resolution

Environmental Health

2016 Book of Resolutions, #1034

God gave us a good and complete earth. We must care for that which is around us in order that life can flourish. We are meant to live in a way that acknowledges the interdependence of human beings not just on one another but the world around us, the mountains and lilies, the sparrows and the tall pine which all speaks of the nature of God.—As Jesus declared, “If these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Luke 19:40), or “consider the lilies” (Luke 12:27) or the sparrows” (Matthew 10:31), for they tell us of God’s love. The psalmists declare praise for the natural world because nature reveals God’s steadfast love, justice, and faithfulness. Not only are we dependent and interdependent on the ecosystems around us, but we also recognize that the natural world is a place where a faithful, loving, just Creator’s handiwork can be seen.

Since the onset of industrialization and globalization, we’ve lost our sense of interdependence with the natural world. Though some of us go away to the beaches, forests, and lakesides to find rest and respite, we’ve forgotten that everything around us is made from the natural world: the houses we live in, the food we eat, the technology we use, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. The manufacturing of those products that have made our lives what they are today are made by taking the natural world, working with chemicals, and producing that which we use in daily life. —Almost everything that is manufactured uses chemicals. Some of those chemicals have proven to be troublesome to our health. When these chemicals and the chemical by-products of production meet with rivers and streams, earth, and air, toxins result. —Those who work closest to the extraction and production often are exposed to toxins at unsafe levels. We get hurt, we get sick, and our quality of life diminishes. This hurt needs careful attention and healing in order for us to have the healthy quality of life God intended.

God’s covenant with humanity affirms that God is involved in the healing of individuals (Proverbs 3:7-8) and includes the mandate to protect the community from dangers that threaten the health and safety of the people. At the beginning of Methodism, John Wesley provided medicine and medical treatment at no cost to the poor in London and Bristol. In addition to pioneering free dispensaries in England, Wesley emphasized illness prevention. In Primitive Physick, Wesley wrote of the importance of nutrition and hygiene, as well as treatment of the sick. The first Social Creed, adopted by the 1908 General Conference of The Methodist Episcopal Church, declared that workers must be protected “from dangerous machinery, occupational disease, injuries, and mortality,” and that working conditions must be regulated to safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. Today, the church is called to declare that the health of every individual is part of community health, including safe and healthy work conditions. The church has a responsibility to pronounce clearly the implications of God’s law of love for human health. Where human life and health are at stake, economic gain must not take precedence.

Since Wesley’s days the rapid growth of chemical usage in our industrialized extraction, production, agricultural, and waste cycles have significantly altered our environments. In industrialized zones, chemical sludge and dangerous airborne particles exist in concentrated form with significant health impacts on the communities that live and work closest to them. —Throughout the globe, industrial extraction, production, and waste happen closest to populations that are already experiencing economic inequities and injustice. —In rural areas, agricultural pesticides and chemical fertilizers disproportionately hurt not only farmworkers on large farms but small farmers who work mainly with hand tools. — Those who live downstream or close to where those chemicals have been applied are also at risk. —The Rotterdam Convention was created so that the problem of known harmful chemicals would not be traded internationally without prior knowledge of the receiving country.

According to the United Nations, there are approximately 70,000 known chemicals, and approximately 1,500 new chemicals come onto the market every year. —Although the Basel, Stockholm, and Rotterdam conventions seek to regulate the most dangerous of these chemicals, in reality, there is little knowledge about almost all of those 70,000 chemicals and their effects on human health. — Around forty chemicals are regulated when it comes to international trade. Sickness often happens years after exposure and so is difficult to trace.

Toxicology research suggests that certain chemicals such as dioxin, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), or other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are used in production or discarded as by-products of manufacturing and/or agricultural practices can be linked to cancer, reproductive aberrations, developmental disorders, blood and muscle growth abnormalities, disease of the liver and kidney, obesity, hormone disruptions, and behavioral concerns. — Many of these chemicals are often trans-generational, where the exposure might be in one generation but the effects of that exposure are transmitted to children and grandchildren. — Toxins also seep into the environment from our every- day products, including beauty products, household cleaners, drugs, fire retardants, food and beverage containers, pesticides, pharmaceuticals for both human and animals, and industrial effluent. — When these everyday products are thrown away, in dumps or sewers, they enter water sources. — Even in regions of the world where water treatment plants exists, toxins are often still present.

Reproductive, Maternal, and Child Health

According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), there are three types of chemicals that affect men and women differently: (1) endocrine disrupting chemicals; (2) chemicals that are persistent (meaning they remain a long time in the environment), bio accumulative (meaning they accumulate through the food chain), and toxic; and (3) heavy metals (such as mercury, lead, and cadmium). (Found at www.undp.org/content/dam/aplaws/publication/en/publications/environment-energy/www-ee-library/chemicals-management/chemi cals-and gender/2011%20Chemical&Gender.pdf .)

Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interrupt hormonal activity. These chemicals, which include POPs, are usually bio accumulative. Though men are affected, women seem to be particularly vulnerable to chemical toxins. This could be because of their higher percentage of body fat in addition to their rapid physiological changes during pregnancy, lactation, and menopause. In addition, women’s exposure to toxic chemicals can be transmit- ted through the placenta to the developing fetus. Children also seem to be more vulnerable to toxins in the environment. Their fast growth and proportionately high-intake needs might be reasons for this.

POPs are widely used in products because of their long half-life and their stability. They are now used almost everywhere. They are of particular concern because of their ability to affect the endocrine and immune systems, the liver, cognitive abilities, and the reproductive system (including low birth weight). They have also been linked to cancer.

Heavy metals used in high volume in industrial processes, mining, or paint are highly toxic. They affect the reproductive organs, kidneys, brain, bones, and cardiovascular function. Mercury and lead are of most concern in the international community because they are known to cause birth defects and underweight infants.

In 2013, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released an opinion that called for reduced exposure to toxic environmental agents, citing evidence that shows preconception and prenatal exposure to certain toxins, chemicals, and pesticides can lead to myriad reproductive health consequences, including increased risk of childhood cancer, sterility and infertility, and interference with developmental stages of reproductive function. (Found at: http://www.acog.org/Resources-And publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Exposure-to-Toxic-Environmental-Agents.)

In addition, harmful chemicals in our environments multiply and intersect in ways that disproportionately affect vulnerable and underserved populations. When the poor and underserved live in sacrifice zones, or are close to incinerators or garbage dumps, or are farmworkers or subsistence farmers, the harmfulness of chemicals evident in everyday products multiplies and causes adverse effects such as debilitating sickness, infant sickness, and abnormal brain, hormone, and growth development. This disproportionately affects women, and policy consideration must understand the role of women as caregivers. Future policies must also understand the disproportionate impact on families and communities when family members get sick and are under- served by health care. Health care providers who work in low income areas—and especially those who work in reproductive, infant, and children’s health—must be educated on these ubiquitous toxins in their neighborhoods and their associated risks. And the church needs to be part of that education.

In the United States, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) asserts that the environment may play some role in as much as 85 percent of all disease and that exposure to chemicals can have great impact on human growth and development. Some of these chemicals, along with other pollutants, may even have a long-lasting impact on a developing fetus, the effects of which could persist into adulthood and the reproductive cycle.

There are many everyday chemicals and exposures that are identified by UNDP or the Basel, Stockholm, and Rotterdam conventions as linked to various medical, behavioral, or reproductive disorders. Some of the effects of exposure may manifest in childhood, while some may emerge in adulthood.

Air pollution: May contribute to intellectual delays, anxiety, depression, and attention problems.
Arsenic: Leads to higher rates of liver, lung, and kidney cancers and is linked to increased mortality rates in liver and skin cancers.
Dioxins: Greater rate of recurrent ear infections and incidents of chicken pox, and can cause developmental abnormalities.
Endocrine disrupters (bisphenol A [BPA], pesticides, and phthalates): Increased aggression in young children, early onset of puberty, changes in mammary gland development, decrease in testosterone and sperm production, increased risk of breast cancer, abnormalities in genital development, and enlarged breast tissue in prepubescent boys.
Flame retardants: Studies have shown growth of cancerous tumors in laboratory settings and they may alter hormones that are essential to reproductive and neurological development.
Lead: Increased risk of hypertensions, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, schizophrenia, and neurodegenerative changes later in life.
Maternal smoking: Results in low infant birth weight as well as increased risk of childhood obesity.
Mercury: Exposure before birth can cause disruptions in neurobehavioral and cognitive development.

Public health and safety is dependent on effective prevention and active protection before illness or injury have occurred. To fulfill God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, we should support action that protects each individual’s health and preserves the health of the community. To this end, we declare:

Every individual has a right to a safe and healthful environment un-endangered by a polluted natural world, a hazardous workplace, an unsanitary community, dangerous household products, unsafe drugs, and contaminated food. This human right must take precedence over considerations of cost analysis, capital investment, and financial return. It is unconscionable that anyone should profit or have their lives based on products that lead to the disease, disability, or death of themselves or another.
Public health hazards based on the lack of the wise use of chemicals must be prevented in order to avoid the serious individual and community consequences of injury, illness, and untimely death, including disability, physical pain, mental anguish, lost human potential, family stress, and the diversion of scarce medical resources to today’s generation or future generations.
We must invest in research on the correlations between environmental concerns and cancer clusters, genetic defects, reproductive health issues, liver and kidney dis- eases, blood disorders, and brain disease. This research must include gender specific data and analysis which results in public policy.
The public health risks of technological development and waste must be fully researched and openly assessed before new technologies are introduced into the home, the workplace, the community, and the environment. Consumers and workers have the right to know what technologies and substances are used in the workplace, in foods, and other products and must know the health consequences of the same.
The preservation and protection of human life from public and environmental health hazards is a fundamental responsibility of government that must be maintained by active public support and adequate public funds. All levels of government must enforce public and environmental health and safety laws.
Preventive health care should be taught in educational institutions to persons in every age group at every level of society. Health professionals in all branches of medicine and public health, and those in related fields, should be encouraged to practice preventive medicine, implement community preventive health strategies, and assist patients in the adoption of healthy lifestyles. Programs should be implemented that educate and inform consumers and workers about physical, chemical, biological, and radiological hazards of products, services, working conditions, and environmental contaminants.
The right to a healthy and safe workplace is a fundamental right. Employers must assume responsibility to eliminate hazards in their workplaces which cause death, injury, and disease. Employers should work together with their employees and employee organizations to achieve this objective.

The Church asks of governments to enact policies that protect human beings from environmentally toxic products and by-products:

The by-products, products, and/or waste of any consumer goods should be safe for the communities, families, and individuals who live or work near extraction, production, and waste sites. Industry must be held to account for its contributions to environmental degradation anywhere in the world, and environmental protections must be enacted through both national governments and international trade agreements.
Funding must be made available for the research of the safest possible extraction, production, consumption, products, and waste procedures. Tax incentives, penalties, and environmental regulations must be enacted to protect people rather than profit.
The burden of proof for the harmlessness of particular manufacturing or agricultural method must be with the corporations who are economically benefiting from the product. Safe disposal of products must be seen as part of the cost of production.
Consumers have a right to know and this right needs to be respected and protected by government. Consumers must know what’s in their food, their hair and skin lotions, their cosmetics, their furniture, construction materials of their homes, buildings, and furniture, as well as their lawn and garden products. Many of the most dangerous known chemicals are continuing to find their way into hair coloring, makeup, food, and water. Transparency must be required for the use of chemicals in manufacturing processes.
As impacts of both the use and discontinuance of chemical toxins occur to workers and their communities, economic and health safety nets must be implemented.

Church actions need to consist of the following:

Churches can become places of Christian education that teach about the products we buy and their inherent dangers. It is important that the church provides information on the chemicals we encounter so that those we buy are as safe as possible and our disposal of the same is least harmful to the environment.
The United Methodist Church must provide for the safety and health of persons in their meeting spaces and work places; and as they actualize this provision we need to become educators and advocates for public and environmental health and safety in the community as indicated in the declarations above. As a church, we have a responsibility to make sure the spaces that we are creating for our children and families within the church have under-gone a thorough evaluation including evaluating cleansers, lawn chemicals, carpets, paint and furniture, and even the food we serve.
The church must educate itself on public health initiatives and advocate for those which concretely address the dis- proportionate health impacts of our current extraction, manufacturing, agricultural, and waste economies on impoverished peoples, communities, and nations.

ADOPTED 2016

See Social Principles, ¶ 160A.

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