Those Darn Toxic Unborn Babies

If the conservative faction of Americans who get all excited about babies rights want to do something really worthwhile with their energy and money, I propose they change their focus from preventing abortion to getting stricter pollution laws passed.

According to a new report by the Environmental Working Group, Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns :

Researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.
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Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests.

What makes me just a tad upset is all the effort that cancer organizations put into the blessed Walk/Run/Cycle/Swim for the Cure events to raise money to find some elusive vaccine to prevent cancer, while the real cause of the ever-growing cancer rates is left unchallenged and for the most part, under-researched. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make the leap that industry-created toxins in our air, food and water aren’t good for us.

Rather than expose us to that crap and then try to cure the illness with injections of more toxic cocktails, why can’t we focus on reducing the toxins in the first place? I’m sure corporations could figure out how to turn a profit from helping people stay healthy…