The things that make us sick.
That was alright for you.
It has allergens and information right there.
Is there a connection between allergies and what we eat?
Plus reflections on 30 years behind the microphone and a voice that told a story.
I'm Susan Barnett and this is 51% the women's perspective.
18 years ago genetically modified crops were introduced in the United States.
First there were tomatoes and soybeans, potatoes and corn.
As the years have passed more and more farmland has been devoted to these plants which have
a gene added to their DNA, giving them helpful traits such as pesticide resistance.
But that help may come with a cost.
During that same period a growing number of children have developed allergies to food.
Despite assurances of safety from biotech companies and government agencies, the parallel timing
is raised suspicion.
Harvest public media's Camille Phillips checked out the research.
At this grocery store in Liberty, Missouri, some people are reading labels because they're
counting calories or want to eat healthier.
But Jenny Giles has another more important reason to read labels.
He has to avoid buying things that could harm her daughter Avery.
Yeah, well those of you, those are alright for you.
It has allergy and information right there.
If you want to get those banana pops I'll let you.
Tendrolled Avery Giles is highly allergic to peanuts.
Eating a peanut could cause her throat to swell up, put her in a coma or even kill her.
I get really scared sometimes from the ambulance and shots.
A food allergy like Avery's used to be pretty rare, but it's becoming more common.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of children
with food allergies rose 18% between 1997 and 2007.
It may be that more people report that their children have food allergies today because
they're more aware of the possibility.
Or perhaps some argue more children in the United States develop food allergies now because
children are less exposed to germs and allergens.
The others point out that the first genetically modified food hit grocery store shelves in
the mid 90s.
That means today's children and teenagers have been eating genetically modified food all
their lives, instead of increasing proportions.
Just because the timing coincides though, does not necessarily mean eating genetically
modified food caused the rise, says Rick Goodman.
He is a food science and technology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
We have to kind of look at our whole world, the whole context.
And if so many things are changing in our diets, in how much exercise we get, in vaccinations
that keep us from having certain diseases, in the number of visits to the doctor, in how
many times we take antibiotics during our lifetime.
Goodman's specialty is assessing the risk of allergens and genetically modified products,
a skill he developed working for the biotech giant Monsanto.
He's a late-newest baseman-santo, makes some of the most popular genetically modified
products on the market, including Roundup Ready Soybeans and Corn.
At his lab on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, Goodman explains the steps he takes
to test the likelihood that products may cause an allergic reaction.
First, the protein created by the adogenes isolated, then that protein is tested on a serum
made from the antibodies of people allergic to similar proteins.
According to Goodman, this process is similar enough to determine whether a genetically
modified product is at risk of causing allergic reactions.
Under the current system and products that are available, there's really no concern for
a health impact from genetically modified crops.
But Jeffy Smith disagrees.
Smith is a longtime critic of genetically modified food, who has made it his mission to expose
the danger to he believes they pose and get the products removed from the food supply.
The process of genetic engineering can cause hundreds or thousands of mutations up and
down the DNA, and up to 5% of the existing natural genes can change their levels of expression.
And these are not evaluated in the superficial studies that are being done before the crops
get on the market as food.
Smith gets some of his information from published studies, but much of it comes from personal
communication with scientists.
He acknowledges that there's not a lot of conclusive research yet, but he thinks initial
findings are worrisome enough to merit further study.
Many of the studies Smith does reference are animal studies, because there are few human
studies.
And we know that animals consistently react to GMOs when their immune system is tested
in a competent way in laboratories.
But according to Goodman, current animal studies only predict human reactions half the
time.
And he says, testing people for allergic reactions can be dangerous and complicated, which
is why researchers use human antibodies in pre-market tests.
As for studies on people eating genetically modified food already on the market, Goodman
says those are too hard to control.
And we don't know who ate Roundup Reddy soybeans versus quote unquote conventional soybeans.
So how can you make a correlation and how do you study a population?
It's fairly safe to say that most everyone in the United States has eaten genetically
modified soybeans.
For the past five years, more than 90% of the US soybean crop has been genetically engineered.
And soy can be found in a lot of different types of food, especially processed food.
Everything from breads and pasta to meat and dairy.
If genetically modified food were labeled, then maybe scientists could keep track and these
types of studies would be more feasible, labeling as one of the activist Smith's primary
goals.
He thinks labeling genetically modified food will lead to customers rebelling against the
technology.
At a restaurant in the summit, Missouri, however, three members of a support group for parents
of highly allergic children see another problem.
I don't see what there would be much left to buy.
I'm already so limited, I'd be like, yeah.
I'm Camille Phillips for Harvest Public Media.
Another cause of problems, particularly respiratory problems, is mold.
It's something we did know much about 10 or 15 years ago, but now it is a major health
issue.
And part of something we now call sick house syndrome.
East Harlem has the highest asthma rates in the country, and it's partially the results
of mold in buildings there.
Ray Lopez developed asthma as a child in the Bronx.
Now he works to help families living in sick housing.
Ray Lopez spends most work days outside the office and inside the homes of East Harlem
families.
Equipped with anything from a HEPA filter vacuum cleaner to an air purifier, Lopez decontaminates
the homes of chronic asthma patients.
His work helps relieve their symptoms.
Lopez runs the environmental program at little sisters of the Assumption Family Health
Services.
He handles about 100 asthma cases having to do with indoor environmental problems.
Old is one of the more frequent complaints he receives.
After seven years on the job, Lopez says he's seen it all.
Just severe mold growth in multiple places in the bathroom and in a hallway.
And the leak was just to the point where the ceiling caved in.
You know, it's serious problem is that multiple asthmatic stare.
One child is so severe that he's been moved to live with an aunt.
Lopez can relate.
He too is asthmatic and must take extra precautions like wearing a mask when going into these homes.
He developed the disease as a child growing up during the 80s in the Bronx.
I don't ever remember as a child being told about the connection between say cockroaches
and mice are mold with asthma.
Since then, a lot has changed.
The medical community has established scientific links between mold and some health problems.
A 2003 study by St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan showed a correlation between
spore counts and the likelihood of developing childhood asthma.
Because of the toxic nature of some types of mold, exposure can aggravate and even cause
asthmatic symptoms.
But legislation is slow to help renters.
The housing department will dispatch an inspector in 24 hours if the problem is severe.
They do the cheapest, easiest thing, which would be to plaster over a problem, paint over
the problem.
It's not surprising that the problem persists in low income neighborhoods.
The buildings are old and poorly maintained.
Dr. Hal Strellnick is a professor of family and social medicine at the Einstein School of
Medicine and the author of several studies on the environment and asthma.
The issues of mold are often related to moisture and to leakage and to unrepaird plumbing problems
that landlords are supposed to take care of.
Lopez won't be out of a job anytime soon.
There are many treatments for molding houses and lots of call for it thanks to flooding
and severe storms across the country.
There's an innovative new treatment that uses heat instead of chemicals.
I spoke with David Hedman, co-founder of Thermapure.
We are essentially taking pasteurization to a new level.
We all are familiar with pasteurizing our food.
I co-invented the idea of pasteurizing structures.
What we do essentially is elevate the temperature of a building to temperatures that would kill bacteria,
viruses, insects, mold, fungi.
And I'm assuming this is something that you're getting a lot of call for.
We not only have much more concern and awareness of the problems caused by mold these days,
but now with all the storms that we're having across the country, I think people are dealing
far more with flooding in their buildings.
Boy, they really are.
We're not only pasteurizing the structure, killing the bacteria and viruses and fungi without
chemicals.
At the same time, we're drying the structure about 50 percent faster.
So explain to people how that can work.
You say pasteurizing a building and I think we all immediately picture, oh my god, my foundation
just went white hot.
How can that possibly be okay?
But essentially, it's the use of heaters, which typically are positioned around the house,
the use of filtration because as we heat, we're circulating a lot of air movement and
we want to capture the contaminants in the filtration as we heat.
We're simply raising the temperature of that structure to about 120 to 150 degrees depending
on the target organism that we're trying to treat the home for.
Okay, so now let's talk about the health advantages of taking care of the mold problem
this way rather than by spraying on some substance.
Many families don't know that these companies that are coming in to dry their home and treat
the mold or bacteria that microorganisms that have grown as a result of that water intrusion
are using extensive amounts of chemical.
Whether they be biocytes or fungicides, certain types of pesticides are brought into the home.
Susan, I'm particularly concerned about this.
As we see the proliferation of cancer amongst our children, the National Cancer Institute
is reporting just tremendous growth rates in cancer amongst children.
Risk cancer, just to mention one, is affecting almost one out of eight women.
As we research this, we find that often these chemicals may be linked to this risk.
The breast cancer fund, for example, says it's clear that our exposure to toxic chemicals
are connected to our breast cancer rates.
Of course, it's just not cancer, but there's other risks, such as asthma and other diseases
which are linked to these floodborne pathogens or chemicals that they might be exposed to.
Dave Hedman is co-founder of Thermopure, a mold elimination system that uses heat instead
of chemicals to kill mold in sick houses.
Coming up, Memories of 30 Years with One Show.
If you missed part of this show or want to hear it again, visit the 51% Archives at WAMC.org.
This week's show is number 1236.
Any relationship that lasts 30 years is something special, and to have a radio show for that
long is downright amazing.
But WAMC's Juan DeFisher, who you met in Horesse about trying out to be the voice of the Boston Red Sox,
is in her third decade as host of a regional music show.
1982 was supposed to have been the year in which my family moved back to my native Massachusetts.
I had moved to New York's capital region in 1979 so that my husband could do a medical
residency in family practice.
We came here with a six-month-old daughter, a doxan, very little money, and very little else.
It was a difficult adjustment.
I had been very busy prior to moving here, and one of the things that had kept me occupied
was my folk music radio show at a community radio station in Worcester, Massachusetts.
I missed being on the air.
I contacted the two major non-commercial radio stations in the area.
One was in all classical music station, and the other was the one I relied on for most of my news,
WAMC, but they mostly ran syndicated programming at that time to complement their daily local news programs.
I also called the local college stations, but none of them was interested in what I had to offer.
In January 1980, WAMC became an independent station, divesting from all the new medical college.
I began to volunteer at that time.
I was devoted to the station, even though by then I had a public relations job at a local college.
We had our second child in October of 1980.
We still planned to go back to Massachusetts when my husband finished his residency.
He would get a job as a physician. I would go back to doing a radio show at the community radio station,
be closer to my family, and Obla Diabla Dahl life would go on.
At the beginning of August 1982, while my husband was interviewing for positions in Massachusetts,
I got a phone call from the then manager of WAMC.
Do you happen to have a tape of your radio show he asked? I'd like to hear it.
So I dug out the old reel to reel recording of one of my shows and drove it over to him.
Back then there were no compact discs, no personal computers, no MP3s, no internet, no live streaming,
no recordings made via computer.
Music came from black vinyl discs played on turntables, remember them?
I had many record albums in my home. I had started collecting them in the 1960s,
but I had begun listening to folk, bluegrass, and old-timey music right after I was born.
My father, who was from the southwest corner of Virginia, was a close friend of the second generation of the card of family,
June, Joe, and Jeanette, and the music was part of my life when I was growing up.
The station president and the general manager called me a few days later and asked me if I would like to do a radio show
on Saturday night at 8 p.m., following a prairie home companion.
With Garrison Keelar as a lead-in, they thought a folk music program on the radio would be good in that slot.
Turns out they were right.
We went back and forth on what to call the show and we settled on the Hudson Mirror Sampler.
The show made its debut on September 18, 1982.
My husband kept doing interviews in Massachusetts because, hey, what if the show wasn't good?
What if WAMC's listeners didn't like it?
My husband never got to work in the Great Commonwealth.
It's now 2013 and the Hudson Mirror Sampler still airs Saturday nights at 8 p.m., from the WAMC studios in Albany, New York.
During the time that I've been on the air, I've had many adventures.
If you had told me years ago that I would get to meet Pete Seeger, Tom Rush and Tom Paxson up close and personal,
I would have told you that you were crazy.
I've also become on air friends with many listeners who call just about every week.
I recognize their voices.
I know who they are. I know their stories.
I have helped them find songs for their children when they were baptized, bar or bat mitzvod or married.
I've played songs for them when they have said goodbye to friends or elderly parents.
30 years at one job is a rarity in this day and age.
In radio, it's even more so.
It's almost as if radio years are measured in dog years.
It seems as if radio shows and personalities don't survive for as long as some other professions might.
30 years of Saturday nights has attribute to my family for allowing me to go to the station every week and do something that I love.
My children are grown now and we even have grandchildren.
My husband is retired.
Thank goodness that WAMC Management still supports what I do.
Tom Wates once wrote about and my good friends happy and arty-tron recorded the song,
looking for the heart of Saturday night.
I have been fortunate enough to find the people who listen and participate in WAMC's heart of Saturday night for the last 30 years.
I hope they'll be there for as long as I can do it, one Saturday at a time.
One to Fisher is the host of the Hudson River Sampler every Saturday evening on WAMC.
You can listen online at www.amc.org.
And finally, Jill Malkeen remembers a singer you may not know, whose voice made a lasting impression.
I first heard Mildred Bailey's voice when I was a child, singing a sweet and jazzy rendition of Georgia.
I was mesmerized by her sultry and articulate style because of the effect she produced about the material she was singing.
A compelling and passionate delivery of homesickness, sense of mentality and romance in a sweet, tremulous, sliding silky tone that put the song in a vintage frame I would like to sing.
A compelling and passionate delivery of homesickness, sense of mentality and romance in a sweet, tremulous, sliding silky tone that put the song in a vintage frame I would never forget.
Mildred Bailey was one of the first very few female big band lead singers of the era.
And in the 1930s was known as the Queen of Swing, a name she earned through the tremendous appeal of her singing.
It was how she put herself into a song and how remarkably natural it sounded that conveyed her enchantment to me and to countless others throughout her career.
Mildred was born in Tacoa, Washington. Her parents were musical and her two brothers, Al and Charles Rinker, became musicians as well.
As the matter of fact, she helped her brother Al get work. He teamed up with a crooner he'd met who was forging a career for himself.
This guy wasn't bad. Despite his funny name, Bing Crosby, Crosby learned a lot from Mildred and introduced her to Paul Whiteman, a band leader Mildred sang with for the next four years as Crosby had found there were other things for him to do in Hollywood.
Her first recording was with guitarist Eddie Lang, Hogi Carmichael's What Kind of Man Is You, released in England in 1929.
It's a charming swing number that's mostly instrumental with the song lyrics only appearing in the middle of the tune.
Already Bailey's sound and style were evident, she was full of swing and smiles and musical mischief.
Her third and most significant other was Red Norvo, a vibraphonist and marimba player. Together they hit the charts and produced some number one hits such as Darn That Dream, Rocking Chair, written especially for her by Hogi Carmichael, says my heart and please be kind.
By 1933 she was singing and recording with the Dorsey brothers and Benny Goodman's band backing her up.
She had a rare gift, the ability to bring natural elegance and grace and credibility to whatever she sang.
In 1937 one of her hits was titled Smoke Dreams, with whose author, her arranger, the venerable Eddie Sotter, she'd recently had a huge fight.
He wrote in weird and confusing smoke-like dissonances for the horns and reeds, but Mildred delivered the melody lines sweetly and faultlessly through the fumes, like a beacon in the fog, true and straight and perfectly pitched.
Mildred Bailey never made the mega-box, and this was apparently due to her dedication to performing material she preferred, rather than producing the commercial fluff that brings in the big bacon.
She was well represented in radio shows and even briefly had her own, but it was not enough to make her a household name.
Mildred Bailey was a diabetic. The consequences of her liberal calorie intake were that she became quite large, her affection for food led to obesity and heart disease.
It was a sore point with her, and she was known to be merciless toward better-looking female singers who couldn't approach her level of musicianship.
Her health and wealth was at a low point in the mid-40s when she was rescued by Crosby Sanatra and composer Jimmy Van Huesen. They agreed to split her medical bills.
She started singing again after her rescue, but died in Pekipsey, New York on December 12, 1951, without a dime, at the age of 44.
Thank you for listening. For 51% and Women in History, I'm Giel Malkeen.
Giel Malkeen is an actor, writer and musician. He lives in New York's Catskill Mountains.
That's our show for this week. Thanks to Katie Britain for production assistance. Our theme music is by Kevin Bartlett.
This show is a national production of Northeast public radio. Our executive producer is Dr. Alan Shartock.
If you'd like to hear this show again or visit the 51% Archives, go to our website at wamc.org.
Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back next week with another edition of 51% The Women's Perspective.
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