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Racism is still rampant in our country, and it might exist in places you didn\u2019t expect it. For example, Black and Brown populations are at a higher risk of exposure to environmental toxins and have less access to high-quality medical care or clinical medical studies on their specific populations.\nThis is a major problem that can\u2019t be ignored. And it\u2019s hugely impacting our economy and the success of future generations in multiple ways. Every year we spend 50 billion dollars and lose 23 million IQ points to lead toxicity alone, which affects people of color the most, regardless of social class and income level.\xa0\nToday on The Doctor\u2019s Farmacy I sit down for an important conversation with Harriet Washington about these issues. Harriet has been the Shearing Fellow at the University of Nevada's Black Mountain Institute, a Research Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University, and a visiting scholar at DePaul University College of Law. She has held fellowships at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Stanford University. She is the author of Deadly Monopolies, Infectious Madness, and Medical Apartheid, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Oakland Award, and the American Library Association Black Caucus Nonfiction Award. Her new book, A Terrible Thing to Waste,\xa0is a \u201cpowerful and indispensable\u201d looks at the devastating consequences of environmental racism\u2014and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities.\nThis episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market has made it so easy for me to stay healthy, even with my intense travel schedule. Not only does Thrive offer 25 to 50% off all of my favorite brands, but they also give back. For every membership purchased, they give a membership to a family in need, and they make it easy to find the right membership for you and your family. You can choose from 1-month, 3-month, or 12-month plans. And right now, Thrive is offering all Doctor's Farmacy listeners a great deal, you\u2019ll get up to $20 in shopping credit when you sign up, to spend on all your own favorite natural food, body, and household items. And any time you spend more than $49 you\u2019ll get free carbon-neutral shipping. All you have to do is head over to thrivemarket.com/Hyman.\nHere are more of the details from our interview:\xa0\n\nCommunities of color in America are being poisoned as a result of decisions and policies that expose them to dangerous levels of environmental toxins (5:29)\n\nThe Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sanctioned case of toxic dumping in Afton, North Carolina (12:25)\n\nLead poisoning, its effects on intelligence and cognition, and the populations it is most affecting (16:12)\n\nThe lack of precautionary testing of chemicals in the United States (22:24)\n\nUnacknowledged fetal alcohol damage in Hispanic and African American communities (31:13)\n\nEnvironmental toxin rates among African American communities across all income levels (33:54)\n\nHow to effectively test for and treat environmental toxin issues (39:38)\n\nWhat actions individuals and communities can take to protect themselves from environmental toxins (44:29)\n\nThe connection between environmental racism and food injustice (48:39)\n\nThe role that government, communities, and public health needs to play in protecting citizens from environmental toxins (1:06:57)\n\nHarriet Washington\u2019s most recent book is A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind.\n\n \nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices