicals and male alligators started to become feminized. They grew ovaries with eggs. Their penis size shriveled (like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode… but this wasn’t funny).

The female alligators got masculinized.

Dr. Guillette was rather a “he-man”. Dr. G literally caught these alligators, tied them to surfboards, and figured this all out.

Sadly, he died too young from lymphoma. Dr. G’s astute and agile-thinking anthropologist wife, Dr. Elizabeth Guillette, that shared revealing environmental interviews on my podcast, told me they all suspected that his cancer came from that dirty lake.

However, Lake Apopka got remediated. Rather quickly, too. The “gender-bending” reversed from the reversal of the pollution.

Reversal is Possible

Reversal of our dirty planet is possible.

The talks at that last e.hormone conference were extraordinary. They were filled with smart, doable ideas. They were filled with HOPE.

Less scientists got drunk at those last dinners. Ha.

But remediation takes regulatory changes and money.

During the last, so many years the EPA got rather “cut off” - at the knees.

HOPE

Enter center stage, HOPE, from the very amazing University of California in LA.

This time regarding “forever chemicals” (PFAS - Per & poly-fluoroalkyl substances). The name “forever chemicals” sounds like they are forever, with no way to get rid of them, seeming hopeless.

PFAS, forever chemicals, sound utterly despairing.

Recent reports have demonstrated that our Earth's water sources and fish flesh have been thoroughly infested with these hazardous human-made chemicals, called PFAS. They can last for thousands of years. Making even rainwater unsafe to drink. Making any thinking human stunned and start to ponder our precious earth’s fate.

Now, thankfully, like ideas shared at that last e.hormone conference, UCLA chemists have developed a “simple” way to break down almost a dozen types of these nearly indestructible 'forever chemicals' at relatively low temperatures, with no harmful byproducts. It is looking like this process will be water-treatment friendly.

Offering… HOPE.

These remediating researchers have proven that in water heated to just 176 to 248 degrees Fahrenheit, common, inexpensive solvents and reagents, severed molecular bonds in PFAS. These bonds are among the strongest known.

This UCLA protocol initiated a chemical reaction that "gradually nibbled away at the molecules" until these PFAS were no longer forever - they were gone.

This “simple remediating technology”, the comparatively low temperatures, and the lack of harmful byproducts, means there is no limit to how much water can be processed at once.

This technology could make it easier for water treatment plants to remove PFAS from drinking water.

Praise the lord and pass the remediating ammunition!

PFAS

What the heck are PFAS? They are a class of around 12,000 synthetic chemicals that have been used since the 1940s in nonstick cookware, waterproof makeup, shampoos, electronics, coating furniture, food packaging, and countless other products.

PFAS contain a bond between carbon and fluorine atoms that nothing in nature can break…till now.

PFAS make fat cells nasty. Making it more difficult to lose weight in 2022, than it was in 1982 no matter your hard-working weight-loss efforts. Many of these polluting chemicals are now labeled by Dr. Bruce Blumberg as “obesogens”.

They also can damage stem cells that birth bone cells. Contributing to a growing epidemic of osteoporosis.

So PFAS chemicals can make us fatter. With larger nastier-acting fat cells, yet with less dense or healthy bone cells. Ugh.

Over the past 70 years, PFAS have contaminated virtually every drop of water on the planet, and their strong carbon-fluorine bond allows them to pass through most water treatment systems completely unharmed.

PFAS can accumulate in the tissues of people and animals over time and cause harm in ways that scientists are just beginning to understand.

Certain cancers and thyroid diseases, for example, are associated with PFAS.

The current work degraded 10 types of perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) and perfluoroalkyl ether carboxylic acids (PFECAs), including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).

These UCLA remediating researchers (thank you, thank you, thank you) believe their method will work for most PFAS that contain carboxylic acids and hope it will help identify weak spots in other classes of PFAS.

They hope these encouraging results will lead to further research that tests methods for eradicating the thousands of other types of PFAS.

Thank you, UCLA.

Wake up!

Up with HOPE!