Is there anything we can do as individuals and as a nation to halt this epidemic – or at least lower the stakes for future generations? One step I’d propose is to take a page from European environmental policy, which uses the precautionary principle — an approach to public health that underscores preventing harm to human health before it happens. In June 2007, the European Union implemented legislation known as REACH (the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical Substances). REACH requires chemical and industrial companies to develop safety data on 30,000 chemicals over the next decade, and places responsibility on the chemical industry to demonstrate the safety of their products. By contrast, in the U.S., chemical companies are not required to do any testing to ensure chemicals do not harm the immune system. Chemicals are presumed innocent – unless scientists can prove otherwise, which can take decades and can only be done if there is a source for funding.
It would also be helpful to raise more public awareness about the problem by giving the environmental triggers of autoimmune disease a name. Despite all this mounting evidence, there still exists no word comparable to “carcinogens” in our cultural lexicon to describe the notion that environmental chemicals might be linked to autoimmunity. The term “autogen,” I believe, would prove useful to refer to the toxins, viruses, and every day chemicals we know can play a role in triggering autoimmune disease.
The National Institutes of Health recently stated that investigations of exposures to chemicals as triggers for autoimmune disease are now of “considerable research interest.” That may be true, but they have yet to show researchers the money. With 24 million Americans – and one in nine women – suffering from autoimmunity, the NIH allocates only $591 million dollars for autoimmune disease research each year. Contrast that with the $5 billion annual budget for cancer, which afflicts 9 million Americans. The NIH budget for cardiovascular disease – which affects 22 million Americans – is four times that of autoimmune diseases. We have waited too long for Congress to allocate funding to find out what toxic exposures, or combination of exposures, can cause our immune systems to turn against us. Congress needs to do better.
