https://goo.gl/my2z2GMore than 100,000 new chemicals have been invented in the past 50 years. Many have become widely disseminated in the environment, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveys document that low-levels of several hundred man-made chemicals can now be found in the bodies of nearly all Americans, even in our youngest children. Children are exquisitely sensitive to these chemicals.
Over the summer, two events have drawn our attention to the impacts of low-level chemical exposures on children’s health. First was the story in the New York Times and other national news outlets reporting that measurable levels of the plastic chemical, phthalate, has been detected in mass-produced macaroni and cheese products. Phthalates are toxic chemicals that can injure children’s developing brains and cause reproductive problems. Yet, spokespersons for the processed food industry assured the world that the levels of phthalates present in their products were too small to cause concern.
The second event was the death on July 18 of Dr. Herbert Needleman. Dr. Needleman, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist, conducted landmark studies of childhood lead poisoning using analyses of lead levels in discarded baby teeth. He documented that low-level lead exposures — even exposures at levels widely considered “safe” — were actually causing permanent damage to children’s brains. He showed that children exposed to lead can have reduced IQ scores, short attention spans, and difficulties in controlling their behavior. These injuries occur even when there are no obvious symptoms of lead poisoning.
But even as blood lead levels were going down, new chemicals have entered the market, fouled the environment, and entered children’s bodies. These toxic chemicals include the phthalates found in macaroni and cheese, new classes of insecticides, brominated flame retardants, and components of air pollution. In the last three years, seven published studies have found that early-life exposures to phthalates are linked to lower intelligence, memory problems, attention deficit disorder, aggression, impulsivity and other behavioral problems in children. Twenty-one additional studies have found evidence for reproductive injury in children exposed to phthalates — lower levels of testosterone, abnormalities in the structure of the male reproductive organs in baby boys, and earlier onset of puberty. The food that we Americans eat and the products that we use every day were the sources of this exposure.