Just inches from the tires of my minivan, a tiny white flag sprouts from the grass between the parking lot and the fence. I nearly miss it as I throw the vehicle into park and open the door simultaneously, hustling my three sons from the van and collecting chairs, coats, blankets, umbrellas and all the other necessary paraphernalia for enduring an hour-long kindergarten soccer match in the cold Michigan rain. The boys rush ahead of me. “Make sure you have jackets and water bottles!” I shout to deaf ears and then pause at my trunk, arms full, to watch them trot to the field, three blonde heads bobbing above the hoods of parked cars. Looking over the field, I can see Lake Michigan at a distance, stretching to the sky with no clear line of horizon to divide its cold waters from the cold mist that now blows in on the throngs of parents and pint-sized soccer players milling about the wide expanse of grass, maintained by our city and divided into four small playing fields.
Taking a few steps toward the field with my head down, suddenly there it is. The little white flag printed with the stick figures of an adult and child holding hands with a small stick-figure dog at their heels. A circle with a slash through it obliterates their happy trio and the warning “CAUTION. PESTICIDE APPLICATION. STAY OFF UNTIL DRY,” clearly states the flag’s purpose. This tiny emblem that dots my neighborhood and town is an ordinary site; yet my reaction on this day is not ordinary. My face flushes, and I clench my teeth. With a sudden surge of furious energy, I feel like the Hulk, capable of tearing the fence from the ground and zinging cars into a pile with a satisfying crunch, my green muscles threatening to break free of my jeans and sweater.
“Why in the heck do we need to treat a children’s play field with synthetic chemicals? What for heaven’s sake is wrong with weeds on a soccer field?”
Seething and loaded like a pack mule, I walk to the field, shoes wet from the rain, the hood of my jacket swishing against my ears. Unwittingly, a fellow soccer mom joins me in my gimpy stride, and bravely listens as I unleash my Hulk rage. “Did you know they spray this field with chemicals? I just saw a white flag. What the heck! Can’t our kids enjoy an otherwise healthy activity without being exposed to carcinogens!” My friend accompanies me in stunned silence as I unload my anger and begin to feel my heartbeat slow to the pace of my gait. “Does she share my indignation?” I wonder.
Most Americans think nothing of spraying their lawns with herbicides and pesticides. According to McKay Jenkins in “What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World,” Americans spend $40 billion a year in lawn care, and estimates of the number of American households using pesticides run as high as 82% (171). I remember as a new homeowner running my little green hopper of weed-and-feed across my tiny plot of grass, ridding my lawn of weeds. I felt better knowing my lawn would appear “tidy” and not sully the neighbors’ yards with loose dandelion seeds.
I had never heard of 2 4-D, developed during World War II to destroy enemy’s crops. A constituent of the notorious Agent Orange, 2 4-D is the most extensively used herbicide in the history of the world. It does not require a license to use, and therefore, is present in many “weed and feed” products and has been presented by the lawn care industry as perfectly harmless and safe for civilian use (Jenkins 168-169).
As I flung weed-and-feed throughout my children’s outdoor play area, I did not know that a growing body of research had linked it to a variety of cancers, that a study in Kansas found that farmers exposed to 2 4-D for twenty or more days a year were six times more likely to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, that another study by the National Cancer Institute found that dogs were twice as likely to develop lymphoma if their owners used 2, 4-D on their lawns, that in Los Angeles, pediatric cancers were linked to parental exposure to pesticides during pregnancy, and that in Denver, children whose yards were treated with pesticides were four times more likely to have soft-tissue cancers than kids whose yards were not (Jenkins 182).
It wasn’t until 2004 when my son, Drew’s, pediatric urologist claimed that Drew’s birth defect was caused by some unknown environmental exposure during my pregnancy that I began to consider the impact of toxins on my family. Then, in 2006 when my husband was diagnosed at 33 with an environmental cancer with no known genetic link, I ceased the annual weed-and-feed treatment of my yard.
Now, unfolding my canvas chair in the squishy grass oozing with mud, I watch as my youngest son, Ben throws himself about the field with joyful abandon. Ben loves to run; he loves to kick, but more than anything Ben loves to throw himself in the grass. After a hard kick or a fast break, he rolls about on the ground. From the sidelines, I wonder what other ingredients are added to the soup of grass and mud that smear Ben’s clothes and skin. Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental toxins because of their small size, their inability to fully detoxify and excrete chemicals from their bodies, the porous nature of their blood-brain barrier and their underdeveloped mechanisms for repairing damage due to toxic exposures (President’s 5). Scrambling up from the grass, Ben flashes me a wide grin, top tooth missing. “Did you see me?” his face says. His golden hair is wet with sweat and rain, mud streaks his full cheeks. I sigh, knowing I can’t let this issue slide.
Works Cited
Jenkins, McKay. (2011). What’s Gotten Into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World. New York: Random House.
President's Cancer Panel 2008-2009 Annual Report: Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now. National Cancer Institute.
https://cissecure.nci.nih.gov/ncipubs/detail.aspx?prodid=P227
Taking a few steps toward the field with my head down, suddenly there it is. The little white flag printed with the stick figures of an adult and child holding hands with a small stick-figure dog at their heels. A circle with a slash through it obliterates their happy trio and the warning “CAUTION. PESTICIDE APPLICATION. STAY OFF UNTIL DRY,” clearly states the flag’s purpose. This tiny emblem that dots my neighborhood and town is an ordinary site; yet my reaction on this day is not ordinary. My face flushes, and I clench my teeth. With a sudden surge of furious energy, I feel like the Hulk, capable of tearing the fence from the ground and zinging cars into a pile with a satisfying crunch, my green muscles threatening to break free of my jeans and sweater.
“Why in the heck do we need to treat a children’s play field with synthetic chemicals? What for heaven’s sake is wrong with weeds on a soccer field?”
Seething and loaded like a pack mule, I walk to the field, shoes wet from the rain, the hood of my jacket swishing against my ears. Unwittingly, a fellow soccer mom joins me in my gimpy stride, and bravely listens as I unleash my Hulk rage. “Did you know they spray this field with chemicals? I just saw a white flag. What the heck! Can’t our kids enjoy an otherwise healthy activity without being exposed to carcinogens!” My friend accompanies me in stunned silence as I unload my anger and begin to feel my heartbeat slow to the pace of my gait. “Does she share my indignation?” I wonder.
Most Americans think nothing of spraying their lawns with herbicides and pesticides. According to McKay Jenkins in “What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World,” Americans spend $40 billion a year in lawn care, and estimates of the number of American households using pesticides run as high as 82% (171). I remember as a new homeowner running my little green hopper of weed-and-feed across my tiny plot of grass, ridding my lawn of weeds. I felt better knowing my lawn would appear “tidy” and not sully the neighbors’ yards with loose dandelion seeds.
I had never heard of 2 4-D, developed during World War II to destroy enemy’s crops. A constituent of the notorious Agent Orange, 2 4-D is the most extensively used herbicide in the history of the world. It does not require a license to use, and therefore, is present in many “weed and feed” products and has been presented by the lawn care industry as perfectly harmless and safe for civilian use (Jenkins 168-169).
As I flung weed-and-feed throughout my children’s outdoor play area, I did not know that a growing body of research had linked it to a variety of cancers, that a study in Kansas found that farmers exposed to 2 4-D for twenty or more days a year were six times more likely to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, that another study by the National Cancer Institute found that dogs were twice as likely to develop lymphoma if their owners used 2, 4-D on their lawns, that in Los Angeles, pediatric cancers were linked to parental exposure to pesticides during pregnancy, and that in Denver, children whose yards were treated with pesticides were four times more likely to have soft-tissue cancers than kids whose yards were not (Jenkins 182).
It wasn’t until 2004 when my son, Drew’s, pediatric urologist claimed that Drew’s birth defect was caused by some unknown environmental exposure during my pregnancy that I began to consider the impact of toxins on my family. Then, in 2006 when my husband was diagnosed at 33 with an environmental cancer with no known genetic link, I ceased the annual weed-and-feed treatment of my yard.
Now, unfolding my canvas chair in the squishy grass oozing with mud, I watch as my youngest son, Ben throws himself about the field with joyful abandon. Ben loves to run; he loves to kick, but more than anything Ben loves to throw himself in the grass. After a hard kick or a fast break, he rolls about on the ground. From the sidelines, I wonder what other ingredients are added to the soup of grass and mud that smear Ben’s clothes and skin. Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental toxins because of their small size, their inability to fully detoxify and excrete chemicals from their bodies, the porous nature of their blood-brain barrier and their underdeveloped mechanisms for repairing damage due to toxic exposures (President’s 5). Scrambling up from the grass, Ben flashes me a wide grin, top tooth missing. “Did you see me?” his face says. His golden hair is wet with sweat and rain, mud streaks his full cheeks. I sigh, knowing I can’t let this issue slide.
Works Cited
Jenkins, McKay. (2011). What’s Gotten Into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World. New York: Random House.
President's Cancer Panel 2008-2009 Annual Report: Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now. National Cancer Institute.
https://cissecure.nci.nih.gov/ncipubs/detail.aspx?prodid=P227
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