---
title: 'An article about persistant organic pollutants'
date: '04:18 29-12-2021'
author: 'Christina Rivera Cogswell'
aura:
    pagetype: website
feed:
    limit: 10
metadata:
    'og:url': 'http://danpercival.com/scratchpad/an-article-about-persistant-organic-pollutants'
    'og:type': website
    'og:title': 'An article about persistant organic pollutants | DANPERCIVAL'
    'og:author': 'Dan Percival''s Blog'
---

![Orcas](orcas-hdr.jpg "Orcas")

I recently came across an article talking about body-load, the presence of environmental persistent organic pollutants in the body that can only be measured by sophisticated blood labs, these only exist in the States. The article is combined with a story about the Orca Killer whales in the Salish sea in the US. [The 17th Day](https://www.terrain.org/2021/nonfiction/the-17th-day)

I started being interested in the topic of "forever chemicals" or POPs,  when I read this book so long ago that kickstarted the environmental movement, [Rachel Carson's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson) - Silent Spring 

From the article

_I had symptoms swirling out of control: brain fog, hand rashes, weight gain, and recurring climate disaster nightmares that woke me regularly in cold sweats. I saved over a year for the appointments my health insurance wouldn’t cover. The first tests yielded no conclusions. No abnormal hormones or alarming blood numbers or parasites or excessive exposure to mold. Then there was the heavy metals test. I swallowed gray pills the doctor called chelating agents before that urine sample. Two hours later, I staggered to my living room and, steadying my head with one hand, reached for my phone to call my osteopath. “What’s happening to me? My body feels heavy and slow, like I’m swimming, or sinking, in a black cloud.”_

I too when I began to have migraine's, anxiety and depression in my forties wondered if there was some poison in my body causing this. Even back then there was a informal movement calling themselves "chlorophiles" who worried about the impact of the vast quantities of chlorinated hydrocarbons that was being dumped into the environment, many of which were persistent and won't break down and so accumulate......