ARE CHEMICALS PUTTING OUR BRAINS IN A TAILSPIN?

Just about every week brings more bad news.  Another male friend has 
prostate cancer or bone- marrow cancer.  Another female friend has breast 
or cervical cancer.  

Meanwhile, my sister, who works for a local veterinary oncologist, 
reports that she's chagrined by all the animals - including puppies and 
kittens only a few months old - being carried in sick and ding from 
cancer.  Something awful is going on, she says.  The word she uses to 
describe it is "epidemic."

I'm not an alarmist.  I tend to be skeptical of apocalyptic prophets, 
tree-hugging doomsayers and environmental Jeremiahs.  But lately, I've 
been wondering whether our love affair with technology is backfiring like 
a Faustian deal.  Are we now paying the piper for polluting the land, 
water and air with industrial poisons and toxic chemicals?

No question about it, says Steve Saul.

Weekdays, Saul is director of the drug and alcohol program at the 
Northeast Community Center for Mental Health/Mental Retardation.  On the 
side, he's a self-styled "environmental activist."  He describes his 
modus operandi as "creative pestering," which is a pleasant way of saying 
he's a nudnik who'll keep coming at you with the persistence of a 
bloodthirsty mosquito to get his message across.

The last time we visited Saul, a Wayne resident, he was pestering Radnor 
Township to go natural, to quit using poisonous fertilizers, pesticides 
and herbicides on its parklands playing fields.  To its credit, the 
township was already headed in that direction, figuring it's better to 
live with a few more weeds than to endanger the health and welfare of 
kids and pets.

Now Saul is cranking his siren to warn us about "neurotoxins."  These are 
chemicals in everyday household products that, he says, are poisoning our 
brains, making us, among other things, moody, depressed, irritable, 
restless, jumpy, flighty, sleepless, hostile, neurotic and stupid.

The crowd in a newspaper office is probably not the best sample, but 
based on my own observations, neurosis is plainly on the upswing.  As for 
stupidity, that's something that especially concerns me.  Scanning the 
headlines, I'm daily confirmed in my opinion that human beings - what 
with their incessant strutting and rutting, bickering and warring, 
fearing and hating - can ill afford any further loss of intelligence.

On a more personal level, I was curious about why, after a long and 
glorious day playing with my jeeps in the garage, sucking in gas fumes 
and carbon monoxide and savoring the bouquet of WD- 40, Liquid Wrench, 
and Gunk parts cleaner and degreaser, I routinely come into the house 
with a throbbing headache and the keen urge to smash the TV set with a 
sledgehammer, bench press the sofa, and tackle the Russian Princess - not 
to mention being utterly unable later in the evening to pay attention for 
more than 20 seconds to Il Postino or Howards End or whatever other 
pretentious Ritz Five-type movie she's decided to subject me to.
As a drug and alcohol counselor, Saul, 50, knows a thing or two about how 
chemicals can mess with your brain.  More and more, it's becoming clear 
that the hunk of cabbage between our ears is a complex chemistry set, and 
that how we think and feel about ourselves, others and life in general 
may have less to do with Jung than with genes, less to do with Freud than 
with food.  In other words, it's more a matter of wiring and what we eat, 
breathe and touch than of how we were raised or treated in childhood.

"Many common products actually contain chemicals that can affect us 
mentally," says Saul.  "Research has shown that lead, mercury and cadmium 
can cause violent behavior and lower intelligence in children.  But there 
are many other chemicals that have a profound impact on the neurological 
system."

These chemicals - in products such as cleaners, paints, polishes, 
solvents, insect killers, air fresheners, nail polish and perfume - can 
impair the way the brain develops and operates, interfere with the body's 
hormones, reduce fertility and the ability to reproduce, and diminish 
concentration and the ability to stay on task, says Saul.

"We used to think if a kid was moody, aggressive or had a short attention 
span, it was because he had a dysfunctional childhood or inadequate 
parenting, and so you'd spend hours and hours in a psychiatrist's 
office.  In fact, the problem could be triggered by environmental toxins."

Case in point: The child of one of his clients was hyperactive and 
flighty, says Saul.  The father was an exterminator who'd come home 
covered with pesticide residue.  At Saul's suggestion, he became more 
careful about keeping his work clothes out of the house.  Result: The 
child's attention disorder improved, says Saul.

Children are especially sensitive to what Saul calls "this chemical 
bombardment."  Their bodies and immune systems are not fully developed, 
they absorb a greater proportion of many substances, they engage in more 
hand-to-mouth activity, and they take in more food, air and water 
relative to body weight.

For all of us, the noxious effect of neurotoxins is amplified by living 
or working in a poorly ventilated house or "sick" office building, where 
stale, dirty, poisonous  air is recirculated through filthy ducts.  "We 
live in a spray society," says Saul.  "It's like Love Canal in some 
offices.  They come in and spray pesticides every three weeks.  We're not 
killing cockroaches - they're going to survive - we're killing ourselves."

When we're not killing ourselves, we're getting high - off the fumes from 
ink markers, highlighter, white-out and copy-machine toner.  "We've 
inadvertently become a nation of huffers," says Saul.  "People go to 
beauty parlors and nail salons to experience the lift from the solvents.  
Painters will work weekends because of they crave the intoxication of the 
chemicals...Woodworkers and furniture makers are hooked on fumes from 
glue.  Many of us have become addicted, and we don't even know it."

But the body knows, and eventually reacts, succumbing to physical and 
mental illness.  "We're bombarded on a daily basis by so much chemical 
junk," says Saul, "that it's amazing more ordinary people don't go over 
the edge."


Carey, A., Philadelphia Inquirer.  11/96
	09-19-95-A