Professor of toxicology at the University of Liverpool and playing the cello at the Mozart Orchestra in the same city – is there a dozen in Europe in both professions at this level? – Doctor Howard lived peacefully, already father of four children… until that evening he approached a conference of the Communitagainst Toxics association with his wife.

The protagonist of the meeting was Ralph Ryder, an activist who has traveled the world warning of the dangers of waste incineration. As Vyvyan Howard remembers, “Ralph gave me four documents at the end, he started looking at them and was reading until 4 a.m. in my bed. This is how I woke up to the world of Persistent Organic Pollutants in the atmosphere.”

In English Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) we live surrounded by contaminantes.Los human beings, arising from industrial activity, get rid of them with extreme difficulty, accumulate in the food chain and, like water, wind scatters them to the most remote corners of the world. Dioxins, some of the most well-known of POP, are also found in animal organisms such as the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Since Ralph Ryder opened his eyes, Vyvyan Howard has done a lot of research in the field of chemical contaminants, while still delving into the microscopic illustration, in which he is a professor. In recent years she has worked at the University of Ulster, with the toxicologist Gesa Staats as a new family.

Vyvyan Howard echoed Euskal Herria in 2010 with movements opposed to the construction of the incinerator in Zubieta. It was then that a document written by the researcher on the risks of waste incineration was known, which addresses the field of nanoparticles without going into too much detail.

When the company Indaver Group announced at Ringaskiddy its intention to build an incinerator in the vicinity of the Irish city of Cork, the government organised an advisory council called An Bord Pleanála, with the aim of assessing the impacts on the environment and human health. In 2009, Howard presented an ambitious 38-page report highlighting his strength: Statement of Evidence. Particulate Emissions and Healthv. Secretion and particle health).

The relationships between small particles and the death of humans, the effects of different particles and their mixture, respiration and particles, the pathway of particles reaching the lungs, the mechanism of toxic influence, children especially the bulnerable, the prenatal risks of the fetus… do not have to leave a part in the corner.

It also includes a spectacular graph comparing small particles with the thickness of a human hair. It has a thickness of 0.7 or 70 millimeters. Grains of more than 10 micrometers of expired air remain in the nose and throat without passing to the lungs.

Less than 10 micrometers away, the biggest ones we get to the beginning of the bronchi and we'll flush them out with sputum or cough. Over 5 smaller micrometers reach our lungs. The thinner 2.5 microns penetrate into the alveoli, where oxygen and blood are melted into the lungs.

From there, damage, depending on the material and particle size, is less than 2.5 microns, also called nanoparticles.

Infected in the mother's womb

The rule is clear, in Howard's words: the more thorough the particle, the more serious the damage. “Studies have shown that even non-hazardous materials in the large masses become toxic when fragmented into ultra-fine particles.” In this respect, the efficiency of the filters that waste incinerators have to collect all emissions generated by combustion is also noted. This was also seen by the Irish authorities, who rejected the idea of the incinerator at Rigaskiddy. Last year, however, the company has already managed to reopen the dossier in the courts.

Waste incinerators are not the only source of concern for Howard. In collaboration with the neurologist Christian Holster, the NeuroNano project analyzes the relationship that nanoparticles carrying certain cosmetics, namely solar creams, can have with the funding of the European Union.

The other main line of research is that of the Chancellor. Howard told the Cancer Active websites: “Life expectancy has elongated, but we live in a broth with cancer-causing substances; the longer you live, the more likely you are to influence them. Living longer is not the cause.”

It analyzes the influence of pollutants around us in humans, especially in children and uncreated children: “Cancer is an epidemic today, cancer rates among children have doubled in 30 years.”

Since the middle of the twentieth century, two groups of pollutants have multiplied: on the one hand, radioactivity, dispersed by nuclear power plants and bombs; and on the other hand, the innumerable chemicals generated by the industry, some simple, but many more, such as complex PCBs and POPs. “Today we know that many of the products that classical toxicology considered non-dangerous are harmful.”

Howard is a member of important organizations exploring and observing the links between environment and human health. Cancer Activa has explained that she takes care of her family with a healthy diet and with the minimum use of chemicals at home, that she will work by bike and that she tries to make her life enjoy humor.

As for the Chancellor's investigations, although he is convinced that it will still take tens of years to clarify the mechanisms of its creation, he has some points to make. One of them is that many times the chemicals we consider harmless confuse hormonal processes, estrogen and testosterone.

That's why they're especially harmful to the baby that goes inside the mother. With this anecdote, Howard explained that it's "an error." In 2003, during the investigation into the bloodborne toxins carried by European politicians, a test was carried out on the Swedish delegate Margot Wallstrom. “It looked like a lot, but I told him I would have more if I didn’t have two kids, because they had had a lot of chemicals.” Unfortunately, the mother, when breastfeeding, passes the poison with the milk.