Other people wax rhapsodic about riding Hawaii’s great waves; I could go on and on about the pleasures of eating warm popovers with sweet whipped butter and poha berry jam at the Orchids restaurant in Waikiki. For me, the poha berry jam is what makes this an island breakfast. Also known as cape gooseberries, poha berries came to Hawaii before 1825 and can be found on all of the islands. They have a sweet tartness and orange color similar to the cloudberry, another rare fruit that I’m rather fond of. One could say that tpoha berry jam is my version of Proust’s madeleine, a symbol of an earlier chapter in my life, when I came to Hawaii with my children and their father and his mother rather than alone.
On a recent vacation there, I indulged in poha berry jam with popovers for breakfast not once but two successive mornings in a row. On my last full day on Oahu, I bought a jar of poha berry jam to take home. Packing that night, I put the jam in the middle of my bag, and my tiny jars of macadamia blossom honey into the zip-locked plastic bag with the other liquids like face creams and mascara. I got to the airport an hour ahead of schedule, picked up my boarding pass and headed for the security line. The noise of people talking and bags rolling was punctuated by the frequent announcements that the airport was experiencing an orange-level alert (one step down from red alert and two down from the black alert of a terrorist attack, according to one sign) and that any suspicious person or bag should be reported immediately. When the security agent asked to examine my bag after it passed through the X-ray machine, I wondered if they were concerned about my hair clip with a pointed end. But no, it was my jar of poha berry jam. It had never occurred to me that the prohibition on gels included edible jams and jellies. My other two jars of jam were tiny and fit into the requisite plastic bag, but the poha berry jam was more than 3 ounces. The agent also wanted to take my jar of sea salt because it was more than 3 ounces, but relented when I pointed out that salt, was neither liquid nor a gel. Although she apologized about the poha berry jam, saying, “I know it’s good stuff,” I still burst into tears a few minutes after the ordeal.
If I had been less upset by the implication that I was threatening national security, I could have gone back to the check-in area and put my carry-on bag through to San Francisco with the jam in the bottom of the hold. But losing this one souvenir, which, at least in that moment, symbolized my own lost past, of children at home and an intact marriage, apparently overwhelmed me. With the plane due to take off in less than half an hour, I felt I had little choice but to let go.
Of course, I was welcome to carry aboard any tropical jams, jellies, body lotions or bottles of water that I purchased on the other side of security. After all, we can’t let security concerns interfere with the big businesses that run the airport concessions. How many million dollars would be lost in a single day if no gels or liquids (cosmetics, perfumes, alcohol, coffee) could be sold past the security zone? Isn’t it ironic that we can trust these businesses, and all of the airport personnel to not threaten national security, but we can’t trust ordinary citizens not to pack explosives in their hair gel?
Air travel is the frontier of Homeland security, the place where we are most willing to sacrifice personal freedom in exchange for nebulous promises of safety. After all, if restrictions on water bottles and jars of jam keep the airplane that I’m on, or my daughter, or son, or brother are on from exploding in mid-air, then, like any sane person, I will acquiesce to the restrictions. If the goal were to prevent terrorist attacks, why not just install scanners at every airport that can detect plastic explosives? Or why not ban all gels and liquids of any size from being carried on board or even sold at the airport? Maybe we could have an exception for glasses of water and ceramic cups of coffee which could be purchased to drink at the airport; think of the reduction in wasted paper and plastics.
But instead, the current tactic seems to be to instill fear and anxiety in the nation’s flying public---who are primarily members of the educated, middle to upper middle classes—with, for example, constant reminders that we’re in a state of orange alert (which never seems to go down, even momentarily, to yellow, green, or blue). This state of alert, in turn, is used as a justification for insisting on absolute obedience to a series of annoying restrictions and rules——remove your shoes, the sweater tied around your waist, your laptop, don’t let your 10-year-old crack a joke about a bomb at the airport, which gradually become more numerous and more invasive, no water bottles over 3 ounces, put your toothpaste and contraceptive gel in a transparent plastic bag, remove your belt buckle, let security personnel run a metal detector wand over your breasts if your underwire bra triggers the metal detector, don’t dare to question those in charge for fear of arrest. What if the real goal is not to stop another 9/11, not even to make us feel safer, but to accustom those of us in the middle and professional classes, those of us with the education, money and time to actually question authority, those of us who think our American citizenship gives us the right to do so, and especially those of us who think our race will give us immunity, to living in a police state?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Breasts: Toxins :: Personal: Political
One morning, a few months ago, I was awakened by a sharp pain in my right breast, radiating from the nipple. My monkey mind immediately jumped to the obvious, catastrophic conclusion: terminal cancer. My rational mind thought, no, the dog must have stepped on it.
Said dog, a 25 pound pug, is a bed-hog; he likes to sleep with his body pushed against my arm, immobilizing it, while he snores through the night. But as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, he jumps up, pushes his face close to mine, snorts, and starts trying to lick me. If I don’t immediately get up, he jumps from one side of me to the other, sometimes landing his weight on my torso if I haven’t rolled over onto my side fast enough. A couple of times, he has—ouch!—landed on a breast. So I took an Advil and held my breath, hoping the pain would disappear.
The next morning, I awoke to the same pain, called my MD and got an appointment for the following day. Then I googled breast pain and called a couple of close women friends for reassurance. I soon found that most of the women in my circle, aged 30something to 60something, had had a breast scare at one time or another. One friend offered to loan me the “breast shells” that she’d had on her altar when her mammogram came up negative. Another suggested that breast problems are related to mother issues.
Of course, the day of the doctor’s appointment, I woke up pain-free. My physician found no lumps, but she did discover a polyp. She told me to go off hormones, cut out caffeine, check the polyp every day for the next month until my mammogram appointment -- and added that I shouldn’t worry.
Meanwhile, another friend started sending me information about the dangers of mammography and suggested I check out thermography, which uses the infrared rather than the X-ray part of the spectrum to pick up soft tissue abnormalities.
This same environmentalist sent me information about the link between breast disease and environmental toxins. The more I read, the more shocked I was. Like so many of us, I had trusted that the government, in the form of the Food and Drug Administration, and even corporations to have my best interests at heart. I had assumed that body care products were subject to the same degree of scrutiny as other chemicals which could be absorbed through the skin, like nicotine patches or estrogen creams. I was dismayed to learn that in the U.S., body care products and cosmetics are barely regulated at all, that only a handful of toxic ingredients are prohibited, that products can be labeled organic even if they contain only a single organic ingredient. That a commonly-used class of preservatives called parabens, found in everything from eye shadow to shampoo, has also shown up in breast tumors. I was outraged to discover that while the European Union has adopted a precautionary approach, which requires chemicals used in cosmetics and personal care products to be proven safe, the U.S. employs a different standard, which only prevents a few known toxins from being sold. In other words, the EU takes a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach, while the U.S. has an innocent-until-proven-guilty standard for toxins, and the corporations that produce and sell them. The more I learned, the more I came to believe that, if I had contracted breast cancer, the reason would have far less to do with my mother and far more to do with corporate greed.
I had the mammogram, and then waited a week before the doctor called to tell me that I needed to come back for a more X-rays and an ultrasound to check out a possible anomaly. While waiting for the new appointment, I busied myself with researching cosmetic brands. I bought new shampoo, conditioner, eye shadow, lip gloss, sunscreen, and body oil, choosing only those brands that were paraben-free and as close to 100 percent organic as possible. Between the three health food emporiums in my town, doing so was easy, if expensive ($28 for a tube of intensive conditioner, for example). I emailed my adult children the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep website
(www.cosmeticsdatabase.com), which has detailed information on the safety of thousands of products, and offered to reimburse them if they switched to healthier choices. And although I am not yet ready to go grey, I made my next coloring appointment at a beauty salon that uses less toxic dyes.
The day of the second appointment, a friend met me at the radiology lab. I had two magnified views, then a third because one of the first two X-rays came out fuzzy. In the ultrasound room, I watched as the technician found and photographed a black spot. Was this a mark of death like the black spot in “Treasure Island”? I grabbed my friend from the waiting room and held her hand tightly when the technician came back a few minutes later with the signed diagnosis on a slip of blue paper. A cyst. Come back in one year for another mammogram. In the parking lot, I burst into tears of relief as the tension of the past month’s anxieties broke.
Although I do not seem to be in immediate danger of having my breast cut off, I am no longer capable of being reassured in the same way that I was before. This minor health crisis has left a lasting mark on my psyche, bursting my bubble of innocent trust. I am outraged that my body, my daughter’s body, my son’s body, my friends’ bodies, have been silently soaking up toxins along with moisturizers and sunscreens, blemish creams and shampoos, mascaras and lipsticks-- and that neither those who manufacture these products nor those entrusted to regulate them apparently give a damn.
Said dog, a 25 pound pug, is a bed-hog; he likes to sleep with his body pushed against my arm, immobilizing it, while he snores through the night. But as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, he jumps up, pushes his face close to mine, snorts, and starts trying to lick me. If I don’t immediately get up, he jumps from one side of me to the other, sometimes landing his weight on my torso if I haven’t rolled over onto my side fast enough. A couple of times, he has—ouch!—landed on a breast. So I took an Advil and held my breath, hoping the pain would disappear.
The next morning, I awoke to the same pain, called my MD and got an appointment for the following day. Then I googled breast pain and called a couple of close women friends for reassurance. I soon found that most of the women in my circle, aged 30something to 60something, had had a breast scare at one time or another. One friend offered to loan me the “breast shells” that she’d had on her altar when her mammogram came up negative. Another suggested that breast problems are related to mother issues.
Of course, the day of the doctor’s appointment, I woke up pain-free. My physician found no lumps, but she did discover a polyp. She told me to go off hormones, cut out caffeine, check the polyp every day for the next month until my mammogram appointment -- and added that I shouldn’t worry.
Meanwhile, another friend started sending me information about the dangers of mammography and suggested I check out thermography, which uses the infrared rather than the X-ray part of the spectrum to pick up soft tissue abnormalities.
This same environmentalist sent me information about the link between breast disease and environmental toxins. The more I read, the more shocked I was. Like so many of us, I had trusted that the government, in the form of the Food and Drug Administration, and even corporations to have my best interests at heart. I had assumed that body care products were subject to the same degree of scrutiny as other chemicals which could be absorbed through the skin, like nicotine patches or estrogen creams. I was dismayed to learn that in the U.S., body care products and cosmetics are barely regulated at all, that only a handful of toxic ingredients are prohibited, that products can be labeled organic even if they contain only a single organic ingredient. That a commonly-used class of preservatives called parabens, found in everything from eye shadow to shampoo, has also shown up in breast tumors. I was outraged to discover that while the European Union has adopted a precautionary approach, which requires chemicals used in cosmetics and personal care products to be proven safe, the U.S. employs a different standard, which only prevents a few known toxins from being sold. In other words, the EU takes a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach, while the U.S. has an innocent-until-proven-guilty standard for toxins, and the corporations that produce and sell them. The more I learned, the more I came to believe that, if I had contracted breast cancer, the reason would have far less to do with my mother and far more to do with corporate greed.
I had the mammogram, and then waited a week before the doctor called to tell me that I needed to come back for a more X-rays and an ultrasound to check out a possible anomaly. While waiting for the new appointment, I busied myself with researching cosmetic brands. I bought new shampoo, conditioner, eye shadow, lip gloss, sunscreen, and body oil, choosing only those brands that were paraben-free and as close to 100 percent organic as possible. Between the three health food emporiums in my town, doing so was easy, if expensive ($28 for a tube of intensive conditioner, for example). I emailed my adult children the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep website
(www.cosmeticsdatabase.com), which has detailed information on the safety of thousands of products, and offered to reimburse them if they switched to healthier choices. And although I am not yet ready to go grey, I made my next coloring appointment at a beauty salon that uses less toxic dyes.
The day of the second appointment, a friend met me at the radiology lab. I had two magnified views, then a third because one of the first two X-rays came out fuzzy. In the ultrasound room, I watched as the technician found and photographed a black spot. Was this a mark of death like the black spot in “Treasure Island”? I grabbed my friend from the waiting room and held her hand tightly when the technician came back a few minutes later with the signed diagnosis on a slip of blue paper. A cyst. Come back in one year for another mammogram. In the parking lot, I burst into tears of relief as the tension of the past month’s anxieties broke.
Although I do not seem to be in immediate danger of having my breast cut off, I am no longer capable of being reassured in the same way that I was before. This minor health crisis has left a lasting mark on my psyche, bursting my bubble of innocent trust. I am outraged that my body, my daughter’s body, my son’s body, my friends’ bodies, have been silently soaking up toxins along with moisturizers and sunscreens, blemish creams and shampoos, mascaras and lipsticks-- and that neither those who manufacture these products nor those entrusted to regulate them apparently give a damn.
Plastic Planet
My friend M. is trying to solve the garbage problem single-handedly by not disposing of any item which is potentially useful. He hasn’t bought anything new in years. He tries hard to find homes for old books and magazines, for worn clothes and shoes, for knick-knacks and bric-a-brac. He reuses bags and bottles and jars as many times as possible before putting them in the recycling bin. And he keeps the detritus which can’t be recycled, like plastic straws and bottle caps, rubber bands and wire bag ties, rather than consign them to the landfill. Unfortunately, these small objects take up space and seemingly multiply, like creatures in a sci-fi movie threatening to overpower their host.
Another friend, C., has a more typical consumption pattern. On her way to work, she usually stops for coffee. Some days she brings her own cup, but other days not, so she leaves the coffee shop with a paper cup and a plastic lid, a paper napkin and maybe a plastic straw if her latte is iced. At lunch, she gets a sandwich to go, wrapped in paper or plastic wrap, a bottle of water, another paper napkin, and a soda in an aluminum can for her afternoon pick-me-up, all stuffed into a paper bag. On the way home, she picks up a bag of groceries. Maybe she uses the cloth bag she keeps in the car, but puts the produce in the store’s plastic bags. Her total for the day: one paper cup, one plastic lid, a square of sandwich paper or plastic wrap or aluminum foil, a plastic bottle and cap, two paper napkins, an aluminum can, a paper bag, and several small plastic bags.
Of these dozen or so items, the bottle and the aluminum are recyclable (but not the bottle’s plastic lid), while the bags can be re-used or recycled. That leaves half a dozen non-recyclable, non-reusable items for the landfill. Of course, the problem is not really about her or my or your half-dozen plastic bits; it’s our daily total times 365 days per year multiplied by the 300 million other Americans, plus the billion-plus Chinese and Indians whose societies are headed the same direction.
With a little effort, C. could bring her own cloth napkin and bags, fill a glass bottle at home with water and a ceramic cup with coffee, and bring her own string produce bags to the market, if not every day at least more often than not. But while these small changes are certainly a step in the right direction, as is M.’s sense of responsibility for every item that comes his way, the global trash problem is not so easily resolved.
Take plastic bags. It’s no secret that they suffocate children and sea creatures or that the world’s oceans are awash with them. These bags also collect in our homes, crowding out the junk in the junk drawers of our kitchens. Even when we wash them and reuse them, new ones come into our hands on an almost daily basis. And then there is the over-riding fact that each one will last a very long time, that every human alive today will be earthworm food long before a single plastic bag has decomposed. Interesting how the petroleum that we have extracted to make plastics comes from creatures who crawled or swam long before the first humans came along and the objects we have created from this material may out-last us all.
It’s not just plastic bags. It’s broken hula hoops and torn shower curtains; it’s enough plastic cutlery to give all six billion of us an 12-place setting. It’s disposable objects that can’t be fixed when they break. It’s the case of the computer I’m writing this on and the cables that transmit these words over the Internet. It’s not only the discarded plastic objects that fill our drawers and garages and landfills and seas. It’s the leaching of toxic chemicals from plastic bottles and food containers. It’s the phthalates in our teenagers’ nail polish and our children’s pacifiers, whose molecules cling to their insides like embedded time bombs, potentially causing genetic abnormalities and higher risks of cancer, asthma and other diseases. It’s the hidden cost of a disposable society. It’s the result of an industry, a government, a culture that values convenience and profits over safety or sanity. It’s the world we are leaving to our children and our grandchildren.
Another friend, C., has a more typical consumption pattern. On her way to work, she usually stops for coffee. Some days she brings her own cup, but other days not, so she leaves the coffee shop with a paper cup and a plastic lid, a paper napkin and maybe a plastic straw if her latte is iced. At lunch, she gets a sandwich to go, wrapped in paper or plastic wrap, a bottle of water, another paper napkin, and a soda in an aluminum can for her afternoon pick-me-up, all stuffed into a paper bag. On the way home, she picks up a bag of groceries. Maybe she uses the cloth bag she keeps in the car, but puts the produce in the store’s plastic bags. Her total for the day: one paper cup, one plastic lid, a square of sandwich paper or plastic wrap or aluminum foil, a plastic bottle and cap, two paper napkins, an aluminum can, a paper bag, and several small plastic bags.
Of these dozen or so items, the bottle and the aluminum are recyclable (but not the bottle’s plastic lid), while the bags can be re-used or recycled. That leaves half a dozen non-recyclable, non-reusable items for the landfill. Of course, the problem is not really about her or my or your half-dozen plastic bits; it’s our daily total times 365 days per year multiplied by the 300 million other Americans, plus the billion-plus Chinese and Indians whose societies are headed the same direction.
With a little effort, C. could bring her own cloth napkin and bags, fill a glass bottle at home with water and a ceramic cup with coffee, and bring her own string produce bags to the market, if not every day at least more often than not. But while these small changes are certainly a step in the right direction, as is M.’s sense of responsibility for every item that comes his way, the global trash problem is not so easily resolved.
Take plastic bags. It’s no secret that they suffocate children and sea creatures or that the world’s oceans are awash with them. These bags also collect in our homes, crowding out the junk in the junk drawers of our kitchens. Even when we wash them and reuse them, new ones come into our hands on an almost daily basis. And then there is the over-riding fact that each one will last a very long time, that every human alive today will be earthworm food long before a single plastic bag has decomposed. Interesting how the petroleum that we have extracted to make plastics comes from creatures who crawled or swam long before the first humans came along and the objects we have created from this material may out-last us all.
It’s not just plastic bags. It’s broken hula hoops and torn shower curtains; it’s enough plastic cutlery to give all six billion of us an 12-place setting. It’s disposable objects that can’t be fixed when they break. It’s the case of the computer I’m writing this on and the cables that transmit these words over the Internet. It’s not only the discarded plastic objects that fill our drawers and garages and landfills and seas. It’s the leaching of toxic chemicals from plastic bottles and food containers. It’s the phthalates in our teenagers’ nail polish and our children’s pacifiers, whose molecules cling to their insides like embedded time bombs, potentially causing genetic abnormalities and higher risks of cancer, asthma and other diseases. It’s the hidden cost of a disposable society. It’s the result of an industry, a government, a culture that values convenience and profits over safety or sanity. It’s the world we are leaving to our children and our grandchildren.
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