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« Consumers to FDA: Be there or be square | Main | How green is Arnold? [UPDATED] »
Heinz conference mobilizes women to fight environmental health threats
Jane Houlihan, the Environmental Working Group's vice president for research, and development associate Jocelyn Lyle joined more than 2,000 women at this week's Heinz Women's Health and the Environment Conference in Pittsburgh, sponsored by philanthropist Teresa Heinz, the Heinz Endowments and Magee-Women's Hospital.
Jocelyn's report:
There wasn't a stray Blackberry click when journalist Nancy Nichols took the podium. Nichols, of Waukegan, Ill., grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, swimming in its waters, eating fresh-caught fish. Only, as she and her older sister Sue learned to their sorrow, the big lake was a deadly stew of industrial chemicals. Waukegan was surrounded by no less than three Superfund sites notorious for high levels of known and suspected carcinogens, including asbestos from a Johns Mansville insulation plant and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) from discharges of hydraulic fluids by Outboard Marine Corp.
In 1992, at the age of 41, Sue Nichols was diagnosed with a rare ovarian cancer. On her deathbed, she made Nancy swear she would investigate what was killing her. The result was Lake Effect: Two Sisters and a Town's Toxic Legacy, published last month by Island Press. The book, which Nancy Nichols summarized in her keynote address to the Heinz conference, is an eloquent indictment of decades of corporate carelessness, official inaction and American society's reflexive focus on searching for a cure instead of a cause.
Nancy Nichols employed her skills, keenly honed while writing for The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, and The Harvard Business Review, to interview hundreds of scientists, medical personnel and local residents and to dig through dusty records to document the devastating impact of years of industrial waste dumping. In 2003, she was diagnosed with a rare pancreatic cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and kept on digging. Today she's a vibrant speaker with a riveting story -- and a call to action that is impossible to forget.
Teresa Heinz launched the Women's Health and the Environment series of conferences in 1996 to "arm women with information about the relationship between the environment and their health." Nancy Nichols more than fulfilled that mission. As, I believe, did my colleague Jane Houlihan, who told the conference about EWG "body burden" tests that have identified 455 industrial chemicals in the blood and urine of Americans - including newborn babies.
I'm convinced that most of us left Pittsburgh inspired, energized and determined to keep asking questions, pushing for answers and bringing about change. If we keep it up, our legacy can be air that's safe to breathe, food and water that are safe to drink and lakes where kids can splash fearlessly on steamy summer days.
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