I'm Bill Couzens and I wanted to introduce Miles O'Brien today for a couple of reasons. Miles has been a critical piece of Less Cancer, he has been a board member and he has been instrumental and unfolding oftentimes complicated science to the masses. We could not be more grateful because when people have access and information, they have the ability to help themselves in new and unique ways. I also wanted to say that we're not only honored to have Miles here, but I wanted to use this opportunity to thank him and so many journalists that have risked their lives to tell trues, to tell stories, to stand with science and going forward, I hope we see journalists in a new improved light through the value that they bring to all of us and they are so critical in advancing so many of the issues we care about around human health and science. I'm going to turn this over to you Miles, I'm so grateful for your help. Thank you very much. Bill, it's always a pleasure to be a part of this special event and this is a special way of doing it to be sure. I long for being in the basement of the Capitol office building, one of the congressional office buildings. Next year we'll do that but we are all learning how to do conversations remotely and truth is I miss you all. But what do you expend? It's interesting this whole year, I think we've all learned a lesson about how the precautionary principle works. What I'm talking about is the idea that before chemicals come in contact or into a human being, they go through a series of rigorous tests to ensure first and foremost that they are safe. That's what we witnessed at record speed as Big Pharma all over the world has created a series of vaccines aimed at stopping the pandemic. But these are vaccines and drugs and we certainly hope that people expose themselves to these drugs in large numbers so we can stop the pandemic. But the question that comes to mind with this group is what happens when the chemicals aren't intended to improve our health or to be a drug? They quote in quote. But what if the chemical is there to control or mold our environment or make consumer products or process or food or get us from point A to point B? Those chemicals do not go through clinical trials. Unless you think of the fact that maybe we are all part of a clinical trial, we're just a bunch of guinea pigs potentially. The way we do it in this country, the chemicals are put out there in the market until people get sick. We find ourselves collectively trying to put out fires set by corporations motivated by profit over human health. That impacts all of us, including me personally I have losses to cancer in my life which I can ascribe with this. But you know what, I'm pretty fortunate. The people who are most effected are the communities of color, people at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. Rich people can buy themselves a home in a gated community or they can do their shopping at Whole Foods, but poor folks who live near the Cross Bronx Expressway or a citrus farm in Central Valley, or a refinery in Louisiana, they don't have a choice. Frankly, it's up to all of us to fight to stop this madness. Here we are. Again, it'd be nice if we wouldn't have to have this panel, would we? But here we are to list some of the top, well it's like the most wanted at the post office. Some of the worst offenders have chemicals that are out there and what these advocates and scientists are doing about it, not just to change policy but also to connect the dots scientifically to provide ammunition for those policies as we march forward. We're in an interesting time right now. We can talk about that as we go along. We've had some very dark years as it relates to environmental regulation and we can hope for a change now with the new administration. It will be very interesting to see what these tireless front line in the trenches workers think about the possibilities right now. We're going to begin with our bench scientist who's with us. She's not going to get in the policy issue so much but she has some very interesting things to say about how toxic chemicals affect us and she does that through the prism of looking at you see them behind her zebrafish. Tracie Baker is an assistant professor at Wayne State University. Her lab is called WATER, which is the Warrior Aquatic, Translational, and Environmental Research Lab. Warrior is a Wayne State mascot. I guess part of why she likes zebrafish so much is she was a D1 swimmer in college, but I think it's a little more than that. Liz Hitchcock is Director of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. She could talk to you about 800 chemicals right now if we had the time. We all have to accept the fact that chemicals will always be around us after all, but finding ways to find alternatives is a big part of what she does. Many years ago, we encountered each other when she was in a previous position at the US Public Interest Research Group, PIRG, but we haven't changed a bit, not a bit. No age at all. Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, we'll call her Nse just for sake of simplicity, is the Executive Director of the Children's Environmental Health Network. She spent 20 years there, so I'm gathering she started at the age of two. She is a tireless worker who also told me she'd like to work her way out of a job. We'll talk to her about her organization and something called the Cancer Free Economy Network, which I think is an interesting program. It's important that we get people to understand where I began. The government is not watching our back on this. It's people like the people with us who are advocating. In the Hall of Fame among those advocates is the great Linda Reinstein. She is the co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. The sad truth is she became an activist after she lost her husband, Allen, to mesothelioma in 2003. To call her tireless is an understatement. The fact that we're still talking about asbestos and why it isn't regulated after all these years is pretty stunning to me and I'm sure most everyone in the audience listening. It's pretty amazing. We talk about the poster child of bad chemicals. Everybody thinks about the moon suits in the schools, but guess what? Asbestos is still out there and it's all around us. Having said all that, she's made some progress and we'll talk about that in a minute, but you know what? I want to start with Tracie, and I want to talk a little bit about the science right now. Give us a top-line view of your research and how zebrafish fit into all of this. What are the big questions you're trying to answer right now by looking at zebrafish and their exposure to toxic chemicals? Yeah. What we are doing, we've done some research looking at chemicals that are in the Great Lakes in Detroit waterways. We found a number of personal care products, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and PFAS chemicals. We're looking at how these levels and these chemicals can cause effects not only during development, but also later in life and in subsequent generations. The zebrafish model has a lot of benefits. Their genome, their genes are sequenced. They have over 80 percent of the genes that we know are associated with diseases in humans. They also have a very similar organ and development to humans, believe it or not. They can make [inaudible]. By the way, who knew this? Obviously, you knew it, but it is a little bit surprising that we and zebrafish share so much. Yeah. Because they can make four generations in one year so that allows us to look at genetic and epigenetic changes over generations in a pretty small time period. It reminds me of researchers who look at fruit flies for similar reasons. You were telling me yesterday that we can go through the hyperated chemicals, but one of the things which is on your front burner right now is trying to understand how multiple chemicals interact with each other and affect us all. We tend to stovepipe all this. Let's talk about asbestos. Let's talk about chlorpyrifos. Let's talk about lead, whatever it is, but the fact of the matter is that in the real world, we're exposed to a toxic brew of all of this. I know that certainly raises the bar for science when you start adding in that many variables, but tell me how you're going about that idea. Like you said, we are exposed to a hundreds of chemicals today in our homes and a lot of us are spending more time in our homes these days. We can't just look at them one at a time. Because of the zebra-fish model and because, one female zebra-fish can lay 300 eggs every week. We can get large numbers of animals and we're able to look at these under many different conditions, looking at different concentrations. Then again looking at genetic pathways and abnormalities afterwards. A lot of these chemicals are also endocrine disrupting chemicals. They can act as hormones, as most people know, it only takes a very low level of hormones to make changes. They can also be mutagens that can lead to cancer. We're basically able to look at this in a large-scale with large numbers, over a small amount of time. Is it possible there are interactions we're not fully aware of either negative or maybe beneficial, canceling each other out when multiple array of chemicals are presented to the human body? We're working on this now, but that's what we're finding, that some chemicals when they're put together, actually cause worse effects than if you had them two both individually. Then some do cancel each other out where you don't see some of the effects. Interesting, that's research to continue to watch. As you think about that Liz, with your list of 800 plus chemicals, that you're tracking, imagine all 800 chemicals coming at us at once. Give us a sense, first of all, this is typical reporters request what's the worst of the worst? We always want to know the biggest offender. Is it even possible to come up with a worst chemical that you're most concerned about and where would that chemical be found? It is hard to come up with one chemical that you're most concerned about, and I don't want to in any way, steal Linda Reinstein's thunder in talking about asbestos, and that's one of the big bad. There are other chemicals like methylene chloride that we use in paint strippers, when we do DIY projects at home and a lot of us are doing them. There are PFAS chemicals and Tracie made me think of them, because I know she's from Michigan where they've done a lot of work on trying to get out in front of the PFAS crisis that they face in the state of Michigan and now we're understanding that we're all facing a crisis with perfluorinated chemicals known as PFAS. There are chemicals that are in the products that we buy to wash our hair. There is phthalates. They're any number of chemicals, and you're absolutely right Miles that we're surrounded by a toxic brew. It's not like we're exposed to phthalates is on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday asbestos, and then on Thursday it'll be another chemical. We live in a world where we encounter toxic chemicals all the time. In the places where we work, in the places where we send our kids to school, in our homes and outside in the environment. There are a number of chemicals out there. We've put a lot of time into PFAS chemicals because they are a big family of chemicals, that are very persistent and that are affecting our health. But, there are other industrial chemicals like asbestos or a methylene chloride that we spend a lot of time on because if you were going to name worst, at worst. I might name those because because we can control those chemicals and we can control the effects of them if we have the policy will. I work most with the EPA and the US Congress. If we have the policy will to do it, we can actually get out in front of those hazards. Did I have that number right? Is it 800 chemicals, or did I get that number wrong? Well, there's actually 80,000 chemicals that are on the inventory, most of which are in commerce without any health and safety testing ahead of time. You were close? It's 80,000 that you track? Well, there's 80,000 that are supposed to be regulated, that are on the market. There's about 800 that are actively in commerce according to most estimates. The problem is it's hard to know, how many chemicals are out there, what hazards they pose. Because unless scientists like Tracie are doing the testing, are monitoring these, that's how we find out about it. You were absolutely right Miles when you said we learn about and toxic chemical hazards because somebody gets sick, and then they meet somebody else who is sick, and then they recognize there's a pattern. It's a very backward approach to protecting public health from toxic chemicals. Yeah, and especially children. I know that's where your focus is and I think the measure of any society is how much we care for young people, for children. I think as a society are flunking pretty badly on this front. Tell us what are the traditional or maybe more recent ways that children are exposed to toxins in daily life? Sure. Thank you. It's such an honor to be here with all of you. Well, when you first consider the first environment of a young child, it's their mother's womb. What we do know, with the science that has been around for a long time, many decades and continues to emerge and only strengthen, is that reproductive exposure and even what we now know to be exposure of parents well before they even consider having children actually shows up. We know that children sadly are being born pre-polluted, as sad as that is. You already have a running start at the toxic soup range of exposures that we've been talking about. Then of course, the type of food children tend to actually intake more fruits and vegetables, actually intake more water and actually intake higher intervals of air per-minute compared to the average adult. All of those are routes of exposure. The fruits and vegetables that we should be eating all of us, especially the young developing child, if laden with pesticides is a problem, if you're in a home laden with lead, that's a problem, that's a known neural toxic. It irreversibly causes brain damage. It's not a life sentence, but certainly completely preventable. Air pollution and asthma and respiratory issues. There's a range of issues in the built environment where kids spend a lot of their time homes early learning, childcare, schools as well as occupational exposures of those who they are around a lot, their parents, their caregivers. Those exposures, it's very common where folks that are working in a chemical plant sadly, we tell them all the time before you even come home, shower, take off your clothes because I mean all those things as you bring them into your home, can also become problems. Of course, consumer products, kids just by their behavior, they're putting hands in their mouth as they should be there exploring their learning. They're putting little objects in their mouth and sadly again, if those products, which many of them are, are laden with a lot of these known harmful chemicals. That's another way of ingesting those chemicals. Especially we know that there are specific routes of even more high vulnerability and those are the youngest. Their age, their brain, musculoskeletal respiratory systems are all still developing well into toddler years. All of that makes them quite vulnerable. Not that they stop after toddler years, but that those are extreme windows of vulnerability. That's a big challenge to go after that. We did several chemicals and hard to do after how to even prioritize chemicals in context and manufacturers, how do you go about it? Yeah, it's a very good point. We at the Children Romano Health Network, we've been around, you know, almost 30 years as an organization and like I keep saying, we need to be out of business, but we're far from that. We think of again, where are the biggest culprits? We don't look at just mortality, sadly in public health, a lot of times mortality is an indicator of action. We look at what is impacting children the most and of course, as you said in your opening, even in the highest risk of children within the child health population. Those fence line communities, those children in lower-income categories, those children of color that notoriously like we're seeing with the COVID pandemic, sadly are in harm's way, in a much more higher frequency and have less resources, if you will, and less accessibility to make the needed changes that someone else might. Looking at again, ZIP codes, looking at some of the other categories of criteria that we look at when we're looking at health disparities. Sadly, they're the same, they follow the same measurements, they follow the same trends. Pesticide exposures, air pollutants, paints and solvents as large categories, as well as P4's as Liz was talking about and lead, I don't want to forget lead. Lead is the most traditional children's environmental health issue. We've come along way by taking lead out of gasoline and paint, but we should be down to no elevated blood levels and were not. In fact, what we now know is that even the smallest doses of lead. It doesn't have to be this extreme case of exposure, even at small doses children can have long-term health implications. Let's turn it over to Linda, who I am pleased to see again, and also it's bittersweet because I think this is probably about the, I don't know, fifth year in a row, she's participated in the less cancer session. It would be nice if we could put her on a business too and ADL out of business. Linda, I know you've had some steps forward, a few steps back this year. You're still tirelessly going after it, I guess. A little less walking the halls of the congressional office buildings, a little more zooming. But once you just bring us up to date on the tireless, persistent push to ban asbestos in every form. Well, first of all, it's really nice to join you again, and I wish you were all able to give each other hug in person. I don't even see Bill and I put some red lipstick on his cheeks. The last 17 years of my work have been intense, but our work isn't done in a silo. It's done with partners like Liz Hitchcock, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, and American Public Health Association. As the course of the past 17 years, we've built a really great group of allies. We have been able to draft and introduce legislation to ban asbestos, but it's actually more than that, to be honest with you Miles because the average person can't see, taste, touch, or smell the fibers. As we all go outside, maybe to jump in our cars and go to home foods, you're thinking now about, okay, have been asked about our socially distance. These are some of the protective things that we once did with chemicals in the workplace. I think people have a real-life example about the prevalence of toxins in their space. We have a bill introduced, we are so excited on this. Well, it has been a big flag waving great ally was the Allen Weinstein ban asbestos now act for the hundreds of thousands to the Allen's. We've has some landmark steps and we also face some hurdles. We're looking forward to the 117th Congress to push it forward. But at the same time, Miles, I think it's really important and I'm sure all of the women here today would recognize that it's not just legislation to protect public health. You have to have strategies of education, which is what Safer Chemicals does and [inaudible] I'm sure the other ladies as well. But we also have to have a legal strategy, because relying on the EPA to do their job just doesn't work in this environment. Not to blame the Trump administration, but it is hard so we use legal actions to hold agencies accountable to protect public health. It's a tough long battle, and I know you had some help from the courts recently. I don't think everyone, yeah. People amazingly don't fully appreciate how much asbestos is still all around us and still coming into this country from offshore. But you were really up until well, up until this ruling, were unable to get even a handle on how much, one should tell us about the victory and how important that is? Yeah. It was at the end of 2020, which I think we are ages to say audios to. We did get Judge Chin, amen to that one. Judge Chin, a federal judge, actually made a ruling, his opinion was to order the EPA to indeed improve the chemical data reporting, a lot of words coming together, the average person says, what does that mean? Doesn't EPA do their job? Well, Liz Hitchcock knows very well because she actually started this action in 2017, and the EPA admits to the fact that they don't know all the companies that are importing asbestos, they don't know where it's all being used. They don't even know how much asbestos is coming in. This year of 2020, I'm still in the 2020 mode. But we will have imported more raw asbestos like over 200 metric tons than we did in 2019. If the EPA doesn't understand or doesn't want to take it seriously or does industry a friendly rulings, how can they protect you, Miles, and the children, and everywhere else? We are fighting with the courts and Judge Chin agreed that the EPA needs to do a better job, having companies report chemicals, and we're very excited to put pressure on those companies. I think it's a win-win when there is transparency, accountability, and responsibility, we can vote with our dollars, we can vote at the ballot box. But at least we know, right now it's just the wild west with the 800,000 chemicals unless you're able to test like lead. That's where we are, and I'm looking forward to 2021. Well, I know a lot of the asbestos comes from Russia. I wonder if you think that change of administration and the shift of power and Congress if that might be different now? Yeah, you're right, I think it could be. I mean, Russia is the biggest country that mines asbestos, they actually, unbelievable it is, they actually created a logo with President Trump's face on this as proved by Donald J. Trump for he is a president. There has been a relationship of bad business practices in my opinion, I don't think Biden CPA will tolerate that. But there is so much money exchange with Ross bestest. Then the other side of it is when you identify a company that's been importing, then frequently there's a liability. Issue. They'll be drawn into court like JNJ, who hasn't heard about as fastest in JNJ products? We want to move from those court rooms or suing companies, to where we're advancing regulatory action to encourage chemical data reporting and make that a functioning rule for the EPA. Tracie, Let's back up a little bit. Because I think, we're jumping on a moving train a little bit here on the subject of cancer and its causes. What is the latest science, on how much cancer that we see has a genetic base, and how much of it is preventable, and caused by environmental factors. Yeah, I mean, I think there's many scientists including myself that don't really separate that out as much. It's almost like you need both, so we know in a number of cancers, like breast cancer and pancreatic cancer, we know the BRCA gene mutation is important. But not everyone that has that mutation ends up with cancer. We think that there's a second insult or second hit. That's where I mean, I feel environmental chemicals come in. You almost need both of these things that are basically causing the cancer. I mean, we do know that chemicals can cause genetic changes. There's definitely some genetic changes in gene expression changes that we see. But it almost seems like they're working hand in hand. Further complicated indicating your task. Right? Yeah, we'd like to silo everything off. It's either one or the other. It's not hard. Right. Yeah. I think it's complicated, but I do think that, as environmental chemicals are increasing. We're definitely seeing an increase in disease, and increase in infertility and a number of other diseases. I know you're looking at the water right around you in Detroit. What do you find in there, and what's your concern? Well, I mean, like Liz mentioned, I mean, we have seen a number of Pfas chemicals thoughts. One of the things that we're focusing on, we looked in the water in the sediment, and these are source waters for drinking and fish. We have a lot of subsistence fishers here in Detroit. The Pfas has been one of the most, I guess, alarming and concerning than the amounts that we're seeing. Then also the numbers of Pfas. We know that there's over 5,000 of them, but we can only really look at about 20 or 21. Trying to increase our ability to look for more of these chemicals, to be able to analyze these chemicals. Then also to look at the health effects of them by themselves and mixtures. It is particular challenge. Especially as another example, there are all kinds of varieties with especially as Pfas and then there's new formulations. As a scientist, how can you possibly keep up with all that. There isn't enough funding to study all of it. Can you study it as a group, as a classification and come up with valid science for the whole body? Or do you have to go down the list of every kind of Pfas formulation it is. Yeah, I mean, as much as we can, we try to group them. They are different, but I know with Pfas in particular, trying to take them and put them into classes and try to have one of the chemicals stand for the class. But, eventually we are going to see differences, and have to look more specifically, but there're a number of chemicals just trying to look at long-chain versus short chain, whether they have more fluorines or chlorines, that kind of thing. It's a big challenge. It goes back to this idea, of course in Europe they have a precautionary approach for all environmental chemicals that would make it a lot easier. Right? Is that the burden of proof is flipped around. Yeah. It's unfortunate that that's not how it is done here. There, they have to basically go through testing similar to pharmaceuticals, and so they're able to stop some of these chemicals before they get to the market. Liz, it's been an interesting four years for advocates on environmental issues to say the least. If you wanted to come up with a hustle take on it, you could say, well, this has energized a lot of people at a grassroots level. It's mobilized the states in ways that they weren't mobilized previously, and it's prompted a lot of advocates to go directly to the makers of these chemicals, the corporations. Is that a good outcome of the past four years in some respects? It's an outcome of the last four years. One of the things that becomes more and more apparent in dealing with chemical policy is that really you have to do it all. You have the states, can act more quickly and are good laboratories of change and democracy. State legislatures in the absence of federal activity have stepped forward, particularly on PFAS chemicals but on other chemicals as well. We've done a lot of work on the federal side, Linda mentioned a couple of actions in the courts that we've taken. We've also done a lot of work in the marketplace where consumers have staked out their side of the cash register to say, "We don't want a product that contains salice, that contains PFAS, that contains methylene chloride." We've been able to make change in the marketplace that will help us to drive change in the states, instead of legislatures, in the federal government, in the international marketplace. Consumers have gone to places like Sweetgreen or McDonald's and we've tested to find the presence of toxic PFAS in the food containers and have published reports saying, "This is out there." Some of the fast-food, I'm not supposed to say fast-food, but some of these places have recognized that this is not a chemical that their consumers want and they have voluntarily agreed to no longer use PFAS chemicals in their products. That's a big victory and its a victory that comes from the person on the other side of the cash registers saying, "We don't want this and you shouldn't be giving us products that contain this chemical." Those are good victories and we hope that they will drive even bigger victories so that we get some of these chemicals out of the marketplace entirely. So crucial though, this is consumer awareness. If people can vote with their pocketbooks and their feet and make decisions on what they want to purchase, these companies will in fact listen. But again, that goes back to what I stating in the beginning. That helps out people like me who can choose to go to Whole Foods and pick a carton that I know doesn't have PFAS et cetera. There are a lot of people in this country who don't have options, so is mobilizing them one of your priorities? It is one of the priorities. I think there's also the point to be made that we can win in some places and we can convince some retailers to no longer use chemicals. But you're absolutely right that we don't all have the benefit of choice or the privilege of choice and that's why we work with state legislators, we work with the federal government because we can't all vote with our pocketbook and vote with our feet and a voluntary agreement from one retailer is not the same as a blanket ban on a chemical like asbestos or PFAS in Foodware. I guess it's safe to say if it's bad for business, they won't do it. It's pretty straightforward, isn't it? That's the hope in the campaign. Nse, let's talk about the Cancer Free Economy Network. Now, I know that's taking a broad holistic approach and a big part of that is making sure that people do understand this absence of regulation, which I think people presume is there. I think we all think there are regulations making these products safe for us and they aren't there. How do you go about making people aware of that and moving the needle on that front? Yeah, it's a really good point, thank you. For about seven years now there's been this, I call it dynamic collaborative because we took a multi-year process to analyze the system, if you will. That real intent of breaking down these silos and looking at the system that's created the economy that our economy currently depends on, which is the production and use of hazardous chemicals. As we've been talking, it's not exactly sadly, just an easy switch of the light switch, turn it on, turn it off. There's a whole level of people's jobs, Just Transition is a big part of our work. Taking, for example, the tobacco example, how do you now move the skill set? How do you move the support network? How do you move the confidence of a certain set of industry, of people that are relying on these industries? That's a whole category in addition to the unethical practices of them producing these harmful chemicals. We have a whole section on, we call it building power and of course there's a whole section on health and science which I'm a leader in. So the basis of the foundation of the growing amount of science. There's actually a growing amount of science that relates to preventing long-term illness, preventing cancer. You just don't hear about it that much. Our definition of prevention is a little different than sometimes how you may hear, even in some of the more larger cancer serving organizations. Lifestyle is of course important, behavior is of course important, but it's not the only end to this. You can do all the right things and unfortunately, as we, I'm sure all know too well. Also have a diagnosis or know someone that you love that has a diagnosis with a form of cancer. That then brings in some of these other elements that we're discussing. The science is critical, to this it's there we're not making it up we're trying to leverage it, and make sure that other groups that have incredible influential platforms are also seeing that benefit to their work and their education, and then the building power part, the market shift, the power of our consumerism. There's a lot of consumerism and people generally do need to still eat and have basic provisions, as we've been talking about some have that decision to make specific choices and many do not. While we're trying to advance and educate those that have the means to join us and add their voice to this preventive messaging, what else can we be doing with the existing networks, environmental justice networks, community-based participatory work that usually are scrapping along and they need more leveraged, they need more capacity, more voice, they're doing all the right things, they just don't have the national platform. A network like ours can raise the power of evidence of small steps actually making huge returns. The power of the voice, the power of people, we've seen this happen. Baby bottle manufacturers changed their whole route of how they do things and taking BPA out of baby bottles due to the pressure from the general public. We can do this, it takes organizing and it takes commitment, and it takes, capacity. They're not monumental, if you will as far as it's not like this hasn't been done. The monumental part of it is the uniqueness of the people at the table, including the economic, sustainable business people at the table. Because to your point, they get the fact that you can actually promote health and have a sustainable business at the same time. So they're also using their power to not guilt, encourage whatever you might be for their fellow colleagues out there to do the right thing, because as we've been saying, the growing public out here understands what they want and what they do not want. Hopefully we'll get to the tipping point of where majority of the general public won't even look for these type of things and hopefully it won't even be an option on our markets in the first place. I used to say, and I think it's still largely true, but I know you're trying to change this but there's no profit and prevention. But what you're talking about is turning that on its head a little bit and using the economic force of making decisions like this but it's a long road to do that, isn't it? It's a very long road and it can get frustrating. For those of us that have been in this for many decades, I'm one of those, I just want things to happen. There's a lot of logic to this. In my field, If you can't protect your current and next generations, then what is this experiment called life, what are we doing? I think it is unfortunate at times where just the basic health and welfare of our public health seems to not be enough for those that are polluting our environment to do the right thing. That's when we have to bring in legal and in other strategies but we have to do it what we have to do and it is still amazing to me that in some cases, this education has not necessarily gotten all the way to the top. In some regards, I never make any assumptions about who we're meeting with. You'd want to believe that by now 2021 people should understand the level of pollution that certain industries are contributing, whether it's denial or whatever it is. There's a lot of education and connectivity to go around and there's still a lot of need for our partnerships. We can't all do this by our self. The more that we can join with behavior scientists and psychologists and economists who can quantify the importance of what we're doing here. We don't want to wait for that data but it really becomes a winning battle completely on our side, I mean how can you counter any of that? Linda it reminds me of the stories which you've told me many times about asbestos in kids make up kids, which is stunning when hat happens. But that awareness of a problem like that does change things, doesn't it? Absolutely. Understanding the jurisdictional issues like FDA has total control over cosmetics, and they're a little faster to test the new EPA stodgy like the Titanic. But the understanding jurisdictional issues also helps us, but no one expects asbestos to be in crayons, their kids school, still on consumer shelves, or in your workplace. We trust that our air, water, and soil is free of contaminants and that's incorrect. Working at ground level to prune educational efforts has really helped us to work with Unions and Public Health Leaders to really understand that if you can prevent exposure, you can eliminate disease, so we break it down in very small chunks like that, and lawmakers get it. They see asbestos as like the gift that keeps on giving so to ban it, to study legacy, and to improve chemical data reporting, are three elements that will really embrace better health. Environmental justice is huge and climate change issues forces communities to be exposed, again, when structures either need repair or implode. Asbestos is really a toxin that there is no place for that in Congress or in our built environment. I know one of the big frustrations, actually with all these chemicals, asbestos too is that the long incubation or latency period between exposure and mesothelioma or some manifestation, critical manifestation, which just makes it so much more difficult because the water can always be muddied by corporate interest. You've got Tracie here. What more do you need from scientists? There's only so much they can do to connect the dots, right? Well, yes, we have the science. We know it's a carcinogen but if we had better data, that's actually what drives policy for us. It's sad the mortality data that isn't exactly what we want to hang onto. Miles, you're right about the science of data. I would love to be able to have a post conversation with all of these women and figure out what's our next step with less cancer because we can do that. Tracie, is it frustrating for you? I mean, is trying to connect the dots of these exposures to these diseases is very difficult. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely difficult, especially when you're looking at epidemiological or human populations, which is one of the reasons why animal models are needed. But it's just being able to see even in the zebrafish, we've found that the next generation exposure of lead and dioxin have caused effects to generations later. Plastics like microplastics are still causing issues even and PFAS as well, we've seen even the next generation are causing effects. I mean, these are important issues that aren't going away that we really need to be looking at. I think one thing we can all agree on here is more people need to know about this. This is really where less cancer began for Bill in recognizing a personal loss he had, and exposure to pesticides and how that is taken for granted. Bill, that was what? 20 years ago now, how long has it been? Miles and I grew up in an area where on my block alone out of maybe 10 homes, eight of the mothers had passed away from cancer. I wasn't even in high school. I was going to friends houses and not eating cookies in their kitchen, but actually visiting with maybe their mother's nurse or home health care worker. It's been a lifelong process for me. But one of the things I'd like to share as we close out in my process of learning is listening is so much a part of what we're doing because people's priorities are different. I remember speaking at a round table in Detroit, Michigan with a woman that was dealing with homelessness and we were talking about nutrition and meals, and she happen to tell me she ate the pop ice across the street. I was like, "What's up with that? She said, "You know Bill, I just want to produce something that's normal. I just want my kids to experience a normal experience." To me, it was so shocking to hear that our priorities, hers were not worse than mine, they were just so different. It's been super helpful in really listening to diverse populations and really understanding what's important to them. How to communicate some of these issues. All of these people here today had been heroes in doing that. That's a big piece of it. It's a big piece of really understanding if you're sharing the community's priorities. We're not always on the same page. This today and what you've done Miles has been incredibly helpful not only to the health care providers that will be using this platform but to the general public. I'm super grateful to everybody here today. Well, it was a great opportunity and a propitious moment. They always say it's darkest before the dawn and I think we can all agree we've been going through that. So let's hope for better times as our leaders, our policymakers become more engaged on these issues which is so important and so often overlooked or corrupted by profit. That's why created less cancer and that's why should we should all do everything we can to keep doing what we're doing. And say, Linda, Tracie, Liz, keep going out within the trenches. We're cheering you on, anything we can do to help you let us know, and thank you all for joining us today.
