Watching Your Health

Journalist Marla Cone's beat is environmental health, but when you look over the stories she's written, she seems more like a war correspondent. In a very long war. Hazardous chemicals, breast cancer, DDT's effect on fertility, feminized toads, and whales poisoned by contaminated salmon are just a few of the issues that Cone has covered in three decades on the front lines. (She also found time to pen a book, Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic, for Grove Press in 2005.)

In 2008, after 18 years as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Cone became editor in chief of Environmental Health News, an online publication that tackles these thorny but critical issues 24/7. Sierra talked with Cone about her devotion to a field that might cause lesser mortals to despair.

What drew you to environmental health issues?
The air-pollution battle in Los Angeles. The Clean Air Act is a health-based standard, so you had to understand science, health, and economics. It was an easy progression to air toxics and hazardous waste. Then in the late 1980s, studies on low-dose chemical exposure and endocrine disruption started coming out. I was blown away. If you're feminizing male animals and possibly male humans, what would that do to populations in the long run? It's fascinating.

It sounds depressing.
What I learned from the Arctic is the resilience of the human population. We'll find solutions. We just need knowledge.

What is the rationale behind your publication?
Environmental Health News has been around for a long time, mostly aggregating news from other places. When I was at the L.A. Times, I read it every morning. Since September we've produced our own journalism. When new studies about the health risks of bisphenol A [BPA, a chemical used in polycarbonate plastic] came out in September, we were the first on it.

Why not rely on newspapers for original reporting?
Newspapers don't have the space to do this type of specialized journalism anymore. We're foundation-funded, so we don't have to worry about making a profit.

Are newspapers doing a poor job, or no job?
The quality and the quantity isn't there. The stories are often left to health writers who don't understand the science. There's also hesitation because industry can bring its power to bear.

Are you obligated to cover industry's view?
Industry people might talk about the impacts [a topic] has on their products. And that's valid because there are economic issues. But if an industry person tells me something that doesn't match the science, I won't put it in the story.

Which newspapers cover environmental health issues well?
None of them. Some of the European media are good, but sometimes they go overboard and their stories become alarmist. One of my missions is to train a new generation of reporters to feel comfortable writing about environmental health.

How do you cajole a general reader to pay attention to these issues?
It takes an experienced reporter to talk about all the uncertainties and limitations and still make it interesting. You need to show them how the story impacts their health, their economy, everything they do. Consumers are savvy. We wouldn't be seeing replacements for BPA if it wasn't for consumers. It hasn't been government. Some of it was driven by pregnant women and mothers, an active audience when it comes to environmental health.

Do you expect to see progress under the Obama administration?
I do. Senator Boxer [Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair] is attuned to these issues, especially when it comes to BPA, endocrine disruptors, and phthalates--chemicals used to make plastic flexible. You'll see new [decisions] from EPA for the herbicide atrazine and for perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel.

What are your favorite environmental health stories?
How Arctic people and animals are the most contaminated living things on Earth. It's a huge environmental injustice. And perhaps finding environmental roots to diseases such as autism and ADD.

Which environmental health issues are underreported?
All the endocrine issues. When I choose a story, I choose one that's underreported.

What's your environmental vice?
I feel guilty when I put flea vials on my cat. I don't know the risk to my cat or myself.