In "A Civil Action," moviegoers are told the wrenching true story of families in Woburn, Mass., whose children lost their battles with cancer after contamination of drinking water by toxic chemicals.
Sadly, the events depicted in "A Civil Action" are neither isolated nor exaggerated. At least 2 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released into the environment and 2 million pounds of pesticides are used each year nationwide. Measurable levels of cancer-causing pesticides have been found in the drinking water of 347 towns and cities.
Creation and use of toxic chemicals continues at a rate far faster than our capacity to learn how safe extended exposures to these substances are. In the last 50 years, industrial manufacturing processes have given us hundreds of thousands of new chemicals, and production has increased from 1.3 billion pounds in 1940 to 320 billion pounds in 1980. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was mandated to test existing pesticides--just one class of chemicals--for health risks by 1972, but the job still isn't completed today, and regulators are falling further behind.
Many of these chemicals are now present in air, food and drinking water the world over. Trace amounts are found even in the bodies of people dwelling in the remotest regions of the globe. While there are unknown risks to all of us, children are especially vulnerable to hazardous waste, pesticides, air pollutants, drinking water contaminants and other toxins. Pound for pound, children breathe, eat and drink more than adults do. This means that they take in more contaminants in air, food and water than adults in the same place, doing the same things. Children's growing and developing bodies are also more vulnerable to harm. Tragically, these basic biological facts are not currently included in any EPA regulation of toxic contaminants or even the agency's policy regulating cancer-causing substances.
During the last two decades, the overall incidence of childhood cancer has increased 10% and childhood cancers of the brain and central nervous system have risen 35%. Researchers are now identifying reproductive and other health effects from chemical exposures that are potentially just as serious. These can include birth defects, learning disabilities and disrupted hormone systems. The one bright spot in this story came in 1996, when Congress unanimously passed the first and only law to protect children from chemical exposures.
The Food Quality Protection Act requires the EPA to protect children from pesticides; the EPA is currently at a critical juncture in deciding how this fundamentally important law will be carried out. Unfortunately, pressure from pesticide corporations and other interests may doom the law to ineffectiveness, absent strong public support for fair implementation of the intent of Congress.
Much is at stake. More than 100 pesticides registered for use on food are suspected of causing cancer while others are toxic to the reproductive and central nervous systems. And pesticides are only one class of potentially toxic chemicals. This law provides a precedent-setting opportunity to protect children from all toxic exposures. "A Civil Action" is the case of just one town, 20 years ago. But similar cases are impacting hundreds of towns across the country today. For many people, this movie may be an important first step in learning more about the chemicals released in their communities. It need spark neither alarm nor despair but simply the resolve to demand responsible action from industries and government to protect children's health from environmental contaminants. Hopefully then there will be no need for a sequel 20 years from now.
Lawrie Mott, a Senior Scientist With the Natural Resources Defense Council's San Francisco Office, Directs the Children's Environmental Health Initiative.
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