activistpost.com
"Could you please make sure the eggs aren't runny? I'm pregnant."
At their first prenatal appointment, pregnant women are doled out a list of NO's including deli meats, fish, and unpasteurized cheese. There is a growing awareness of the fact that this list may be dangerously NON EXHAUSTIVE (and largely misguided, especially when it comes to unpasteurized dairy and eggs).
Even a recent, bold pronouncement by the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, attempted to sound the alarm about chemical exposures with recommendations for "unproven" but potentially harmful exposures. They describe the importance of considering chemicals in personal care products, over-the-counter medications and supplements, metals and industrial pollutants in fish, and pesticides. However, they dilute their message by making statements such as "Realistically, pesticides are so rigorously regulated that human exposure via food residues is usually minimal, even in non–organic products."
Unfortunately, the concept of "dose makes the poison" is no longer operative in a world of multiple, synergistic chemical exposures, the toxicity of which appears to be contingent upon each individual's endocrine and immune system.
The limitations of human resilience are revealed in the vulnerability of a growing fetus. A mystically orchestrated process, conception, embryogenesies, and the interplay of an incalculably vast number of variables defies our ability to comprehend how these "instructions" could be folded into two cells, the egg and the sperm.
The study of epigenetics, or the environmental influence on genetic expression, has given us a keyhole look into this vast room of fetal development. We have learned that availability of nutrients, presence of stress hormones, and even beneficial bacteria all contribute to optimal expression of fetal genes. This expression is relevant not just for the proper growth of fingers and toes, but for the long-term health of the offspring. This concept is called the fetal origins of adult disease, and has helped to elucidate the early underpinnings of chronic diseases like cancer and obesity. To date, toxicologists are ill-equipped to assess for these long-term epigenetic effects, but animal studies are revealing transgenerational inheritance of pesticide-induced defects.