Chair Presentation IDEA Annual General Meeting 17th April 2010

What are the major challenges for health in the 21st century? A rather daunting question as we appear to be living in unprecedented times with escalating issues, which are predicted to impact significantly on human health. I would like to share some of the information that I have acquired through representing IDEA (also as member of ISDE International Society of Doctors for the Environment) in some significant international meetings dealing ultimately, with some serious global health issues.
In May 2009, at the Commission on Sustainable Development in UN headquarters, New York, the theme was agriculture, development and land use in the overall context of Climate Change.
There, I learned that humanity is facing a set of unprecedented crises and if we continue with “business as usual”, the future of life as we know it will be significantly changed. The health and well being of humanity and the ecosystems upon which we depend, is now under threat. This theme was expressed by Ban Ki-moon as well as various political leaders, ministers and heads of international agencies and NGO’s and formed the basis of the conference’s agenda.
Crises in food security, financial systems, peak oil (cheap abundant energy) and the threat of climate change/chaos were the main ones in the “spotlight” but in the corridors and in some of the side sessions, there was mention of the increasing threat in fresh water availability (due to excessive industrial/agricultural use and pollution) as well as the rising security threat from terrorists/conflict considered to be exacerbated by dwindling natural resources and biodiversity.

There was “outrage” officially stated by the Major Groups (reps. from civil society) at the apparent dismissal of the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural knowledge, Science and Technology for Development) report that many had expected to be the underpinning knowledge base for the CSD 17 meeting. The publication assessed the impact of past, present and future agricultural knowledge, science and technology in reducing poverty and hunger, improving rural livelihoods and human health and facilitating equitable, environmentally socially and economically sustainable development. The report drew on the work of hundreds of experts from all regions of the world that participated in its preparation and peer review process extending over a period of more than four years. It was a product of a multi-stakeholder process involving governments, NGOs, industries and an array of UN bodies (FAO, GEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, WHO) and the World Bank.
Amongst a wide range of findings, the IAASTD found highly unequal benefits in the trade of food around the world. This current trade model also produces serious ecological impacts, now recognized as contributing to climate change. In the highly sensitive and charged realm of the role of GM food crops in helping to feed the world’s rising starvation, the report pointed out various potential problems in using that technology. They did not recommend this technology as a helpful or necessary way forward in the context of our present global situation.
The report sites under-nutrition as the underlying cause of over 15% of the global disease burden. It calls for dietary quality to be a main driver of food production, not just quantity or price. Health concerns include presence of pesticides residues, heavy metals, hormones, antibiotics and various additives in the food system and related to large-scale livestock farming. Beside this, the quality of food nutrition is a key issue as people now are at higher risk of morbidity/mortality due to an increase in the availability of poor quality food. It was noted that the current dependence on long distance transport of goods, the increasing consumptive patterns globally (dependence on cars, etc) and the dominant economic globalisation model are at the heart of the interconnected crises facing the world.
This was also reflected many times in the plenary sessions with the persistent calls to radically change consumption and production patterns (recognized as unsustainable) and that “business as usual” reflected in our current global economic and development model must stop immediately to be replaced with a sustainable and more equitable process. In this vein, the paradigm shift, to which the Chair of the conference often referred throughout the session, needs to be one of shifting from quantity of things to quality of relationships. The current development model breeds fear of scarcity, of conflict and of Nature’s wrath. As was mentioned in the plenary sessions, we must stop working against Nature and learn to work cooperatively with it.

I also attended conferences on Multi-Systems Illnesses and Environmental Pathologies. There appears to be a growing problem of Multi-Systems Illnesses, globally. These are conditions where people are affected with a diverse and chronic variety of disturbing symptoms, which are not easily recognized or understood by conventional medical training, making diagnosis and treatment, difficult.
They are a category of new conditions that seem to be arising from pollution to both our outdoor and indoor environments. Included in the cocktail of pollutants to which we are subjecting ourselves and ecosystem/biodiversity, is Electro Magnetic Radiation (EMR). (This is the subject of our main presentation, which will follow mine, so I will not go into any detail on it here).
Included within this new category of Illnesses are conditions such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome & M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), Multi Chemical Sensitivity, Post Traumatic Stress, and there are questions raised about the possibility of environmental pollution involved in the globally increasing incidents of allergies, neurological conditions such as Parkinsons Disease and Alzheimers and certain cancers as well as in the increasing incidence of genetic and hormonal dysfunctions.
One of the underlying problems in understanding the pathology seems to lie in our knowledge of toxicology. In the past, it was enough to know the amount of a substance that rendered it toxic and if the dose consumed was far below that level, it was considered to be a safe dose. This does not take into consideration the new understanding of the toxic cocktail effect. This relates to the cumulative effect of various substances which when taken together react, to become more toxic than the individual elements taken in isolation. Added to this is the capacity of some toxins to bio-accumulate in the system. These toxins may be taken in small or even minute doses, considered to be safe, yet over time, when accumulated in the body (often the liver or fat cells), it results in a toxic dose. Such bio-accumulating toxins such as dioxins can only be discharged from the body through breast milk, thereby passing into the next generation.
These toxins carried by the body are considered to be “burdens” and when they pass a certain threshold, can overwhelm the body’s coping mechanisms or immune system. One hypothesis presented at these conferences was from a study done to show that these burdens can actually affect the work of the mitochondria at a cellular level. This could explain why the symptoms could be of an unusually diverse and diagnostically-vague range of symptoms. Such symptoms may present as a combination of some of the following: headaches, lack of concentration, lack of appetite, forgetfulness, varying levels of insomnia, exhaustion, bodily pain (joints, muscles…) and various other neurological symptoms that can incapacitate the affected person from engaging in a normal lifestyle. I learned that as well as the severe implications this may bring to a nation/society on the emotional/social/physical levels, there are very significant economic losses attached to the increase in these new debilitating illnesses.

The COP15 (Conference Of the Parties) in Copenhagen Dec. 2009, was probably the greatest, most diverse gathering of humanity coming together to try to find a solution for our fevered planet. Many came with stories of increasingly hostile conditions in their homelands due to impacts of unpredictable weather patterns, which are affecting food production as well as more intense severe weather events bringing devastation to areas. Some referred to it as an act of genocide as they have been watching their animals and crops, upon which their survival depends, dwindle.
Another strong voice was from indigenous people to say that the ecosystem destruction due to industrial processes (farming, mining, oil exploration etc.) was rendering their lands and water sources to be “sick”. The resounding message that we are poisoning our Mother – the earth that nurtures and sustains us, rang through some of the sessions.
As we all know, there was no legally-binding global treaty signed in Copenhagen, to tackle climate change.
Due to the extraordinary events surrounding the conference there, IDEA had the only representatives of the ISDE (International Society of Doctors for the Environment) able to make it into the Copenhagen Conference Centre. Working together with representatives of WHO, the HEAL (Health and Environmental Alliance, Brussels) and HCWH (Health Care Without Harm), we continued our work from the previous month’s conference in Barcelona, to try to have the health impacts of climate change central to the main negotiations.

How could Climate Change impact on health?
Examples include:

Morbidity/mortality from more extreme weather conditions affecting homes/shelter, water quantity/quality, heat stroke, dehydration…
Spread of disease: lowered immunity from lack of basic needs (nutrition, shelter, water quality), communicative (people displacement/refugees, stress, warmer wetter conditions conducive to incubation – diarrhoeal…), non-communicative (allergies-pollution, diet/lifestyle-related), vetor-borne (malaria, dengue…)
Malnutrition and starvation due to crop failure & reduced food production (drought, floods…) and breakdown in global food trade efficiency (peak oil).
Breakdown in health facilities and infrastructure incapacity to cope (with mass morbidity) and possibly other basic infrastructure

So,
HOW CAN PEOPLE STAY HEALTHY ON A PLANET THAT IS SICK AND GETTING SICKER?
We can’t, but we can change things.

Through the reliance on petroleum, industrial agriculture was considered to have a warming effect on the planet while the ecosystem approach used in peasant agriculture cools the planet. The latter would also have the effect of de-linking food prices from petroleum prices, recovering degraded soils with organic matter, conserving forests and providing fresh more nutritious food.
It was estimated that we could eliminate up to 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions through changing the patterns of transportation and consumption. Investing in the necessary infrastructure to have communities depend more on local goods and services than imported ones, could help this shift.

But these global crises are not coincidental isolated issues that happen to present together. They are interdependent on each other and on our way of life. They do not signify an inevitable stage of human evolution or development, but are consequences of our current global economic and development model. This we can change!
A call to change both consumptive patterns and production patterns recognized that fulfilling the developed world’s consumerist lifestyle demands is a main source of the current problems. I learned that at least 50% of food produced globally is wasted either before reaching the market, or after. Therefore, we were reminded that if we did not increase food production at all, but only addressed this wastage we could double the world’s access to food.
The current economic model is now considered to be incapable of delivering sustainable development because it is grounded in inequity. We need to develop a new equitable model quickly for the world has now reached its tipping point. It was called, by some speakers, for agriculture to be embedded in the Ecosystem approach and to move from a position of trying to master, to cooperating, with the ecosystem for continuing on with our present consumption/production model will soon destroy the planet. One speaker referred to the planet’s illness due to various dis-eases that though possibly still reversible, if left unchecked would become critical, requiring life support. He named two of the conditions as “Affluenza” and “Povertitis”.

HOPE
So what can we, you and I, do? Understand the problem, which means understanding its source.
The concept of “interdependence” recognizes that all living/complex systems interact with and respond to, their environment. Humanity is interdependent on our living environment, yet our modern society has become disconnected from it.
This multi-faceted “crisis” is result of our lifestyle choices and only we can control those. What you buy and what you waste, how you live, affects others and affects the future of humanity.
Who do you support by your consumer choices? Do you support sustainable development?
Check the ingredients and the sources of the goods that you buy. In our democratic countries, it is the consumers who decide what is produced because products that people won’t buy, cannot afford to be produced. We, as consumers/non-consumers have a huge role to play.
Do you really need to waste so much?
Inform yourself and decide what you want to support. Mindless consumerism is not only irresponsible but if we all continue with “business as usual” it may tip us over the tipping point, drastically changing life, as we know it.

The cooperation generated from an understanding our inherently interdependent relationship has been replaced by stressful competition and conflict, both with Nature and other people. We need to relearn this interdependence and stop polluting, poisoning, and choking our planet.

Juliet Duff
April 2010

Chair Presentation IDEA AGM 17th April 2010 HEALTH & THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY

Chair Presentation IDEA AGM 17th April 2010

HEALTH & THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE 21st CENTURY