I was getting so disappointed with HBO I was actually thinking about cancelling. Boardwalk Empire started out okay, only I can’t imagine why they didn’t tell the real story of Nucky Johnson’s war with William Randolph Hearst. Now that show has jumped the shark so many times I’ve lost interest. But yesterday I was surfing the documentaries and came across the newly released Toxic Hot Seat.
This is truly an eye-opening revelation. Did you know most house fires are started by cigarettes? The cigarette companies actually had to put chemicals in their products to keep them burning constantly like that. I guess that was to make more money because cigarettes smoke themselves. Notice that spliffs go out right away and don’t burn down any houses, but if you fall asleep with a cigarette in your fingers, you might not wake up. The fire doesn’t kill you because toxic fumes usually get you first.
Back in the early 1970s, the cigarette companies knew they had a serious problem with house fires, so they went after the furniture makers. Instead of making cigarettes safer by eliminating some of the chemical additives, the cigarette companies decided furniture must be made safe from cigarettes. Pretty soon all the foam used in furniture was laced with tons of deadly chemicals, all to make us safer? This was certainly a win-win for the DuPont company. The entire concept was absurd, but we are still paying the price. And it’s a lot higher than you might think.
Yes, much of our furniture is toxic and emits clouds of fumes every time you sit down on your couch, although you can solve this problem by getting a couch made before around 1972. Hard to imagine today, but there was a time when foam had zero chemical additives. If you’re wondering why autism and other mental disorders are epidemic, consider the role of chemical pollution. Some of the worst pollution comes right into our homes disguised as furniture. What makes this situation even more ridiculous is that this toxic furniture turns incredibly more deadly once it catches fire. Yes, the retardant slows down the ability of the foam to flame up….for a few minutes….but once the foam does catch fire, and it will, then those chemicals vaporize and can enter your system easily. Talk to some firefighters about the epidemic of cancer in their profession and they’ll tell you it’s from the vapors created by toxic furniture.
Maybe this documentary can change the situation. There’s no justification for continuing to dump all these toxic chemicals into our homes. We really need a furniture company to come along and stand up against this nonsense. One of the primary chemicals we are talking about is BVO, brominated vegetable oil. And you know something really bizarre? The soft drink manufacturers put BVO into many of the citrus-flavored soft drinks. BVO use in food is banned in most civilized parts of the world, but here in the United States, we let our kiddies lap it up in sugar-laced drinks? And we wonder why some of our kids are having mental problems?
What this country needs is an all-out assault on the chemical industry that keeps making up new toxic molecules every year and dumping them into our homes. There’s been little effort so far to slow down this poisoning. I sure hope this eye-opening documentary starts a groundswell of protest against BVO. And stay away from Mountain Dew, Fanta Orange and Gatorade drinks with citrus. Always check the ingredients because soft drinks containing BVO will list it on all their bottles and cans.
Everything You Know is Twisted