14th annual Spring Environmental Lecture and Luncheon

Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD

From New York Social Diary by David Patrick Columbia

Over at the American Museum of Natural History more than 600 assembled for the museum’s 14th annual Spring Environmental Lecture and Luncheon. This year’s luncheon was the biggest so far and they raised more than 0,000. Co-chairs of the Benefit Committee were Suzanne Cochran, Mary C. Solomon and Connie Spahn. It was dedicated to the memory of Julia Serena di Lapigio.

The subject of the lecture held in the Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Theater which was slated to begin at noon (although it was almost 12:30 before they got started) was Women’s Health and the Environment. Lynn Sherr, ABCNEWS 20/20 correspondent, was moderator. The panelists were Dr. Devra Davis, Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School and author of the award-winning book When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Deception and the Battle Against Pollution (Basic Books 2003). Dr. Davis is one of the world’s most visible and outspoken advocates for improving the environment to protect public health.

The other panelist was Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, Founder and President of Gaynor Integrative Oncology and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Weill College, affiliated with Cornell University and New York Hospital.

Dr. Gaynor is a very prominent doctor here in New York, well known in the community and the media as an integrative medicine specialist. He’s been featured in many newspapers, magazines, on television and radio. He’s written four books and his latest Nurture Nature, Nurture Health: A Doctor’s Guide to Environment and Health, will be published in December.

The AMNH lectures, in my book, confirm again and again, my personal opinion that the human race amidst its intense politicking and religiosity is ignoring what is affecting the fate of all human beings everywhere, and in fact all life, including plant-life, on the planet. People seem to think the bad news is off in the distant future. It isn’t. It’s here. And now.

Dr. Davis grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania where in 1948 the pollution from the steel mills got so bad in one particular week that 19 people in a small town literally dropped dead from it. That incident was the wake up call and those who know anything about the history of the steel industry and Pittsburgh know that the community was actually able to clean up their environment (comparatively speaking) and turning their literally dark days of rancid choking air into bright clear sunny days that they have today. Davis’ history is now allegory, take it or leave it.

She told us that the environmental situation in this country (as well as on the planet) is growing worse and worse. In the area of breast cancer, for example, today, 1 in 8 women are diagnosed with the disease. Only fifty years ago that number was 1 in 22. the news is even worse for our children. Childhood lymphoma is up 30% since 1973. Childhood leukemia is up 20% and brain tumors in children are up 20%. The shout-it-from-the-rooftops lesson for us is: “What we are doing to the planet we are doing to ourselves.”

I often hear counter-arguments – most often made by non-professionals – that things are not that bad. No, maybe not. Maybe they’re much worse.
When asked what we can do as individuals, Dr. Davis said “the most important thing we can do is vote.”

Dr. Gaynor went into the carcinogens that create what in the medical field is called the carcinogenesis. One of the effects of the ozone hole, for example is the increase of ultra-violet rays. Since 1980, Dr. Gaynor said, there has been a 120% increase in malignant melanomas. The industrial pollution affects everything – the food we eat, the water we drink. The chemicals used in cleaning agents such as those we use in our daily lives are very often carcinogenic.

What can we do with that horrible news? A variety of things. Dr. Davis said that corporations are likely to clean up their products if people don’t buy them because of this. Dr. Gaynor said that these carcinogens are now found in the meats we eat and in the mother’s milk in breast feeding. Dioxins, PCPs are everywhere nowadays. Mercury levels in our bodies are climbing well into the danger zones. Gaynor said he’s seen mercury levels come down in patients who are more watchful about the fishes they consume. Much of the work must be done by our governments because they can regulate collectively.

Last year’s Environmental Lecture which was about food, revealed that the growth population of the planet which may double in the next fifteen years to 9 billion (if we, the human race, don’t obliterate ourselves before fighting over whose god has the say) is going to lead to shortages of food and clean water for all of us. Those shortages are already glaringly obvious in Third World countries and largely ignored in this country by the relaxing of environmental regulation, thank you very much.

Green tea. Dr. Gaynor highly recommends drinking Green Tea. Lots of it. As the immune system can degenerate it can also regenerate and the elements in Green Tea are very positive. Watching what we eat; what fuels we burn (and how much). Visit http://www.greenguide.com/ for more.

Listening to today’s lecture panelists I was reminded again and again of those among us, both friends and enemies who seem to thrive on the pleasure of death to others at the end of a gun or massively at the detonation of a bomb. They are clearly and stupidly unaware that all of us are now at risk at this time in human history because of our environmental crisis. And it’s not just a maybe for some, but a question of when for all. It’s as obvious as the beauty of this late April day.

After the lecture there was a luncheon in the Millstein Hall of Ocean life (with its great blue whale suspended overhead). After the luncheon, I walked through the Park on my way home, and took solace and joy in, and a couple of photos of the beauty that is the gift of Mother Nature – who ultimately calls the shots for all of us, no matter what we worship be it god, guns or money.