The Downstream Impact of ignoring Environmental Health

The Downstream Impact of ignoring Environmental Health

“Most of the diseases that we experience are not inevitable,” says Bruce Lanphear, MD. “They’re preventable.” Lanphear is a clinician scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute, BC Children’s Hospital, and a professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He’s spent the majority of his career exploring how environmental factors like toxic chemicals, pollutants, and contaminants can impact our health. Today, he explains the challenges of proving causation, the ways industries dodge responsibility, and why health care policy and research funding often don’t reflect the needs and priorities of doctors and patients. (While there’s plenty of evidence showing that most diseases are preventable, the US spends only 4 percent of funding on upstream preventive measures.) Lanphear breaks down where we’re most vulnerable and what we can do about it. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.)