As we all know, life can be complicated. Tools that are very useful for gardening, like a rake, can hurt pretty badly if stepped on the wrong way. This useful/hurtful idea extends to nearly all aspects of our lives. We can all think of numerous examples of this idea, like cars, electricity, or lawn mowers. This idea of useful/hurtful or benefit/risk also extends to chemicals, the most common ones to which we willingly expose ourselves are foods of various sorts. And while most of us can eat many foods in moderation without too many problems, we likely all know of folks with food allergies, some of which can be life threatening.
So how does one look at the useful/hurtful or benefit/risk for chemicals? In some cases, it’s easy. Everyone needs to drink dihydrogen monoxide (yep that’s water), or at least drink other fluids that contain a lot of water, like coffee, milk or beer. But we all know that one can drink too much water leading to a disturbance in nerve function; or too much coffee leading to irritability and heart palpitations; or to much milk leading some to have digestive problems; or too much beer leading to intoxication. In such cases many of us will naturally limit our consumption to gain the benefit of the chemical, but avoid the risk. In fact, this risk/benefit comparison is a common approach with exposure to many chemicals in our lives, or with other non-chemical aspects, such as that pesky garden rake.
We are exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals every day. You cannot escape this exposure! Coffee has over 1000 chemicals, the principle one being water. Our various foods contain just as many chemicals, and perhaps even more. Our houses and farms also contain numerous chemicals, and many, if not all, have huge benefits. For example, I grew sweet corn this year in a different patch of my garden. I hand weeded this corn 3 times. Despite this effort the weeds grew to be taller than my corn and my ears were correspondingly smaller than last year. My cousin grew sweet corn as well but sprayed Round-up where the corn had been planted before the corn emerged. Voila, fewer weeds; bigger ears of corn (and of course, bragging rights to my cousin). Even organic farming, which eliminates or greatly reduces the use of chemicals, has drawbacks such as increased in use of machinery, labor, fuel and emissions. Organic farming typically produces less food, at higher price, and which has been shown to not be any more nutritious than non-organic food.
So how do we make this benefit/risk comparison with chemicals other that those found in drinks and food. The easiest way is to read the label of the chemical of concern, and importantly, follow directions (I know, guys, this can be hard to do.) A little bit of Round-up is good, so more is better, correct? Wrong. Follow the directions on the label. Industry and government scientists who study the risks of such chemicals have worked very hard to get the safety right and make the directions on the labels adhere to this safety work. We can all thank them by following the directions on the label.
Well what about all those chemicals we hear about in the news; they do not all have labels, correct? Correct, not all chemicals in the news, like ethylene oxide (a medical sterilent about which I have written before) or the “forever” chemicals (the most talked about one is perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) have labels. However, government scientists also work hard to set safe levels for these chemicals, and afterwards rules for how much can be found in our products. Although more uncertainty exists in this process, since the underlying data are often not as extensive as with chemicals that have labels. If you have questions about chemicals in the news, feel free to send them to me. I would be happy to try and answer them.
In the meantime, let’s all enjoy the many benefits that chemicals bring us, follow the labels when they are available to avoid their risks, and ask questions of appropriate experts when you are uncertain about how to proceed.
