Episode 21

Dr. David Kriebel is an epidemiologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.  

Dr. Kriebel discusses the known and suspected health risks associated with tattoo inks, tattoos, and the tattoo removal process.  As an epidemiologist, he implores scientists to actually conduct a study so we can use that information to help protect people.  

"Although a number of color additives are approved for use in cosmetics, none are approved for injection into the skin." FDA.  Tattoo inks can include untested toxic ingredients in colored synthetic dyes and pigments such as: mercury, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, aluminum, cinnabar, nickel, manganese, acrylic, and more.  One question might be, why do consumers feel tattoos are safe? 

In January of 2022 the European Union banned toxic tattoo inks and investigators in some European countries have begun studying not only the unsafe inks, but also the possibility of long-term health risks of tattoos. 
​
Dr. Kriebel is also the Director of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, which collaborates with industries, government agencies, unions, and community organizations on the redesign of systems of production to make them healthier and more environmentally sound.

​Play audio, below.

Episode 12

Dr. Diana Cunningham, ND, practiced for 23 years as a Naturopath, with a special interest in environmental illness. Currently, she is Director of the Friends of Cathedral Trees Sanctuary and is a Conservation and Restoration Burial Advocate who is an expert on environmentally-responsible deathcare. She talks about Conservation and Restoration Burial cemeteries being simple, relatively inexpensive, and a mercury-responsible form of deathcare. 

Diana has written the 21st century answer to Jessica Mitford's formerly bestselling book of the last century; Cunningham's book is The New American Way of Death: Everybody’s Guide to the Revolution In Lifecare and Deathcare for the Millennium. (Available in 2023).

Diana's wisdom is steeped in a strong science background with an in-depth understanding  the “catch-22” of our deathcare choices: creating mercury air pollution from the cremation of our bodies. Although our bodies are heavily polluted, she states that our bodies can be managed most efficiently with environmentally-responsible burials which sequester mercury and other heavy metals, back to the depths of the earth.

Diana sounds the alarm, regarding mercury in our lives, but also offers some hope-filled solutions to this extremely toxic challenge. She speaks of a new chelating medicine called Emeramide (presently in FDA drug trials), which is designed to help people have access to safe removal of mercury, without the side effects of common chelators. This information is illustrated in the documentary film “Evidence of Harm” (2015), featuring Professor emeritus Dr. Boyd Haley and members of the International Academy of Oral and Medical Toxicology (IAOMT).

Mercury causes severe health effects including Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases; for more information from the IAOMT click here,  and the EPA, click here.  

Diana recommends Minamata, a film based on a true story about Japan's mercury pollution, and cover up. It helps viewers to understand the seven stages of methyl-mercury poisoning and the lasting effects on a culture.  

Play audio, below:

Episode 11

Lee Webster is Funeral Reform Advocate who is an expert on palliative care, home funerals and green burials.  Green burials are a simple and non-toxic way to put human bodies directly into the earth--which also turns out to be community focused, earth-friendly, and sequesters carbon, as well. 

Embalming fluids and cremation expose industry workers to concerning toxics such as formaldehyde, methanol, and mercury.  And that doesn't account for the social and environmental justice concerns for cemetery lawn maintenance workers routinely exposed to pesticides and herbicides. 

Beyond being the Director of New Hampshire Funeral Resources, Education and Advocacy, on the board of the Conservation Burial Alliance and a co-founder of the National End-of-Life Doula Alliance, Lee is also part of a group of artists who locally hand-craft items used in green burials called the Funerary Artisans Collective.  
​
​Lee Webster is the author of The After-Death Care Educator Handbook (2022), and Changing Landscapes: Exploring the growth of ethical, compassionate, and environmentally sustainable green funeral practices (2017). 

Play audio, below:

Episode 9
​
Sarah Nichols serves as the Sustainable Maine Director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine and is a nationally recognized policy expert on the subject of waste management.

Sarah leads local and state efforts to reduce waste, encourage reuse, while increasing recycling and composting in Maine. Some of her notable accomplishments include policies that banned the distribution of plastic shopping bags and foam food containers in Maine.  More recently, she helped pass the nation's first Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging law. It is now Maine's policy to move to a “polluter-pays” model, like Canada and the European Union have already implemented. 

​Closing the out-of-state waste loophole was another big win for Maine this past legislative session.  LD 1639 stopped allowing private construction companies to dump their demolition waste, which included lead, arsenic, PFAS, mercury, and other toxic materials, into Maine's Juniper Ridge landfill. 

​For more information on programs to safely dispose of toxics, visit www.NRCM.org. 

Play audio, below: