Tarin was a regular 13-year-old from Prince Edward Island, Canada, who enjoyed swimming in the pond outside her home. But in November 1995 she was diagnosed with cancer of the blood.
It wasn't difficult to make the connection between her favourite pastime and the cancer. It was a simple question that led her mother Susan Jamieson to the water trail. "The doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto asked if Tarin had been exposed to radiation or chemicals, as this is not a disease that can be passed on genetically," explains Susan.
When she and her husband started to think about what kind of activities their daughter had been involved in, they began to suspect Tarin's favourite swimming spot might be the culprit.
The pond in question was part of the farm property that Susan and her family lived on.
Susan had presumed that the earth would absorb the chemicals and fertilisers sprayed on the crops. In fact, the poisons were all being leached into the pond water. To make matters worse, Susan had been spraying certain chemicals to control vegetation at the bottom of the pond.
Why would chemicals used to spray crops that we ingest every day have such a violent effect? As Susan explains, the amount of chemicals we ingest along with food is quite low compared to the "chemical soup" that Tarin had been swimming in every day.
That's why, in a matter of six months – between late May and November when Tarin started to spend a considerable amount of time in the pond – she had a confirmed diagnosis of blood cancer.
Another reason for the galloping progress of Tarin's illness was put down to her age: a child's immune system is still developing, so even low amounts of exposure may have drastic effects, while an adult may manifest the effect in a less threatening manner.
Tarin was fortunate in that she was covered by a conventional and alternative medical plan, which meant that she could have a bone marrow transplant and carry on some of the alternative remedies with the help of a progressive team of doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
But Tarin's "regular life" was over. She had just started grade seven when she had to leave school because of her illness. What could be worse to a child of 13 than lying in a hospital bed being told that she was going to die?
"In some ways Tarin became an adult the minute the doctor told her that. Her childhood had been terminated," says Susan. It took three long years of treatment and recovery before Tarin was able to return to school.
Cancer survivor stories often tell the tale of duelling the disease, but for Susan the hardest part was bringing Tarin home from the hospital when she was better. Neither of them was emotionally ready to go back to the house where Tarin had fallen ill – and 11 years later they're still not ready to return. Instead they moved into a new house, but not before Susan had created a list of products that would be allowed into their home.
When Tarin was in hospital Susan started investigating each product that her daughter came into contact with: bath soaps, shampoos, floor cleaners, dish cleaners, fabric softeners, bleaches and the whole bouquet of chemicals we use to kill germs in our homes and bodies – sometimes at the expense of our own health.
She started by investigating how she treated her lawns, garden plants and indoor plants. What kind of chemicals did she spray on them? Would she never tend a green lawn for fear of ingesting chemicals?
"That would be a pity! Green grass is a lovely sight for sore eyes, it helps our environment, and it is the natural equivalent of cloud seeding. The green spaces in our communities make the exercise of living in concrete jungles a lot easier.
They are the virtual oxygen bars of the neighbourhood. And it is possible to retain our right to greenery by switching to natural organic fertilisers," Susan explains. "By making green choices in your use of fertilisers and pesticides you are restricting the use of chemicals in your life."
The experience of almost losing a daughter spurred Susan to think about how she could spread awareness on the issue of chemical contamination and make the world a safer place – not just for her child, but for children everywhere.
The products that made her shortlist are among the products that Susans now markets today – cleaning, fertiliser and pesticide products that would be safe for using around Tarin and any other child.
What came after cancer?
Susan's first job after bringing Tarin home was to help market a company called Perfectly Natural that promoted organic products. As she helped grow this company, Susan was inundated by so many requests from people who wanted her to market their green products that she launched her own company, Natural Living Solutions.
This allows her to represent products from fertilisers
to cleaning products. "Our goal is to build a totally green community that's self-sustaining and can be reproduced anywhere in the world," she says.
On a trip to Dubai in 2007, Susan introduced a range of garden and cleaning products, Bradfield Organics, marketed by Natural Living Solutions.
She focused on big users like hospitals and schools where large numbers of people are exposed to high levels of cleaning agents. Susan teamed up with Imtiaz Kanji, managing director of Natural Living Solutions Dubai, to market her products in the Middle East, India and Pakistan.
"The response from the consumers and the retail industry has been fabulous," says Susan. "People don't need to be convinced regarding the switch to organic products because they already know the harm that conventional chemicals can cause. Earlier they did not have alternatives to these and that is what Natural Living Solutions is offering now."
In tandem, Susan would like to begin educating people on how the small choices they make can help them avoid the dreaded 'C' word in their lives and those of their loved ones.
Natural Living Solutions is Susan's solution to the life and death problem her daughter encountered. She's at pains to clarify that she wouldn't want to sue any of the fertiliser and chemical companies whose products affected Tarin because she does not want to take on the role of a complainer. That will not get her or other consumers anywhere except the law courts.
"I don't want to talk about the problems anymore," Susan says passionately. "My daughter almost died, so I already know there is a problem. I want to talk about solutions – what we can do to make ourselves healthier and greener as we go along."
Where's Tarin today?
In the hospital, children suffering from cancer were encouraged to draw and paint as part of their therapy. It was interesting, Susan notes, that in the beginning their art would be all black and white. As they got better they started to add colour to their artwork. Tarin developed a love of art at the hospital and developed a good eye for capturing people on camera in a way that brings out their essence.
She is pursuing both art and photography as part of her University course. Tarin has emerged a strong person since being diagnosed with cancer. "She believes that no matter what circumstances we come from, people who are positive move forward."
Got green ideas?
Susan would like to be the bridge between people with green ideas and the larger global community that could benefit from green products.
"I carefully do the research and follow up with everyone who writes to me with a suggestion," she says.
If you have a green product you'd like to tell her about, you can contact her on susanljamieson@yahoo.ca.
Susan suggests…
- When you get your laundry back from the dry cleaners, Susan recommends taking the covering plastic off and airing the clothes before you store them in your closet. This is to let the chemicals used in the dry-cleaning process to evaporate. Even residual chemicals can give rise to toxic reactions.
- Your skin is your biggest organ, so whatever comes into contact with it affects the body. This includes dishwashing cleaners, detergents, fabric softeners, shampoos, deodorants, bath foams and much more.
Natural organic bath products are non-toxic. You can detect their healthy effect on your skin almost immediately because they leave you soft and glowing as opposed to the market variety that ages the skin and leaves it dry.
- So should you only eat organically grown fruit? "I do not panic about buying regular fruit but what I do is wash it thoroughly. Part of my job when I get home with the groceries is to fill the sink with water, leave the fruit in it for awhile and wash off all residue of chemical fertilisers or pesticide that it is covered with."
- Avoid using air fresheners as they are chemical-based. Instead leave your windows open to let fresh air in.
n Use baking soda to get rid of unpleasant odours from the sink.
- Add a tablespoon of baking soda to the laundry. The clothes come out smelling fresh and looking whiter. And it is cheaper than any chemical whitener!
- Use a solution of vinegar and water to clean glass.
Can organic be unsafe?
Not everything that's labelled organic and natural is necessarily safe. It is up to the consumer to stay alert and become aware of the pitfalls of blindly buying into organic products. Susan has a rule of thumb to follow to become a discriminate buyer: "If you can't pronounce it, don't buy it."
Read the ingredient list carefully on any items you buy. "If an organic fertiliser says that the ingredients are alfalfa, molasses and corn that sounds like a green product to me.
But if an organic product says they are using human waste as a fertiliser base, then I don't want that on my lawn. "In cleaning products, we should be looking for ingredients that we understand.
"For example, if it's an organic cleaning product and the ingredient list is made up of long, chemical names that you don't understand, there's a problem in that.
"Most of us have access to the internet. You should use search engines to find out what ingredients make a cleaning product and what side effects they can have on humans," advises Susan. Similarly, too much of a good thing can be bad even in relation to organic products.
So where do we draw the line between what's good for us, and what is not?
"When the company advises consumers on the use and quantity of their product, we have to understand they know what they are talking about. A lot of times we see corporations as bad, but I see corporations as wanting to improve our lifestyle if we pay attention to what they say. Despite using organic natural fertilisers and chemicals, it may be possible that people develop allergies.
The best thing to do in these circumstances is to move to places close to nature, especially near the sea where things are relatively uncontaminated.
"One of the things that heals the body and spirit is gardening and interacting with nature. This is another thing that I learnt from Tarin's stay at the hospital where kids were encouraged to plant seeds and watch them grow. They all came to love this activity,'' says Susan.
Considering that medicines are some of the only chemicals that need to be certified by governments as safe and most of the other products that also use chemicals go almost unscrutinised, what kind of controls do we need in place to make the world a safer place?
"Governments need to look at the combinations of chemicals used in all products, and the quantities used. I think governments need to educate people on simple choices that will help to protect us.
"Sometimes as consumers we do grave wrong to ourselves when we use double the quantity of something because we believe that by doing this we will get better results. We should be more careful to adhere to instruction on the use of the product; if it says one squirt only, we should use only one squirt."
