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Hidden Danger
The Health of Latinos is Threatened by Contamination in the Air, Pesticides, Lead and Mercury

La Salud de los Latinos está Siendo Amenazada por la Contaminación del Aire, los Pesticidas, el Plomo y el Mercurio (para leer en Español)

Pollution in the United States poses health risks for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, language, or country of origin. A large percentage of U.S. Latinos, however, live and work in urban and agricultural areas where they face heightened danger of exposure to air pollution, unsafe drinking water, pesticides, and lead and mercury contamination. These hazards can cause serious health problems, including an increased risk of asthma and cancer; waterborne diseases such as giardiasis, hepatitis, and cholera; and neurological and developmental problems. The NRDC report (National Resources Defense Council) underscores the urgent need for government action on these environmental health threats.

While Bush panders to the Latino community and makes "nice" for personal gain, he continues to allow and has increased the amount of mercury poisons allowed in the environment with his Clear Skies Initiative. He turns a blind eye to mercury in children's vaccinations and the latino products found in Botanicas such as azogue. These hazards are reported by the NRDC and are not from the "normal" types of mercury pollution that Bush has given his blessings to, but the hazards are all the more insidious because the administration does not address them.

The report, "Hidden Danger: Environmental Health Threats in the Latino Community," is available in Spanish and English.

Latinos, who now comprise the majority in some of the nation's most polluted urban and agricultural areas, are particularly threatened by air pollution, agricultural pesticides, and other contaminants such as lead and mercury. Exposure to these contaminants can cause serious health problems, including asthma and cancer; giardiasis, hepatitis, cholera and other waterborne diseases; and neurological and developmental problems.

The report found that too often government authorities, businesses, farm operators and landlords fail to provide warnings in Spanish about environmental health threats, while federal and state agencies have not collected relevant data or conducted studies assessing environmental health threats in Latino communities.

"We have an information gap," said Adrianna Quintero, author of the report and NRDC's director of Latino outreach. "On the one hand, government agencies have not done an adequate job investigating the link between pollution and Latino health. On the other hand, those agencies, businesses and other authorities have not adequately warned the Latino community about the health risks we know are there. No matter how you slice it, Latinos are not getting the information they need to protect themselves."

The environmental problems described in the report range from mercury contamination and air pollution to arsenic in drinking water and pesticide exposure. The report provides some sobering statistics:

Nearly 26 million of the 38.8 million Latinos in the United States live in areas that violate federal air quality standards (page 9).
Many Latino communities across the United States have poor drinking water quality. For example, drinking water supplies in Albuquerque and Ajo, Arizona, have elevated levels of arsenic (page 32), while 12 percent of the residents in the U.S.-Mexico border region do not have access to potable water (page 28).
Nearly 90 percent of U.S. farmworkers are Latino, and many of these laborers and their families are routinely exposed to toxic pesticides (page 38).
Latino children are twice as likely as non-Hispanic white children to have unsafe levels of lead in their blood (page 50).
Between 19 percent and 44 percent of Hispanic respondents to a recent survey reported using mercury for magic or religious purposes. Researchers estimate that 47,000 capsules of mercury are sold each year in New York City alone for these activities (page 58).

U.S. Latino communities can better protect themselves from pollution-related health problems, the report notes, but only with a concerted effort by government and industry. The report recommends more government funding for research to better identify the problems, as well as for broader outreach to the Latino community. It also calls for federal and state action to strengthen water and air quality safeguards, ban or restrict the use of hazardous pesticides, and tighten controls on polluters.

"Latinos across the country are suffering more from industrial pollution," said Dr. Elena V. Ríos, president and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Association. "We need a lot more information from our local, state and federal health authorities, and the Environmental Protection Agency needs to do a better job enforcing the law. Not only would that improve the health of the Latino community, it would improve the health of all Americans."

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 1 million members and e-activists nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Established in 1994 in Washington, D.C., the National Hispanic Medical Association represents licensed Hispanic physicians in the U.S. in its mission to improve health care for Hispanics and the underserved.