The New Straits Times, March 5, 1998
Sunday is International Women's Day. This is a day for all of us to honour the contributions of women towards family, society and nation. The achievements of women today are so well recognised that John Naisbitt, author-cum-futurologist, labelled the next millennium "The Decade of Women Leadership". While there are indications that this may well be the case, things may not be all that rosy for working women in particular.
Although men and women have become more equal in modern society, this unfortunately does not hold true when it comes to toxic effects involving chemical substances. The risks faced by women in certain cases are much greater than that of men.
To some extent, such disparity is related to the workplace where women are more prone to chemical exposure. As their numbers in the workforce increase, so too do their risks to health.
According to a recent newsletter of the Geneva-based International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS), one good example is the "workplace toxic effect", related to "psychological instability" in particular, which affects many women in the microelectronics industry.
Such psychological instability was eventually found to be associated with affective and personality disorders as a result of organic solvent toxicity. This finding is a cause for concern because many of our women workers are found in such industries and how they are affected by the use of organic solvents has not been well researched.
At the other end of the spectrum, many women are employed in the estates. Invariably, they will come to contact with a number of specific chemicals like pesticides and other agrochemicals. They too run the risk of being overexposed to such chemicals. There are indications that over the years, some of them are directly affected although statistical data is still patchy. This is also a global concern among women, particularly in developing countries.
From a health perspective, women are usually more exposed to chemical substances than men. In any case, modern medicines are largely synthetically-produced chemical substances. It has been alleged that generally, there has always been a tendency to "medicalise" women's lives, beginning from menstruation until menopause.
A number of potent drugs are marketed and promoted to deal with such so-called "diseases". For example, drugs are offered for hormonal changes related to the menstrual cycle such as premenstrual tension (PMS) and common painkillers are specially labelled and marketed as medicines to stop "period pain".
Even menopause is being defined as a state of deficiency that requires hormonal replacement therapy (HRT). Another dimension is the use of tranquillisers for the treatment of anxiety and depression. In Britain, one study showed that for every benzodiazepine (an anti-anxiety drug) prescribed for men, three were prescribed for women.
In other countries too, similar prescribing patterns have been reported, although in Malaysia, there no systematic research on this. Advertisements for such products typically depict a female in distress and being unable to cope, and therefore, a potential candidate for the drug. In other words, a market niche has been created for women in promoting such medicinal products.
Many women are also exposed to a myriad of products through direct-selling activities, especially in rural areas. Claims made for these products range from weight loss to cures for cancer and even AIDS, most of them unsubstantiated. These are apart from the fake items frequently found in such areas.
What is worrying is that in the majority of such cases, women are poorly informed about the chemical substances that they are dealing with. In most cases, they are seldom in a position to decide about their own bodies.
Moreover, in developing countries, doctors are predominantly male and one study remarked that: "The model of a male lifecycle is all too often taken as a norm. When this is applied to women, it is no wonder that a large number of natural and normal processes become diagnosed as 'abnormal' and as a result, have a barrage of drugs thrown at them."
The IPCS newsletter noted that "females suffer considerably more than males from restrictions in access to regular health care. For example, there are some countries where men who become poisoned by chemicals are admitted to hospitals, while women are treated in a non-medical setting, escaping formal registration systems."
In other situations, societal pressure has been identified as one cause of women being exposed to many "risky" chemicals. The recent incident in which the Health Ministry cracked down on errant beauticians for allegedly using hydroquinone, a scheduled poison, is a good case in point.
Many women purportedly were being administered dubious beauty products containing hydroquinone which may result in severe adverse skin reactions. Until recently, a number of such products have been found to be freely sold to the public as skin whiteners or whitening creams.
Heavy metals like mercury too have been found in cosmetics and soaps used by women to lighten their skin - this can result in disorders of the kidney.
Changing social values also have an impact on women's choices, exposing them to more chemical substances, especially in urban and affluent environments. More of them are taking up drinking and smoking. This partly has to do with women being specifically targeted through advertising of such products. In the case of smoking, more women seem to be the victims of passive smoking be it at the workplace or in their homes.
In a nutshell, not only are women more exposed than men to such chemical substances (including drugs), some of their effects are more marked on women than men. This is because there are anatomical, physiological and biochemical differences between the two sexes such as surface area, water content, fat content, enzymatic process and protein-binding. These lead to toxico-kinetic and toxico-dynamic differences between men, non-pregnant women and pregnant women, exposing the last two groups to insidious risks.
To make it worse, a woman may pass chemicals (or other effects of chemicals) to her foetus via the placenta or to her baby via her milk. For example, b-hexachlorocyclohexane (a by-product of the manufacture of the pesticide lindane) seems to be a universal environmental contaminant, with high levels found in breast milk. Toxicity from the use of lindane in infants and children has been documented too. The same can happen with some other drugs and environmental pollutants as well. Lead is one such example; after all, many more women are exposed to indoor air pollution resulting from the burning of coal and biomass fuel.
Given such a situation, women must be more assertive and be more informed in ensuring that their health is protected against undue exposure to chemical substances. They must insist on finding out as much as possible about the nature of chemical substances before they come in contact with them - be they industrial solvents, pesticides, cosmetics and even medicines.
The public must increase its awareness about the vulnerability of women towards unwarranted risks and show more concern in protecting them from such incidences. We owe much to our womenfolk for their sacrifices. It is only fitting that they are adequately protected from the hazards arising from indiscrimate use of chemical substances and chemical-based products now proliferating in our society
