Three Important Publications by Ronald Kostoff, Ph.D.

In Kostof’s 2015 book Pervasive Causes of Disease, he identified a total of about 8,000 potential contributing factors to over 4,000 diseases. About ten percent of these potential contributing factors were termed ‘pervasive’: they impacted adversely at least a threshold number of diseases.

Of these ~800 pervasive contributing factors, one would expect a number to have increased substantially over the past few decades, as technology has been introduced into our daily lives at an ever-increasing pace. Three come immediately to mind from some specific studies I have done:

  • Increased exposure to wireless radiation (cell phones, cell towers, WiFi, etc),
  • Increased exposure to pesticides (glyphosate, etc),
  • Increased numbers and doses of vaccines on the schedule (the MMR dose doubled ~1990, there are about 70 vaccine doses on the schedule now, etc).

Two other obvious contributing factors that have increased substantially in the last two decades are

  • Sedentary activity centered around wireless device use (video games. etc) and
  • Resulting indoor environment that accompanies this use (less sunshine, less Vitamin D, more artificial light).

While the laboratory testing of these toxic substances and behaviors usually occurs in isolation, the real-world exposures are from combinations of these toxic stimuli.

Thus, many people who play video games are experiencing more sedentary behavior in indoor environments with potentially harmful spectra of artificial light, are using cell phones extensively, may live near cell towers and smart meters, are being exposed to 5G frequency automotive radar, are being vaccinated with ever increasing numbers of vaccines (not tested for long-range effects, combination effects, "carcinogenic or mutagenic potential, or potential to impair fertility"), and are being exposed to more pesticides such as glyphosate.

We are exposed to myriad chemicals and radiations in our daily home, work, and recreational environments well beyond those mentioned above or in the media, and believe we have been protected by the local, State, and Federal governments. We are not protected.

  • We believe the additives in our food are limited to safe levels.
  • We believe the pesticides on our produce are limited to safe levels. We believe the contaminants in our drinking water are limited to safe levels.
  • We believe the materials and contaminants in our cosmetics and sunscreens are limited to safe levels.
  • We believe the flame retardants in our furniture are limited to safe levels.
  • We believe the chemicals in our cleaning fluids are limited to safe levels.
  • We believe that our industrial and automotive emissions to the environment are limited to safe levels.
  • We believe the radiations from our wireless devices and automotive radars are limited to safe levels.

Why should we believe any of these toxic stimuli are limited to safe levels?

1. Pervasive Causes of Disease

The overall theme of this book is preventing and reversing chronic diseases using the holistic medical principle: removal of cause is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for restorative treatment to be effective. The specific focus of this book is identifying, categorizing, and analyzing the pervasive foundational causes of ~4000 diseases, allowing these actionable causes to then be eliminated.

There is a substantial section outlining the deficiencies and distortions of the premier biomedical literature on which this book is based. These inadequacies lead to

  1. concealment of the full extent of the pervasive foundational causes of chronic disease;

  2. reduced perceptions of health risk among individuals and policy-makers;

  3. inadequate regulation and public health policy at the national and global levels.

There is also a lengthy section describing the text mining/ information technology advances that allowed the pervasive foundational causes to be extracted efficiently from the huge volumes of biomedical journal articles retrieved.

2. Effects of Toxic Stimuli Combinations on Determination of Exposure Limits

This monograph addresses the effects of toxic stimuli combinations on determination of safe Exposure Limits. It shows these combinations

  1. typically lower the threshold constituent exposure levels associated with damage compared to
  2. tests of combination constituents run in isolation.

The monograph concludes there is no reason to believe today that ANY of the Exposure Limits on potentially toxic stimuli that have been set by ANY of the regulatory agencies are fully protective against serious adverse health effects.

While Radio-frequency Electromagnetic Microwave Radiation (RF-EMR) exposure is used for illustrative purposes in a number of the examples presented, the conclusions are applicable to essentially all potential contributing factors to disease amenable to Exposure Limits.

RF-EMR exposure combinations are the focal point in Appendix 2, where their potential role in contributing to the national/global opioid epidemic is also discussed.

3. OSHA Permissible Exposure Limits Are Too Permissive

The present monograph examines the differences (for selected toxic substances) between the

  1. Federal legally enforceable occupational Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs) set by OSHA and
  2. Low-level exposures reported in the biomedical literature associated with serious adverse effects.

In these selected cases, the Permissible Exposure Limits are orders of magnitude higher than what the premier biomedical literature would suggest is protective.

Our previous monograph on combinations of stressors (https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/59719) concluded that testing of single stressors (the main determinant of myriad types of Exposure Limits), rather than combinations of stressors, greatly under-estimates the toxicity of the stressors in real-world environments.

When these stressor combination conclusions are added to the results from the present monograph, one can seriously question whether present-day Exposure Limit regulations offer credible levels of occupational protection from any potentially toxic stressors.