Was looking to provide feedback to the doc article on allergy planet.

I fully agree that we are becoming way too clean of a society. And, I fully agree that we have way way too much burning of energy (vehicles and such). How we expect to adapt to all our ways of so called "advancement" is beyond me. It took us millions upon millions of years to adapt... yet, we are burning the planet up in no time flat with our greedy little ways. Wouldn't be too bad if this thing called the economy wasn't such a glutten of a freakish thing. And, we all follow it like a bible!

The documentary mentioned that they are using Barbados as a test ground for allergies have gone up 20%...
I biked 10 islands in 10 days. Barbados being the worst for traffic and frustrated people. I called it horniness - the amount of people honking at each other...
No wonder why allergies, crime etc... is on the increase... technology can be a bad thing.
Makes us move no place fast and removes us from reality...
The most important thing in life - health!
Without it, we don't live.
The big screen tv, big house, big vehicle etc... doesn't go to your grave with you. Just you do.

Thank you for showing this documentary; I wonder when will Health Canada decide to protect our health rather then the chemical industry.

An eye-opener. Who is defend us, our children, and our environment from harmful chemicals.

Certainly not the Government of Canada.

I have lost all faith in our government to protect the best interests of Canadians.

The Canadian Government is merely the marketing arm of the corporations.

God help us all.

As a naturopathic Doctor with over 13 years in practice, I have witnessed an increasingly high amount of toxicity in new born infant's through diagnostic testing. I beliieve that these chemicals are one of the leading causes in add/adhd. asthma, allergies eczema and cancers in children. (adults are not excluded! from this) One of the ways we can protect ourselves and our children is through healthy eating, minimizing the use of cans and plastics and of course detoxification. Bravo CBC for informing the public !!!

Lorenzo Diana ND
Naturopathic Doctor

Did you know that when organic raw foods arrive ,in the port of Halifax , it is frequent practice to have the food sprayed with pesticides to kill the bugs that are often found in the packaging. So when we buy organic foods and think we are eating safe food , we're not. In fact it has fresh pesticides all over it.
My first grand child is just over a year old and I worry all the time about what her life will be like with all the chemicals in her environment. No matter how hard we try to feed her safe food it's impossible. There is no safe food anymore. It's a depressing situation and only going to get worse.
Thanks for the great show, though I think I may have been better off not knowing how bad it is ; since there is nothing I can do to make it better........ sigh

Carolyn

It is very disturbing to see the amount of toxins that are in our environment, from the food we eat to the products that we use. There is not enough regulation of these toxic chemicals and many should be banned. Unfortunately, chemical lobbyists have a lot of power in North America. Academia and scientists (non-industry) are doing such important research in determining the effects that these chemicals have on our bodies.

I also feel so sorry for the Natives in Sarnia who are getting the brunt of the chemical toxicity. The multitude of health problems and miscarriages of male fetuses will certainly affect the continuity of future Native generations.

I am advocating for the creation of an international criminal court for environmental crimes against humanity and the life on our planet and have asked the support of UN secretary general, Obama, Harper and Gordon Brown +See http://ecooptions.blogspot.com

Should corporations be found to be using fraudulent science as to the safety of their product the CEOs and Board of Directors should be subject to criminal prosecution? We are witnessing the consequences of politicians in the US failing to regulate massive financial accounting fraud by the financial corporations. The chemical corporations wouldn't try to get away with fraudulent science like the tobacco corporations would they, no!
While claiming we live in a law base system why have the CEOs of the tobacco corporations not faced criminal prosecution for lying and using fraudulent science as to the lethal addictive and cancerous nature of their product. Some politicians are acting like paid corporate assassins for organized corporate crime.

Thank you for this excellent film and for the courage to challenge our ways of thinking and health regulatory practices. I hope this will be a true wake up call and teachable moment for us all. It is almost too close for comfort, riding on the heels of our current financial crisis and loss. Sometimes it has to hurt before we take charge and change. Collectively Canadians can make a difference and remember with every crisis there is also an opportunity.

Yes yes yes! Thank you CBC for showing this excellent doc. Heads up everyone! Canada is still far behind the EU in assessing chemicals but the recent emergence of awareness raising programs like this, and an informative article "We're in Chemical Overload" in The Montreal Gazette in June will push this issue deeper into public consciousness and in time stimulate change.
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=e4c6d71f-2a6f-4952-98c7-24866f28aa67

Home Toxicus..Wow !!! unbelievable .We need to adress this problem ,and fast before we become the next species to go the way of the dinosaur.. It as come to my attention that some parts of Japan have raise the ph balance of their water wich in turn makes it Alkaline ,ex..the water becomes less acidic ..They use this water and spray their crops with it ,no need of any pesteside for their crops to my understanding pest do not survive in alkaline water ,would this not be a way to reed us from using pesticed on are crops in Canada???

I loved this doc. It's great to finally see Canadian documentary on what is going on in Canada with concerns to our extreme toxicity.

I almost don't have female friends who have neither suffered a misscariage or have problems getting pregnant; I personally have lost 5 pregnancies and I am a "healthy" woman!

This was just the tip of the ice-berg, and the next few years will prove shocking to the entire population I suspect, as our children prove to be infertile in astonishing numbers. Already fertility clinics are on the rise in Canada as many seemingly healthy women are unable to concieve, because of their ovaries or thier husbands low and sluggish sperm count.

Thank you for showing this, and I hope that everyone who watched it will make positive changes in thier lives to help rebalance our polluted planet, and our polluted selves.

"How wonderfull it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." - Anne Frank

I agree Jac.

I believe one of the most important points that was brought up in the documentary was the stance of Health Canada that considers economic impacts of banning certain substances almost on the same level as health concerns.

This is highly disturbing.

I think our measure of evolution is maintaining a balance of a comfortable lifestyle with remaining harmonious with nature.

The former is far outweighing the latter, and the speed at which we are progressing in this direction is nothing less than scary.

i saw this last night and was shocked.
my mom said years ago that she thought this epidemic of mental health issues was caused by the food and now i believe her. those old folks are wise. the question is, what can we do to stop this?

A great documentary highlighting a very serious problem. I have been trying to learn what I can do at a personal level to deal with the increasing toxic load we are all exposed to. Two books by Sherry A. Rogers MD: "Tired or Toxic?" and " Detoxify or Die" provide science based knowledge that an individual can use to mitigate the impact of the chemical exposure on one's body - while we wait for Health Canada to defend us and put health concerns first.

As a Naturopathic Doctor I could not agree more that these chemicals are having devastating effects on female and male reproductivity. The rise in asthma and other immune system disorders are on the rise. Bravo CBC for such an enlightening documentary.

Thank you for your quick response.
Radom thought: You seem like the kind of person who probably has an unusal diet. Any suggestions on what kinds of foods are safe to eat in the U.S.?
Brendan
-----------

Brendan --- None, GROW YOUR OWN!

If you buy organic foods ten to one some type of fertilizer has been used. Ten to one free range chickens are supplemented with chicken feed containing bits and pieces of themselves (cannibalism)!

Understanding how things really work helps. Take cheese for instance, what you taste is the maturity (evolution) of bacterium. Its the same with any food, for instance tomato's. The tomato plant produces its own fertilizer giving the tomato its taste. The green house unbenounced to them, by watering washes away this natural fertilizer then has to supplement a foreign fertilizer having me to add ketchup to my tomato sandwich!

Bruce Voigt

I totally agree that industries and companies are getting ultra greedy at the expense of humans' health and lives. Our government just doesn't care about its citizens, yet complains about the cost of health care. When are we going to vote in a government who really cares about the health of its citizens and stand up to these greedy companies? I commend European governments who care about the health of its citizens. It's time our government does the same and now!

As a professional in Sustainable Development, I thought your documentary provided an excellent overview of a complex, challenging and certainly controversial subject matter. Well done!

Maybe one immediate, free-market, solution to this dilemma is as follows:

Just as CDN food packaging is federally-required to include a "box" (often black-coloured) outlining the "Nutrition Facts" for a given packaged food item, so too could all packaged foods be federally-required to include a "red box" which outlines "Chemical Facts". That is, this "Chemical Facts" box located on food packaging would list all potential chemicals that the enclosed food items might have been exposed to. Even fruits & vegetables at food markets could be required to include "Chemical Facts" labelling alongside their pricing. This way, consumers could then decide which, if any, chemicals they were willing to consume through their purchased foods.

Thus, a potential free market solution - choice - is made available to consumers for a problem caused by those same free markets.

We all need to do something for a living.

Yes, excellent documentary. Obviously, one of the barriers is that the medical community is not involved in doing more research and warning the public about consumption levels of certain fruits, vegetables, and other foods, that have contaminates. I think we should all be demanding to have our blood tested for toxicity. I know I am going to! Any advice on how to have this done would be great.

Chem trails in our skies over our heads are often overlooked. Some days there is a huge X or large circles - or grid lines. Did widespread allergic reactions start when chemtrails started to appear? The chemicals sprayed must eventually fall to ground (and in our drinking water).
L. Hart

IT'S AMAZING TO SEE HOW MUCH OF THE TOXINS ARE IN THE AREA OF THE EAR YOU USE THE MICROWAVE TECHNOLOGY PHONES. A CORDLESS PHONE CAN DAMAGE UP TP 3 1/2 FOOTBALL FIELDS AWAY! ELECTROPOLLUTION IS RATED AS A CLASS 2B CARCINOGEN- SAME AS PCBs. YES EVERYTHING ELSE IS TOXIC TOO, BUT THE IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW IS THAT YOUR BODY DOES NOT RECOGNISE THE VIBRATIONS AND SHUTS DOWN IT'S CELLS & IMMUNE SYSTEM AND SO IT IS EVEN HARDER FOR YOUR BODY TO DEAL WITH ALL THE OTHER TOXINS. PLEASE LOOK INTO PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM THE ELECTRO POLLUTION AND GIVE YOUR BODY A CHANCE TO HEAL. SAME GOES FOR THE BEES, BATS, WHALES, DOPHINS...CAN'T COMMUNICATE IN THEIR OWN VIBRATIONS. GO TO WWW.MYBIOPRO.COM/COMBATRADIATION. ENTER ADDRESS INTO ADDRESS BAR (NOT A SEARCH ENGINE). THANKS FOR THE IMPORTANT INFO

I thought the film was great. I have two boys one is 2 1/2 and the other is 1 year old. I am always looking at ways to try to improve their health . But it seems like it never ends, as a parent I am trying to do the best to keep my kids healthy but it is disturbing when the Canadian goverment is not helping it's people.
I want to know what we can do? I live in Calgalry and am willing to help fight this battle because I feel that it is important.

This was a very eye-opening documentary. It scared me and I hope that it scared a lot of people so that we try to do something to stop chemicals in our waters, excessive pesticides on our foods etc. etc. before it's too late. However, like a lot of people, I do not know what to do to try to solve the problems we have created. Does anyone have any suggestions? I feel helpless.

I am so saddened by this story, what chance do we have to survive, our children seem doomed before they are even born, I guess all we can do is eat as clean as possible, filter our water, try to use soaps and detergents that are natural not chemical, can we not get along without chemicals why do we need them so bad, we are destroying the earth and ourselves with so called progress, we live in a fast world I guess we will all burn out!

David Suzuki also did a program on the Nature of Things about the decline of fertility in men and the correlation between this and the increase in toxic chemicals. I have no doubt that the toxic hormone interrupters we are pumping into our atmosphere by the tonne are related to the skyrocketing rates of cancer and other tragic diseases that are bringing our population to it's knees. Why have we allowed corporate greed to dictate environmental regulations? Are we so short sighted that we will sacrifice our very existence to a small handful of people with only their own wealth in mind??? We need to put the brakes on in this proverbial bus going 90 miles an hour toward a brick wall. Canadians are dieing in unprecedented numbers from toxic exposure and don't even know it. What will it take before we take action??? I cried as Ada explained how many members of her community had miscarriages and numerous other health problems as the world turns a blind eye to their plight, blaming their lifestyles without even realizing they are a part of our world and what happens to them will happen to all the rest of us. Who can fix our DNA? Health Canada?

Depressing, but true. What is so sad is that Canada appears to be years behind Europe in its thinking. We need to go back to back gardens, home grown food, NO PLASTICS OF ANY KIND, in our packaging, furniture house construction, etc. And as this earth spirals to a quick end, a few hardy souls may yet survive. The one unanswered question is, how do you get your government to start looking after your country and its citizens?

For once, I realise that some people out there truly do not know that the agricultural produce we consume in this country are richer in toxins than the natural nutrients expected of them. The food is in abundance but they don't taste or smell right; the fruits retain antiseptic smell and taste, and the chicken and meat are like eating embalmed flesh (permit my language). Those of us who are still fairly new immigrants have to go against our taste buds to eat these stuffs. What about those who have eaten nothing else all their life?
These substances, which come as pesticides and harvest boosters, attack the immune system, poisons internal organs, damage and causes growth of unwanted tissues in the body over time. The body has it's flora and fauna as well as good bacteria which now become victims of pesticides and yield boosters. I hear of people talk about their allergies like you're not normal if you don't have one.
Do we have a choice? I'm not sure. To sustain food security or rather food abundance and make the business of farming worthwhile, we may not be able to avoid these unhealthy, toxic food production method. Remember also that we seem to be armstrung by short periods of planting and harvesting which the farmer has to maximise among other things. The other option is to minimise chemical accelerated production, get better quality and healthier food, but much lower yields which would be more expensive and may not go round. Politicians would rather fix the fallout of toxic food crops with benevolent health policies than risk appearing to be food insecure.