THE Express today calls on the Government to review the use of hundreds of toxic chemicals widely employed in Britain.

As cancer rates rise, experts fear that people are accumulating deadly cocktails of these hazardous substances from the food they eat and the air they breathe.

A fat sample from an adult living today contains up to 500 different chemicals, but one taken from an Egyptian mummy has virtually none. The reason is simple - most of them are man-made and have been released into the environment in the past 60 years.

The threat is brought home alarmingly by the results of a test on Express writer Lucy Johnston. She thought she was healthy but was shocked to discover that a single cell of her body fat contains hundreds of toxins, two of which are deadly and have been banned in Britain for many years.

For this reason The Express today demands that one such dangerous chemical - the pesticide Lindane - be banned immediately. Lindane is suspected of causing cancer and has been outlawed in many European countries and even in the developing world. It is the last in a group of chemicals which is being phased out, but can still be bought and used in Britain.

Lucy, 30, said: "I consider myself to have a healthy diet. I eat fresh vegetables, lots of fruit and very little meat. Yet last week I discovered my body is carrying a cocktail of hazardous chemicals. If I became pregnant, they could be passed on to my baby in the womb."

Lucy's results are by no means unusual. Just about everyone in Britain is carrying hundreds of man-made chemical toxins in their bodies. Many may be dangerous, especially in combination with each other. The tests were carried out at London-based Biolab, a medical laboratory which analyses levels of toxic pollutants in samples of body fat and blood.

Lucy said: "My results were certainly alarming. One of the banned pollutants was DDT, a pesticide withdrawn in the Seventies due to cancer fears."

Her body fat also contained PCBs which were widely used in printing inks, paints and some electrical equipment such as fridges. They are no longer produced in Europe, partly because they caused gases which damaged the ozone layer but primarily because of their toxicity.

Despite the ban, more than half the PCBs ever produced are still in use in electrical equipment. They are believed to suppress the immune system, disrupt hormones and undermine children's intelligence.

Other pesticides still in use had also lodged in Lucy's body. The laboratory found hormone-disrupting pesticides believed to cause reproductive disorders, cancer and impaired development. These have been linked to declining sperm count and rising rates of testicular cancer in men and breast cancer.

Among them was Lindane. Alarmingly, her exposure to this highly toxic insecticide could be from foods such as lettuce and chocolate - excessive residue levels have been found in both.

"I had also picked up the HCB pesticide, possibly from fatty food such as meat and eggs," Lucy said. "And somehow I had acquired pentachlorophenol, a chemical in wood preservative."

Government advice is that most pesticides are not harmful because they are consumed in such low quantities. Other experts are not convinced and, worryingly, the permitted levels are often exceeded.

A recent study found 29 samples of supermarket fruit and vegetables containing unacceptably large residues of pesticides.

It has convinced experts like Andrew Watterson, of De Montfort University, Leicester, that no levels are safe. "There are alternatives to many of these pesticides. Why not remove them from sale while people's lives could be at risk?" he said. This view is shared by cancer expert Dr Samuel Epstein. "Cancer institutions in England are set on damage limitation," he said. "They boast about improvements in treatment but do virtually nothing about causes."

Lucy's tests were only for pesticides. If Biolab had looked for other man-made chemicals, they say they would have found up to 500. Most samples they take from people also contain toxic metals, including lead, possibly caused by breathing in petrol fumes. It is also common to find mercury, which could have come from amalgam tooth fillings, contaminated fish, drink cans and certain medicines.

Lucy said: "Some chemicals take 10 years to reduce by half. Even if I were able to breathe unpolluted air and eat organic food, traces will remain in my body for the rest of my life."
© Express Newspapers, 1999