Potential Thyroid Toxins in Cookware, Clothing, and Carpets

The primal perspective rests on the discordance hypothesis, that modern diseases arise from a discord between our modern environments and our stone age biology. Thus, it predicts that any chemical product of modern technology absent from the paleo environment would likely cause disease.

In efforts to make life "convenient," short-sighted "scientists" have developed and introduced into the environment a whole host of chemicals containing halogens such as chlorine, bromine, iodine, and fluorine. These chemicals never occurred in the primal environment, so the human body lacks the ability to detoxify them, and does not have adaptation to an environment contaminated with them.

Since the human thyroid requires iodide for production of thyroid hormone, and all halogens share similar electrochemical and physical properties, a primal philosopher like myself can predict that synthetic halogen-containing chemicals could have harmful effects on thyroid function.

So I felt no surprise to learn today that British researchers have found that people having high blood levels of perfluorinated chemicals found in food wrappings, non-stick pans, carpets, and fabrics report an elevated risk of thyroid disease.

After analyzing blood serum levels of two types of perfluorinated chemicals in nearly 4,000 U.S. adult men and women, they found that women having blood levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in the highest quartile reported thyroid disease more than twice as frequently those in the lowest two quartiles. They found a similar but not statistically significant in men.

Among men, those who had high levels of perfluoroctane sulphonate (PFOS) in their blood had greater incidence of reported thyroid disease, but the same association was not found in women.

This study only detected an association, and did not establish causation. However, the published study refers to previous animal studies thath have shown that these chemicals may affect the thyroid adversely.

So where do people get exposed to these chemicals?

“Perfluorinated chemicals are pervasive in industrial and consumer products, including food packaging, flame-resistant and waterproof clothing, chemical-resistant tubing and stain-resistant coatings for carpets. The chemicals are chosen for their ability to repel heat, water, grease and stains…..”

And the main source?

“The main source of human exposure to PFOA and PFOS is unknown, but it's believed to be through diet, such as from greaseproof food wrappings, researchers said. People may also inhale household dust that contained PFOA or PFOS from fireproof or waterproof coatings on fabrics or carpeting.”

The half-life in the human body of PFOA is 3.8 years and that of and PFOS is 5.4 years. Toxicologists have found PFOA and PFOS in water, air and soil, even in remote areas of the globe. The blood of birds, fish and polar bears also contain PFOA and PFOS.

On the bright side:

“Because of concerns about toxicity, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency got commitments from eight manufacturers of PFOA to reduce emissions and usage of PFOA and related chemicals by 95 percent this year, and to move toward eliminating usage of the chemicals completely by 2015.”

Have you ever wondered why we do this? Why do we (humans) create toxic materials and poison ourselves with them? I mean, I think most people can appreciate that a rational approach would entail the precautionary principle, first do no harm. Yet it seems that our “scientists” rarely if ever question their omniscience, omnibenevolence, and omnipotence with regard to altering the furniture of nature. Why?

I believe that the people (“scientists”) who do this type of thing are both effects and victims of a diseased world-view. The fundamental disease is called dualism, a world-view that envisions the human mind/species as “made in the image” of an omniscient, omnipotent supernatural Big Boss of the Universe, and thus envisions the human mind as the divinely ordained, omniscient, supernatural, omnibenevolent Boss of “dumb” nature.

Entranced by the idea that human intelligence is a stranger in a strange land, our “scientists” labor the delusion that the conscious mind “knows” more than the system (nature) out of which it arose, and of which is it a very weak and small part. They view themselves as smart and the world (including the body) as stupid. Plus, they consider themselves as the elite divine priesthood and the common people as mere fodder for nuclear, chemical, biological (genetic engineering), psychical, and social experimentation.

In reality, they operate like adolescents who can’t believe that their elders have anything useful to say. They have pubescent knowledge, but no primal wisdom.