Is your family 有毒な?

Like most people, James Ferguson never worried about 化学製品s in his 団体／死体, until he became a dad. Then, he and his wife were 実験（する）d for toxins, with alarming results.

My wife was いっそう少なく than impressed when I first put it to her.

"Now let me get this straight," she said. "I've been a mother for 正確に／まさに a month - and you want me to take a pesticides 実験（する）?"

"It won't take long," I told her. "Consider it an 演習 in 安心. It's in the 利益／興味s of science.

"And when it's over, you'll know your breast milk is pure for Amelia."

"Oh God, my breast milk. Do I have to?" "Of course not. But if you don't you'll never be sure, will you?"

My 関心 about pesticides was new. A writer by 貿易（する）, I had been happily scoffing instant supermarket meals only a year earlier.

It had been 誘発する／引き起こすd by 研究 into the life of a 大部分は forgotten food scientist: Jack Drummond, architect of the remarkably successful World War II rationing.

At the end of the war, we British were healthier than we'd ever been. What, I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to know, had gone wrong?

Why, just 60 years later, are we in the 支配する of an obesity 疫病／流行性の, eating junk food and, I'd just discovered, food riddled with 有毒な 化学製品s?

Only recently, for instance, Professor Ronald 攻撃する，衝突するs of Indiana University produced a 報告（する）／憶測 showing that farmed salmon 含む／封じ込めるd higher levels of 14 banned agrochemicals than salmon caught in the wild.

Several of my supermarket meals had been 孤立した when they'd been 設立する to 含む／封じ込める a red dye called Sudan I that had been linked to 癌.

普通は 設立する in solvents, 石油 and shoe polish, it had 汚染するd a （製品，工事材料の）一回分 of chilli 砕く.

Some scientists 非難するd 化学製品 changes in the Western diet for a 劇の 増加する in a 範囲 of maladies such as Chronic 疲労，（軍の）雑役 Syndrome, hormone-関係のある 不均衡s, mental illness and even 喘息 and eczema in children.

Some also 非難するd 化学製品s for the 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の 拒絶する／低下する in Western male fertility in the past 20 years.

While my fertility had 明白に 生き残るd 無傷の - the birth of Amelia 確認するd that - I was becoming ますます worried about what the 化学製品 汚染 of our world was doing to my wife Melissa and her breast milk.

"Organochlorine" pesticides - the sort 設立する in salmon - get 蓄える／店d in human 団体／死体 fat and are hard to get rid of. One of the few ways of 紅潮／摘発するing them out faster is by breast-feeding.

But this was bad news for Amelia, because a breast-fed, first-born child could 推定する／予想する to swallow up to 30 per cent of her mum's 化学製品 負担.

We had the 実験（する） done at a place called Biolab, just off Harley Street in London.

There, we saw Dr McLaren-Howard whose 資格 was from the American College of 栄養, an 会・原則 I had never heard of.

But any 疑惑s were 静めるd when I met him. He was 明確に no quack. "It's hard to say how bad a given organochlorine is for a person," he told me.

"No one really knows, because different molecular structures will 貯蔵所d with different organochlorines in different ways. 有毒性 depends on an individual's デオキシリボ核酸."

We received the results a few days later. I 設立する myself 涙／ほころびing open my envelope as impatiently as a schoolboy who has just been 地位，任命するd his exam results.

The upper 限界 for Lindane (a pesticide, now banned) was 0.05 mg per kg of fat. My fat, I was horrified to see, 含む／封じ込めるd three times that 人物／姿／数字: 0.15 mg.

Alone の中で the 実験（する） 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of 化学製品s, Lindane carried a footnote that read: "May be 危険な at ANY level."

My 利益／興味 in pesticides 毒（薬）ing had just turned unpl easantly personal.

It didn't stop there. My 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）ing for Pentachlorophenol, a fungicide once 広範囲にわたって used as a 支持を得ようと努めるd preservative (but banned after it was linked to 肝臓 and 腎臓 損失), was 50 per cent over the 限界 of acceptability.

As for "PBB (BDE) 炎上-retardants", I could hardly 耐える to look: 0.22 mg per kg, against a 限界 of acceptability of 0.05 mg.

I also 含む／封じ込めるd 意味ありげに high levels of a blizzard of yet more acronyms - DDT, DDE, HCB, PCBs, p-Dichlorobenzene, Dieldrin and Chlordane.

The 実験（する） was a 確定／確認 of all the scary 統計（学）: I was a walking 研究室／実験室 crucible.

Melissa's results arrived after 地雷. It appeared that she, too, 含む／封じ込めるd too many 炎上-retardants: 0.14 mg per kg compared to the 限界 of 0.05.

Yet 全体にわたる her 団体／死体 was inexplicably purer than 地雷. There were traces of most of the same 化学製品s, 含むing Lindane, although in each 事例／患者 the levels were いっそう少なく.

A second page was 献身的な to Melissa's breast milk. All the same 化学製品s were 現在の. As 推定する／予想するd, the levels here were lower still, but it was still the most depressing page to read.

Our newborn baby's diet 含む／封じ込めるd DDT, DDD, DDE, HCB, PCBs, PBB (BDE) flameretardants, p-Dichlorobenzene, Carbaryl, Chlordane and, of course, Lindane.

Yet some of these 化学製品s, DDT の中で them, had been banned in Britain for at least two １０年間s.

"Oh God," said Melissa, hiding her 直面する in her 手渡すs. "I think I've just killed our baby."

This すぐに 現在のd us with a new 窮地: Should Amelia be breast-fed? The maternity nurse, however, was in no 疑問.

"研究 has shown that breastfed babies are いっそう少なく likely to become overweight and have a lower 危険 of developing heart 病気 in later life," she said, skewering me with a disapproving 注目する，もくろむ.

"I 約束 you: "reast is best."

This was the 政策 of the World Health Organisation, word for word, but I wonder now if it's honest.

It certainly has the 影響 of covering up the problem. Surely if nearly all mothers' breast milk is 汚染するd, it doesn't deserve such a superlative description.

"Breast is probably better" would have been more honest, if いっそう少なく punchy. Or even "Breast may be the lesser of two evils".

Melissa and I were intelligent parents who could decide for ourselves. What 権利 did the 世界保健機構 have to dictate to us? In the end, though, we decided she should continue to breastfeed.

一方／合間, I was 追求するing my new-設立する personal 利益／興味 in Lindane. What 正確に／まさに was it and how had I been so ひどく exposed?

Searching on the internet 明らかにする／漏らすd that it was one of the earliest organochlorines (pesticides that 含む／封じ込める chlorine) developed, like DDT, during World War II but far more lethal to insects and more 有毒な to humans.

It was 汚い stuff. １０年間s of 研究 had shown that it was linked to a host of serious health problems: Neurological disorders, 肝臓 and 腎臓 損失, and most 堅固に with breast 癌. Even so, it was still 存在 広範囲にわたって used in Britain until 1999.

Rather more digging was 要求するd to find the source of my own 汚染.

結局 I traced it to the summer of 1984, when I was 17 and I had spent two weeks helping my Uncle 道具 to bring in the 収穫 on his farm in Furneaux Pelham in Hertfordshire.

Each morning I had clapped on a pair of yellow ear muffs and climbed into the cab of a five-トン tractor-trailer combination collecting a stream of golden corn from the 連合させる harvester.

When the trailer was 十分な, I 牽引するd it to the dryer, two miles up the road and stood around while it was 負担d into the silo.

"We used to dress the 穀物 with Lindane to kill weevil," Uncle 道具 解任するd. "It was a white 砕く that we used to chuck in the 最高の，を越す of the silo. The dust used to go everywhere."

I'd be standing by the 底（に届く） of that silo, smoking rollups in a cloud of that dust.

"That's all very 利益／興味ing," said Melissa, breast-feeding the baby. "But what I want to know is: how do I get rid of it?"

BIOLAB, I told her, had advised using an infrared sauna because it mimics the energy emitted 自然に by the 団体／死体, so the heat gets deeper into your fat 独房s than a 従来の sauna and the toxins are sweated out on the 肌.

You have to scrub yourself in the にわか雨 afterwards, though, or the toxins are reabsorbed.

現実に finding an infrared sauna wasn't 平易な. 結局 a call to the 供給者s of a system called Physiotherm 明らかにする／漏らすd that there was only one in the entire city - at the Halo Wellbeing Centre in Farringdon.

A 45-minute 開会／開廷／会期 would cost £20. Melissa and I 調書をとる／予約するd in.

The Physiotherm, an enclosed 木造の box with seating for two, hummed gently in the corner, blue light 流出／こぼすd through its glass door.

"Blue is associated with spiritual 認識／意識性," purred the receptionist, "but you can choose a different colour therapy if you want."

We stripped, giggling as we squeezed in. The experience might have been erotic, except that within ten minutes we were flinching uncomfortably in the energy that pulsed from the heater 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s, and sweating ひどく.

"This," said Melissa, "is 正確に／まさに like sitting in a microwave oven."

"Don't worry," I replied. "It says here that there's no danger of 現実に cooking. Listen to this."

With the help of a 宣伝の 小冊子 選ぶd up at the 入り口, I began to explain how the wavelength of the rays emanating from the machine was 始める，決める to mimic the natural infrared heat 生成するd by the human 団体／死体.

"Thanks to something called resonant absorption," I went on enthusiastically, "fat 分子s and clusters of contaminants in the 団体／死体 vibrate until they break up into 粒子s small enough to pass out as sweat through the 独房 membranes.

"科学の 分析 shows that infrared-in duced sweat 含む／封じ込めるs five to six times more toxins and impurities than normal sweat. Isn't this 広大な／多数の／重要な? I'm sweltering."

"James. Your nose is bleeding." I looked 負かす／撃墜する to see that the salty 激流 注ぐing from my 団体／死体 had indeed turned the most surprising shade of crimson.

"Quick," I said, trying to 信頼できる the flow with a pristine white towel, "turn the light switch to red so that the 血 doesn't show."

Today, we both have rather いっそう少なく Lindane and the 残り／休憩（する） of the 有毒な cocktail lurking inside us than before.

But in a sane world, getting rid of toxins would be a 優先 and infrared sauna 開会／開廷／会期s would be 利用できる on the 国家の Health Service.

? 抽出するd from The ビタミン 殺人s: Who Killed Healthy Eating in Britain, by James Ferguson, published by 大西洋 調書をとる／予約するs at £12.99. To order a copy 解放する／自由な, call 0870 161 0870.