Pollution

Synopsis

One of the most troubling aspects of pollution in this age is its pervasiveness--there are few places left where a person or an animal can live without being exposed to pollution. Toxic substances travel great distances through the air, and many of these substances eventually fall from the atmosphere onto growing crops and open waters. Meat and milk-producing animals ingest pollutants, produce growers spray large amounts of toxic pesticides onto food intended for people's dinner tables, and both animals and humans ingest small amounts of unhealthy compounds in water. Scientists now detect an array of toxic compounds--or compounds that harm the body--in the blood and tissue of almost every person from whom they collect a sample.