Byline: Joe Thornton For The Register-Guard

EUGENE IS FULL of healthy people who eat organic food, and the pulp mills are all downstream from here. So you might think that our bodies ought to be more or less free of toxic chemicals.

Three scientific studies published this month

I was lead author of one of these studies, just published in the scientific journal Public Health Reports. We reviewed 20 years of government and scientific research that sends a sobering message: Hundreds of human-made pollutants have accumulated in the blood, fat, mother's milk and semen of the general population of the United States and Canada.

The second study, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, quantified 116 pollutants in the blood of 10,000 Americans; it found the same pattern. The third, by Mt. Sinai Medical Center and the Environmental Working Group, analyzed 210 hazardous chemicals in blood samples from nine men and women from around the country who pride themselves on their sensitivity to environmental issues; some are devoted to organic foods. On average, 91 of the chemicals were found in each person, and 167 were identified in all.

Why are people with no special exposures contaminated? Many of the 87,000 chemicals produced by modern industry resist natural breakdown processes in the environment or in our bodies. These pollutants have gradually accumulated and spread worldwide via wind and water. Most exposure to these substances is due to their slow migration through the global environment and food supply. People who live near or work in chemical-intensive industries bear additional exposures, as do those who use hazardous chemicals at home, but nobody is clean anymore.

Some contaminants cause cancer, interfere with fetal development, or impair our ability to reproduce and fight off infections. Many cross the placenta easily, and some of the highest concentrations are found in mother's milk. The quantities in our tissues are small, but for some chemicals there is no safe dose. The average American's body burden of ultra-hazardous dioxin, for example, is already at levels known to impair development in laboratory animals.

Where do these pollutants come from, and what can we do about it? The major source of several dozen body burden chemicals is PVC plastic - also known as polyvinyl chloride or simply `vinyl.' PVC products are everywhere, particularly in our houses: vinyl siding, pipes, windows, floor tiles, shower curtains and gutters can be found in most post-1970s houses.

Huge quantities of hazardous wastes, laced with dioxin and other persistent toxic chemicals, are generated during PVC production. Other hazardous substances are added to vinyl products to make them flexible or stable, and these are released into the environment over time.

Discarded vinyl products are the major cause of dioxin formation in incinerators for trash and medical wastes, which emit more dioxin to the air than any other industry. And when PVC burns in an accidental house or car fire, still more dioxin is produced, along with hydrogen chloride gas, which poses a terrible threat to firefighters.

When its entire life cycle is taken into account, vinyl is apparently responsible for more dioxin than any other single product.

Enough bad news. The good news is that there are safe, effective alternatives. My wife and I just built a new house in Eugene, and it is virtually PVC-free; the only exception is parts of the electrical system, where old-fashioned building codes still require vinyl. Dozens of major building projects - from the Sydney Olympics to the new Nike headquarters in Europe - have drastically reduced PVC in favor of greener materials. Sweden, Denmark and the city of Seattle have official policies to reduce the use of vinyl.

The only way to lower our chemical exposures is to eliminate our economy's reliance on toxic materials and technologies. We can do this by using alternatives to products linked to chemical pollution and - this is most important - by changing policies that permit the manufacture of hazardous products like PVC.

Joe Thornton is an assistant professor at the Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Oregon. He is the author of "Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy" (MIT Press). He will appear with director Judith Helfand at a screening and discussion of her film "Blue Vinyl: A Toxic Comedy" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at 180 PLC on the UO campus, and at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Churchill High School.