DR.Ahmed Hany: The Environment between Biology and Chemistry

The history of the environment is simply a conflict between chemistry and biology. When man used to burn coal to produce energy it was a simple technological application to transform the material to energy and carbon dioxide.

Chemists invented many substances and engineers applied their science to get benefit of these substances and no one was concerned about the hazards of these substances until workers in industries and people who reside beside factories had illness and diseases that their cause was the exposure to the wastes of the these factories.

Occupational Medicine specialists observed these disease among workers but people near factories had the same complaints and diseases. That gave birth to the Environmental Medicine but it was somewhat late as harm to many people occurred.

Biologists and physicians defined diseases that had an association between some chemicals and the illness. However that was not enough for policy makers to take steps towards prohibiting the

production of these substances and the needed more evidences.

The real problem is that chemistry is an inventory science that needs laboratory to form many new chemicals, however biology is an observatory in nature and needs time to collect data from experiments on animals then from people.

A substance may be created in few months while its impact on health may take years to be proven.
Another problem is that business men usually have good relations with the governmental decision makers and media and can block the biologist’s claims about the harm that may happen.

The end result is that after many years of struggles a harmful material may be considered and usually the economists press not to prohibit it and to find protective methods while using it. Chemists invented many chemicals for cleaning and aerosols to give a good smell indoors.

Unfortunately these substances have a drastic effect on lungs. Another problem is that companies do not give warning for excessive use and no safety dose could be defines.

Financing researches is a problem that boosted the chemists to produce mew substance and hindered the biologists. Companies spend too much on chemical research but governments allocated much less budgets for biological researches.

The end result is that people are exposed to many harmful chemicals and develop many diseases that are known and unknown.

The wastes of the production in factories contaminated land and water resources killing the wild life in many areas with desertification.

That affected drastically the cultivation and food production with famines in some areas.

The solution is simple but it falls in deaf ears. The world needs an international treaty to oblige companies to do biological safety tests and research before giving license to a chemical to be produced and to define the safety amount for its use.

The environmental physicians have a long list of diseases some are new and the list continue to be endless.

The governments that allowed factories to spoil the environment for short term economic causes will pay much more on the long term to treat people from the environmental diseases.

The conclusion:

The chemists have every mean to invent new chemicals that harm people and the wild life while biologists need money and time to study the harmful effects of these chemicals.

Policy makers should consider the long term effects of these substance as they will be forced to allocate much more money to treat peole and to improve the environment.