Have you ever heard the term "Body Burden"? Chances are that you will. In Sweden the government checks the populace for body burden as a measure of how well they, the government, are doing in regulating pollution and toxic chemicals. A Mt. Sanai School of Medicine study found that the average American who is not working with chemicals or living near an industrial facility has 91 industrial pollutants, compounds and chemicals in their body. The study found a total of 167 of these in the participants. 79 were associated with birth defects and abnormal developement; 94 were toxic to the brain or nervous system and 76 were known to cause cancer.  Though you may expext that the government takes care of this; they do not. FIRST; the regulations were written for each toxic substance and most scientists now believe that the total body burden from this "toxic soup" has it's own set of newly emerging health problems. Professor John Spengler of the Harvard School of Public Health says that "We're concerned about the growing rates of cancer in our society, the growing rates of autism and in most developed countries, asthma has grown substantially for the past 20 years." SECOND; At the time most of our current regulations were written, it was thought that small amounts of these toxins were harmless. We now know that these small amounts are capable of subtle cellular changes leading to cancers and a host of other health problems. THIRD; Industry lobbying has had a large effect of what is allowable. While many simply throw up their hands accept their fate, I choose otherwise and I hope you will join me. As Sweden has demonstrated we can use our vote and voice to change health regulations. One must also endeavor to lower their "body burden" and that of their children. The majority of my diet consists of food that is free of alll of these chemicals. All of my household cleaning products are free of these chemicals. All commercial hygiene products such as shaving cream, toothpaste, soap, (no shampoo for me, thanks!) and makeup in particular, are loaded with toxic chemicals and I buy mine at the healthfood store. No doubt about it; this stuff costs more and a lot of it does not perform as well as it's toxic counterparts. But I perform well. I willingly give a disproportinate amount of my income to prevention and in return I have had only 5 perscriptions for drugs in the last 41 years (3 were antibiotics and I am not including the pain killers for my boo-boos). Recent studies of chemical body burdens in the state of Washington have found that children who ate organic food and were not exposed to pesticides in their homes has SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER body burdens. As Mick Jagger says " I don't wanna be your beast of burden."