My guest today is Lara Adler, Environmental Toxins Expert and Certified Holistic Health Coach. Today we’ll be talking about the popularity of toxics in the news and online, the difference between sensationalism and truth, and facts vs editorial opinions from writers who don’t understand the subject. Lara trains and educates practitioners within the health and wellness community to better understand the links between environmental toxins and their impact on disease states—from weight gain and diabetes, to thyroid disease and developmental disorders—so they can better support their clients. Lara is deeply committed to peeling back the curtain and opening up the conversation about environmental toxins to people in a way that’s informative, accessible, actionable and totally free from overwhelm. She takes a practical, real-world approach to minimizing toxic exposure to safeguard our health. www.laraadler.com

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Are Toxic Dangers Internet Hype or a Genuine Health Crisis

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Lara Adler

Date of Broadcast: May 14, 2015

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic work and live toxic free. It is Thursday, May 14th, 2015. Beautiful day here in Clearwater, Florida. And today, we’re going to be talking about something a little different than we usually talk about.

This show started with an e–mail that I got because I’m on my guest list. And she was talking about her views about – well, maybe you’ve seen around in social media in the last few weeks or month or so, there has been a lot of criticism of an activist known as The Food Babe and the people who are criticizing her are criticizing her about sensationalism and does she know anything about science and things like that.

My guest wrote a very interesting commentary about that so much so that I asked her to be on the show so that we could talk about this. And she got so many comments from writing this e–mail and sending it to her list that she ended up giving a class about this very subject.

My guest today is Lara Adler. She’s an environmental toxins expert and certified holistic health coach. And I’m very happy that we’re going to be talking about this.

Hi, Lara.

LARA ADLER: Hi, Debra. Thanks for having me back on. I’m excited to talk about this stuff with you.

DEBRA: Yes. I should say that Laura has been on before. We talked about obesogens. And she gives classes and trainings and things for heath coaches. So she’s not working with consumers directly. She’s working with coaches who are then working with clients. And I’m very happy to see what she’s teaching coaches to do with their clients because we certainly need more professionals who are aware of what the toxic chemicals are and how they affect their bodies.

So instead of me giving the story, Lara, why don’t you tell the story of what you said?

LARA ADLER: Sure. And it’s funny because the e–mail that I wrote was one of those ones where I just said – I think I wrote it in about five or six minutes. I was just a little fired up about it. And so, I don’t actually remember all of what it said.

But basically, like you said, there’s all of these buzz going around about Food Babe at the moment. She’s actually not the only person who’s in the spotlight in this realms. Dr. Oz is also in the spotlight for making sensational outrageous comments. And he’s actually somebody who is very heavily credentialed.

And so there’s just a lot of – I don’t think swearing is allowed here. I’m not sure, I don’t know. But Gawker, the online magazine, Gawker, published an article, the subject of which or the title of which is Food Blogger Food Babe is Full of S–H–I–T.

And I thought that was pretty hard and unkind. I don’t imagine you or I would appreciate anything written about us with that subject line. It’s really unnecessary. But it just got me looking at what are the criticisms that are being made about her and her [inaudible 00:04:24].

For your listeners who maybe don’t know who she is. She’s a food activist who really looks at chemicals and ingredients that are in foods that shouldn’t be there. Her primary goal is actually transparency and truth in labeling.

There’s a lot about her approach that I don’t like, but I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. And so this is why I felt like a bigger conversation should be had here about this.

But essentially, I feel that in many cases, the very sensational approach that she takes – she certainly has been guilty of making blanket statements and a lot of inaccurate statements like, “All chemicals are bad.” We can talk about whether or not that’s true if we want. What I found is that sensational approach tends to turn a lot of people off and it just leaves a really bad taste in their mouth. And then anybody else who attempts to have, whether it’s a measured fact–based conversation about it, it’s automatically going to be associated with that sensational fear–mongery kind of vibe and they’re just going to get dismissed.

So it does make it harder for those people who are trying to have the conversation in a very serious and measured tone. It makes it harder for us to be able to do that when they’re going to go, “Oh, you’re kind of like Food Babe, right?”

DEBRA: Yes. I think that it is unfortunate, but this is the way the world is today. What is happening is that there is media and newspapers (especially newspapers, the history of newspapers is that they sell from sensationalism) and so if one wants to be in the media, if one wants to get attention, one needs to be sensational in order to get that attention. I could send out something that says something in a very measured tone and everybody yawns.

And people are sending out scientific information all the time that doesn’t reported in the news. But then Food Babe comes along and she does something sensational and she’s a “babe,” not a scientist. And there are other sensational people on the internet who I won’t name particularly because we’re talking about Food Babe here, but it’s the same approach. They are wanting to make this sensational point. I think they get attention and I think that Food Babe has done a lot to make people aware that there are things in our food that shouldn’t be there. But she’s gotten that attention and the information isn’t always correct. And that’s what I find with the people who take a sensational approach, the information isn’t always correct.

And on other sites (not Food Babe’s, but on other sites), I see sensational things and they give sources and the sources aren’t even correct. I go and click through on their sources and they’re not even correct. The information just isn’t there.

And so I think that in a world where it’s so critical for us to be having this information and having people understand the truth about toxic chemicals that it’s really a disservice for people to sensationally put out wrong information.

LARA ADLER: Yes, and you know what? I think it’s interesting – and I spoke about this in the class that I taught the other day. I said this in the intro. I was so fired about this that I decided to teach a class, my audience about it. What I think is that for better and worse, so there are certainly are benefits to this. And the benefit is people are talking about it for better or for worse. We’re talking about it. This is us having a conversation because of something that she did. And that’s for sure has a tremendous amount of benefits. It plants the seed of thought in people’s minds and that allows for us to just springboard into conversations, which is great.

But like I said, the downside is a lot of people are turned off by that and they’re going to jump on any opportunity that they can to attack somebody like her. And the reality is, this has been going on for centuries. This is not a new tactic to discredit people. In the class that I was talking at the other day, I was talking about Rachel McCarson. The mother of the environmental movement was attacked. Her sanity was attacked, and she was attacked because her credentials – her research was attacked because her attackers said she couldn’t possibly understand the complex science around pesticides because she was a woman.

This is not new information. And what’s interesting to me – and this is where I really got rubbed the wrong way where it’s not about Food Babe, but it’s about, like you said, the sort of climate that we’re having this conversation in, is that even people that are heavily credentialed and have dedicated their lives to doing academic scientific research are also attacked in these ways. You have Tyrone Hayes. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Tyrone Hayes and his research, but he is the research scientist who’s been studying the effects of the herbicide, Atrazine, on the sexual development of frogs and the potential effects on women health. Sygenta, the company that manufactures that pesticide went to extraordinarily length to attack him and his credibility including taking out an ad. When you google Tyrone Hayes’ name, the first thing that comes up is an ad that was paid for – a Google keyword ad, excuse me, that was paid for by Sygenta that says Tyrone Hayes is not credible.

And so it doesn’t matter whether she’s a scientist or not, people are getting attacked to having this conversation which is just an interesting point.

DEBRA: That is interesting in and of itself. We need to go to break but when we come back, we’ll talk about this more. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Lara Adler, and we’re talking about Are Toxic Dangers Internet Hype or a Genuine Health Crisis?

We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Lara Adler. She’s an environmental toxins expert and certified holistic health coach. Her website is LaraAdler.com. And we’re talking about sensationalism and truth in talking about toxics in the media.

Lara, in the first segment, you mentioned something that is often said which is there are no safe chemicals.

LARA ADLER: To the blanket statement that all chemicals are bad.

DEBRA: Right. So let’s discuss that.

LARA ADLER: So that’s a really fascinating point of conversation. We can’t make that statement. That is an impossible statement to make for a number of reasons. The first of which is we just don’t have a lot of data around the chemicals that are in commerce. There’s just no safety testing data because our federal policies doesn’t require that chemicals get tested prior to coming to market. So we can’t make a blanket definitive statement to say that, “God! If we don’t actually know anything about them…” And so that’s just a pretty obvious way to kind of counter that all chemicals are bad.

The reality is that we are chemicals. Everything is chemical. Our skins are chemical, our organs are chemicals, our hormones that fuel our functions, body functions, it’s all chemical.

Chemical, as a word, is neutral. It doesn’t have a good or bad connotation but at least within the realm of the Food Babe conversation, she has a tendency to just kind of lump it into that category that if it’s a chemical that it’s bad. If it’s got a long name and you can’t pronounce it, it must be bad for you.

DEBRA: That’s just not a true statement.

LARA ADLER: No, it’s not.

DEBRA: I’ve been studying toxic chemicals for more than 30 years and reading scientific data and looking at individual industrial chemicals. And even within the set of industrial chemicals made from petroleum, even not all of those are toxic. But people take words like chemicals, they take words like plastic, they think every single plastic is bad. And that’s not true. There are some plastics that are absolutely safe to use.

But people don’t know this information. They haven’t studied the subject and they pick up on some term like plastics are chemical and then it’s all bad.

LARA ADLER: Right. And again, I think it’s smarter to be able to have a measured conversation. People, for sure, are going to take you more seriously when you can actually say, “You know what? Those ones work fine. There is no data that shows that there’s any harm there, but these are the ones that you want to watch out for.” Rather than just saying, “Oh, my God! We have to live in a bubble.” My joke around that is if people say, “I’m going to live in a plastic bubble,” then I always say, “Well, what kind of plastic?”

DEBRA: Well, what kind of plastic, yes.

LARA ADLER: What kind of plastic is your bubble made out of because that makes a big difference. That I think is joke that very few people outside this world that we live in would laugh at, but there you have it.

And then to the other side of that whole “all chemicals are bad” thing is what happens on the other side of the argument? And this is where it makes me a little crazy. I always read the comments section of any news article that’s posted because that gives me a lot of insight into how regular people are thinking and responding to whatever is happening. I sometimes focus more on the comments section than the actual article itself. And what always happens when somebody is like, “Oh, you think all chemicals are bad? What about di–hydrogen monoxide? That’s a chemical. That’s bad for you.”

Well, dihydrogen monoxide is the chemical name for water. I’ve seen it hundreds of times where somebody who is trying to make it big will use that as an opportunity to say, “Oh, you don’t like chemicals? You better stay away from dihydrogen monoxide.”

And there’s a spoof website which is pretty funny that I stumbled across that talks about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide, that the inhalation of it can kill you with drowning. And it’s just making fun of this whole conversation. And I don’t think that’s a helpful climate to have this conversation at.

DEBRA: I totally agree. Another thing that I just want to mention about toxic chemicals with regard to this is that even if you have a chemical that is known to be toxic, let’s say, dioxine, just to be extreme, where that’s just known to be so toxic, but whether it’s toxic to an individual or not – well, dioxine is probably toxic to everybody. But let’s say something is not quite so toxic. There are many chemicals that have some toxicity to them but whether or not an individual actually is poisoned by them, it depends on how much they’re exposed to, how often they’re exposed to it, the condition of the individual’s body, et cetera. And there’s a list of about seven or eight factors that go into whether or not you’re going to be poisoned by it. And that is completely separate from the inherent toxicity of the chemical itself.

And so it’s really, really difficult to ascertain – this is why this is such a confusing subject, is that it’s difficult to ascertain even if something is toxic, is the individual person going to be harmed by it?

And so if we can’t determine that, how are we going to – what’s the best route? So for me, I think that the best thing to do is the precautionary principle, which is to say, if there’s a question about it, don’t use it. You may not be harmed by it but if there’s a question about it, if it can be identified by science that there is a harmful component to it, then I stay away from that.

And then when you get to something like lead, for example, where it’s known that there is no safe level, that’s been established that there is no safe level, and then the government sets a safe level that is not even correct, what we should be doing is cooperating. We should be cooperating to get the correct information out in the world instead of making it more confusing.

LARA ADLER: I think the other thing about the effects of some of these chemicals because this is where a lot of people, again, people who are trying to discredit some others – I hear the break music coming in. Do we need to break?

DEBRA: We need to break, yes. You got that right. It’s the break music. So we’ll go to break and then we’ll continue when we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Lara Adler. She’s an environmental toxins expert and certified holistic health coach. Her website is LaraAdler.com and we’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Lara Adler. She’s an environmental toxics expert and certified holistic health coach. Her website is LaraAdler.com.

Okay, Lara, go ahead and continue.

LARA ADLER: So I think the point that’s important to make with a lot of these chemicals is that – and this is something that I see also both in articles and in the comment section of articles is that if these chemicals are so bad, why are more people in the hospital with x and y adverse reaction?

DEBRA: Good question.

LARA ADLER: And I think what people don’t understand is the latency period for the effects from these exposures can be 20 or 30 years. It can be extraordinarily subtle. A hormonal imbalance, for example, due to an excessive endocrine disruptor that are messing with the thermostat of your hormone isn’t something that you end up in an emergency room with. It’s something that makes you feel low level crappy for years and years that your doctors just dismiss because it’s not an acute symptom.

And so in many cases, the implications of exposures are really subtle and that’s hard to tease out. And they may not actually show themselves for 20 or 30 years.

And so when people throw around the word toxic, people are automatically assuming that there is going to be an immediate and adverse reaction like skin rash or something like that. In some cases that might be true but in other cases, you might never know and it’s just a matter of, “Oh, my child is having behavioral problems in school or is having a hard time learning.” There might be an IQ reduction issues.

That’s not a symptom that you notice. That’s just something that develops. Does that make sense?

DEBRA: I know what I’m about to say you know but I will say this for the benefit of the listeners. There are actually two kinds of chemicals. There are acute exposures and chronic exposures. And the acute reactions that’s why we have poison control centers. And that’s what people usually think of as a poisoning, is when you drink a cleaning product that’s under the sink. That’s why it says keep away from children or keep out of reach of children. And that the child starts choking and turning blue, and that’s what people think is toxic or poisonous.

And then there’s a whole other class of chemicals where the response is chronic, which means that it’s building up in your body day in and day out. And that you’re being exposed to it over and over again. And your body, it actually starts accumulating in your body. And this is what’s called body burden. And you can accumulate and accumulate and accumulate these chemicals for years, and then all of a sudden, you get to that right amount that is poisonous to your body. And it’s been accumulating and then your body gets sick and you get cancer, you get heart disease or you get impotence or whatever is your symptom. And it’s because of this build–up of these chemicals that don’t show themselves immediately.

And so after all these years of study, the only thing that I can say is that because we now know – and it’s Centers for Disease Control that came up with this word, body burden, I’m not making this up. This is science. And the Centers for Disease Control actually measures the blood of Americans to find out how much of these chemicals are building up in your body. They have tests. You can just go to your website and see how much toxic chemicals we’re all carrying around in our bodies.

LARA ADLER: I think the most recent report which actually has updates, it’s called the National Report on Exposures to Environmental Chemicals. And then the fourth report came out in 2009 and they just did an update earlier this year. They measured something 265 chemicals in people tested. They didn’t test for every chemical so there’s likely many, many more. But those are the ones that [cross–talking 00:31:00]

DEBRA: There are many, many more. I mean nobody can say.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: Lara, can you hear me?

LARA ADLER: Yes, I can.

DEBRA: Can anybody hear me? Bret, can you hear me? Lara, are you there?

LARA ADLER: Yes, I can hear you.

DEBRA: Okay, good. So let’s go on. So I was saying about how there are measurable results that the CDC is measuring the blood. There are toxic chemicals, chemicals known to be toxic by scientific study in the blood of everybody in America and probably in the world unless you have done something to lower or remove those toxic chemicals. Just walking around, living your normal life, using normal toxic consumer products, everybody has this. And sooner or later, you’re going to get sick. The question is not if, the question is when.

These are toxic chemicals we’re all being exposed to unless we’re doing something to not be exposed to them.

And this is the state of the world today. And this is why I do what I do. This is why Lara does what she does because we have looked at the science. We know that these toxic chemicals exist, we know the health effects that happen from them, and we know that there are solutions.

LARA ADLER: Absolutely. And I think that’s the point. Food Babe, for sure, has a role in this conversation. Again, for better and for worse, and we don’t always have the opportunity to cherry pick who are allies are. I know that some people have distanced themselves from her because of all of this controversy and whatnot. And some of the people that are attacking her, and this is something that I’ve taught about in my class, some of the people that are attacking her are also making blanket statements that are not factual. And that’s happening on the other side of it which just makes me crazy because I’m like, “Well, you’re just doing what she’s doing. You know that, right?”

And so an example of that is the entire [inaudible 00:35:27] toxicology field of research is based on the assumption that all chemicals are everything is harmful just depends on the dose that’s given. And that the larger the dose, the more effect it’s going to have. And the smaller the dose, the smaller effect it’s going to have. At a certain point, if the dose is low enough, it’s not going to have any effects on you. And this known as the “dose makes the poison.” And it’s called out in just about every single article that’s attacking Food Babe and people like her.

And the truth is that that is an absolute statement, but not always true. There is a whole area of research that’s looking at chemicals that don’t follow that assumption.

DEBRA: That’s right.

LARA ADLER: Again, it’s an assumption. It’s not fact. And they are looking at very low dose exposures, far below what traditional toxicology studies test for and that they have a very dramatic impact at very low levels.

So when I see a critical article coming out, criticizing Food Babe but not knowing her science that’s making statements like, “Duh, the dose makes the poison.” I want to go, “Gee, you’re just as dumb as she is.”

DEBRA: This is the problem that I’m seeing exactly. Not that I know everything but I have been studying this for more than 30 years. And there are so many people who are writing today, especially in the mainstream media, where the reporters, they don’t have background information. I can tell from things that you say that you do have background information and that you are studying. And if a reporter assigned to write an article about the latest toxic chemical and they don’t know anything about toxicology, they’re not going to put it in the right context.

And unfortunately, a lot of what I read – and then there’s a lot of people who pick up and blog about things and they don’t know anything about either, and I’m not saying that’s true for everyone. I’m just saying that there’s a lot of that out there. And I read these things and I do, “This just isn’t right.” And I know that because of my background.

And there are some people that also have background and that are doing a really great job. But the general public has hard time knowing the difference because they don’t have any background either.

LARA ADLER: Right. It’s a challenge to try to sort that out. And it’s a task that most people just don’t want to take on. And what happens is, like you were saying, that sometimes the balanced, measured approach versus [inaudible 00:38:20] approach doesn’t land for most people. It’s not something that they’re going to enjoy reading about. And so we have to – and I hate using the term ‘dumbed down’, but we have to translate sometimes these really complicated subjects into easy to understand language.

And in some cases, it does require us to make a couple of leaps – not sensationalize. I mean, that certainly is one way. But I think sometimes we have to take a couple of leaps just to make it easier to read so that we don’t have to give so much background information because then we’ll lose our audience.

DEBRA: That’s right. One of the things that I do when I’m writing, I come across a lot of scientific studies. And so often, I will find out about them from an article in Environmental Health News or something like that where there’s an article written that simplifies the study. And so then when I put it in my blog, then I simplify it even further and just give the basic idea of what the study is about and what the result is, relevant to a consumer. And then I say, “Here’s a simple article. You can read about it. And here’s the actual study.”

And that way, it gives it different levels. And I think that’s really what is needed because it would be extremely difficult for a consumer to read the original study and translate that into an action they can take today. And there’s no reason why each one of us needs to go through that process. And so I think that it’s valuable for me to do that and it’s valuable for you to do that, and people who do that. I think it’s valuable for Food Babe to say, “Look, here’s this food additive and you shouldn’t eat it. And here’s another thing that you can eat. And here’s a recipe.”

All of that is really valuable.

LARA ADLER: And it’s interesting. The e–mail that I sent out that just shared some of my thoughts. Ninety percent of the responses that I’ve got or 99% of the responses that I’ve got from people were, “You know what? I’m so glad that you said that. I feel that for us that are out there trying to educate people, her approach really is a disservice. It makes it harder for us to be able to have this conversation with people.”

I also got a couple of people who messaged me some pretty nasty e–mails saying, “You shouldn’t hate on her. I can’t believe you.” I said, “Okay. That’s going to happen. And I’m not here, and nor is Food Babe, to please anyone.”

And she did a really interesting interview with Sean Croxton a couple of months ago where they talked about her being attacked. And she was like, “Well, I never anticipated in my life being in this position, but the reality is people need to know about this stuff.” And a lot of the people that are attacking her are on the industry side of the conversation. And that’s always going to be the case.

When Dr. Oz made his statement on his TV show about the people that were petitioning to get him removed from the head of either Columbia or wherever it was that he’s teaching, he did a little expose on some of those people and their ties to industry and GMO and Monsanto and that whole thing.

It’s a little bit part of what we signed up for, unfortunately, when we stepped into this realm. And I think that it is what it is. I think that they’ve handled it fairly well. And at the end of the day, I feel really bad for her because no human being wants to be in that situation where you thought millions of people calling you names and saying that you’re stupid and all of that. I don’t think she’s stupid. She doesn’t have a science degree or chemistry degree or toxicology degree but you know what? Neither do I.

DEBRA: And neither do I.

LARA ADLER: I completely self–taught in this area. And I think that what she has to share is totally valid. What I think she could benefit from or that her audience could benefit from is a slight shift in approach even if it’s just like you said – I mean, I notice that she does have a staff of scientist and advisers that review her material before she releases it to make sure that there are no inaccuracies, but I don’t know if they’re doing a very good job because making statements like “all chemicals are bad” and those kinds of things aren’t helping her cause or ours.

DEBRA: One of the statements that you put in your e–mail was that she says things like there is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest ever.

Well, that’s just not a true statement.

LARA ADLER: That’s not a true statement. And that’s [inaudible 00:43:43] of other examples of things that she said that aren’t true. But at the end of the day, I’m not infallible, you’re not infallible. We’re human beings. We make mistakes. We say wrong things. The hope is that we’ll correct them because we’re in a position where we’re speaking to a large amount of people, that puts us at a certain level of responsibility that we have. But at the end of the day, we all make mistakes. It’s just how we respond to them that I think makes the big difference.

DEBRA: I would love it for her to be a little more educated and know what are the messages, what are the truthful message to put out and use those messages instead.

LARA ADLER: Yes, agreed. But like I said, it is elevating this conversation. You and I are talking about this. If that was her goal is to get people talking about it, then I understand that ‘by any means necessary’ approach.

If this is what I meant – I mean, I don’t really want to throw away the baby with the bath water because there is some benefit in having this conversation. I just don’t like the aftertaste that it leaves for a lot of people. And I just wish that we could move to a – like I said, a more measured version of this conversation.

“Look, here are the things that are bad and that we need to look out for. Here’s how they’re bad. They may not be bad for everyone. Here are the populations that they’re going to be the worst for. Those populations, please listen up, here’s what you want to do. Everybody else? Here’s what you should.

And here are the things that we don’t need to worry about because we don’t want to be crazy people out in the world wearing face masks and gloves and not going in our cars because our dashboards are releasing toxic chemicals. We want to be able to have a normal life.”

DEBRA: That’s exactly right. And we can. You and I know we can. And it isn’t even about avoiding every single toxic danger but about knowing where they are and what they are and being able to choose wisely.

We only have a few minutes left of this show. The title of this show is, Are Toxic Dangers Internet Hype, or a Genuine Health Crisis, named after your class. And so I just want to make sure that we just talk about for a few minutes.

LARA ADLER: Yes, sure. Meaning the class that I teach?

DEBRA: No, meaning, are toxic dangers internet hype, or are they a genuine health crisis?

LARA ADLER: I actually thinking that they’re a little bit of both. You know what? What I said in my class was that it certainly feels like hype because of the climate of the conversation but unfortunately, the bulk of it is not. It is a genuine health crisis. You wouldn’t be doing this, have done all of this research in course of 30 years, if it wasn’t a legitimate issue. There wouldn’t be thousands of scientists all over the world researching the low dose exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals and the implications if it wasn’t a real, genuine health crisis. The CDC wouldn’t be monitoring the levels of chemicals in people’s bodies if it wasn’t a genuine health crisis.

So hands down, yes, it’s a big issue. It’s a big issue when we see the disease rate skyrocketing, when we see things like autism and learning disability and behavioral problems in children, cancers and leukemia in children, this is not okay. And these diseases and conditions are increasing at levels that scientists are saying cannot at all be associated with genetics. But there’s something environmental going on.

And so I would say absolutely hands down, it’s something that we all need to be aware of and that it is a genuine threat to our health. And our survival as a species, and not to get sensational about it, but that’s honestly what’s happening.

DEBRA: That’s not sensational. That’s the truth.

LARA ADLER: When our fertility rates are dropping, wouldn’t that impact the species?

DEBRA: It certainly does. It certainly does. When we look at – the world is so different, I’m going to be 60 years old in June. And I know I don’t look it or sound it but I’ve been doing this work since I was 24. And I got sick from toxic chemical exposure in my early 20s. And how different people’s health is from when I was a child to nowadays, you can just look and see in that short period of time that people are getting major illnesses at earlier and earlier ages. And children having illnesses that they never had before.

We can see it with our own eyes if you have that spectrum of viewpoint. And it has to be due to something and then you can go and look at all these studies of these chemicals that we’re using, and you can go look and find out where those chemicals in consumer products. And you see the association. You just see the association if you’re looking. It’s there.

I think there is internet hype about it but it is a genuine health crisis.

LARA ADLER: Yes, for sure.

DEBRA: Well, Lara, thank you so much. We have less than a minute left of the show so I just want to thank you so much for speaking out about this so that we could have this show today. And I think that it’s really important for there to be a lot more education so that the general public understands and can tell the different so that everybody knows what’s going on. I think that you’re doing a great job educating your segment of the population of your coaches so that they can go out and be helping more people. So thank you so much for being on the show.

LARA ADLER: Thanks for having me back.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.