On April 4th, I went to the event in Young Research library about chemical containment with my friend. The lecture was about researches the speaker made about negative influence of the chemicals, natural and artificial, on people’s health. It was very informative, insightful and pensive, which leads people to think about to what extend is our current society under the harm of artificial chemicals.
Even though through my own experience and existing knowledge about the harm of chemicals, I was still shocked by the results and facts of those social studies constructed by either the speaker or other people that the speaker is referring to. For example, according to the speaker, girls in the states enter their puberty earlier than girls in other countries such as China; other girls from Asian or other parts of the world will have an earlier puberty if they moved to the states at a young age. I couldn’t believe that this is true, and couldn't account for this phenomenon, but the data shows this undoubted reality. Then I started to rethink about those seemingly invisible and negligible chemical containment in our modern society. According to the speaker, the modern invention of plastic, caused a lot of invisible chemical containment. Plastic bags, bottles, containers, kitchen supplies and room decorations… Although plastic makes our life incredibly more convenient, it harms our health by spreading chemical containment. I’m not a chemical or biology major, but based on experience, the wide use of plastics might have something to do with the increase of modern health problems. A second point the author mentioned is the increase in cancer in certain areas where there are many factories. This is a common problem starting from the Industrial Revolution. In large industries, we are making products through chemical or even nuclear processes, and there will inevitably be some harmful bi-products that need to be exhaust. Besides environmental issues, a larger problem is the harm on people’s health, especially the rate of getting cancer. The author also mentioned breast cancer as an example, and the mental suffering when women have to choose between surgery to remove breast and plastic surgery that give them a “new” pair of breast after the previous surgery. This is not just a personal choice, it is a relevant feminist problem. It might be hard for people from the older generation to live without breasts, and as a result they almost always chose the plastic surgery, which brings even more harm to their body. As the speaker mentioned, first, when cancer is detected, it is very likely that it has been already spread to the whole body; second, doing a plastic surgery after suffering from cancer and chemotherapy might be too much for us.
For myself, I felt the urge to be more aware of chemical containments around me. Not that I understand that chemical containment includes far more than just negative impacts from nuclear leak, it’s good to keep it in mind. For example, I’ll try to use paper bags or cloth bags when shopping to avoid plastic bags, and I will avoid living in areas that have many factories. I’ll also try to inform my friends and family about this information, and come up with possible solutions to this problem.
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Beresford, Heather. "M Health: Living in a Period of Change; These Days, Some Girls Are Hitting Puberty before They Hit Their Teens. but Is It Any Easier Than It Was for Their Mothers - and Is Society Ready for Them?" The Mirror (London, England). N.p., 23 May 2002. Web. 10 May 2017.
Norton, Amy. "Childhood Obesity Again Tied to Earlier Puberty in Girls; Study Compared Onset Age of Breast Development in 1997 and Now." Consumer Health News (English). N.p., 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 10 May 2017.
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