When we looked last week at the array of chemical additives getting into our food and, thus, into our bodies, we found there were some choices we can make to minimize our exposure and risk of becoming sick from them. The recommendations contained in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new policy statement are worth repeating here:
Prioritize consumption of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables when possible, and support that effort by developing a list of low-cost sources for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Avoid processed meats, especially maternal consumption during pregnancy.
Avoid microwaving food or beverages (including infant formula and pumped human milk) in plastic, if possible.
Avoid placing plastics in the dishwasher.
Use alternatives to plastic, such as glass or stainless steel, when possible.
Look at the recycling code on the bottom of products to find the plastic type, and avoid plastics with recycling codes 3 (phthalates), 6 (styrene), and 7 (bisphenols) unless plastics are labeled as “biobased” or “greenware,” indicating that they are made from corn and do not contain bisphenols.
Encourage hand-washing before handling foods and/or drinks, and wash all fruits and vegetables that cannot be peeled.
What about exposure to other chemical toxics that we come in contact with on a daily basis? Pediatrician and environmental health expert (and personal hero) Dr. Philip Landrigan, and his wife, author and public health educator Mary M. Landrigan, show us what we and our children are up against in 2018:
Children in the world today are exposed to thousands of environmental toxics, and these toxic chemicals are making our children sick.
More than 85,000 new chemicals have been brought to market by the chemical manufacturing industry since 1950. These are chemicals that never before existed on earth. They can be found today in vast numbers of consumer products that include soaps, shampoos, children’s clothing, toys, car seats, chemical herbicides, neurotoxic insecticides, blankets and baby bottles.
Many have become widespread in the environment. They are in air, water and soil and in our homes, schools and communities. They can be found in even the farthest corners of the planet—in the deep trenches of the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps.
Dr. and Mrs. Landrigan confirm something we noted at The PediaBlog back in 2014 — children are being born pre-polluted:
Environmental toxics get into people. Biomonitoring studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) routinely find many dozens of toxic chemicals in the bodies of all Americans of all ages—in blood, in urine, in the umbilical cord blood of newborn infants, and in the breast milk of nursing mothers.
Environmental toxics cause disease, and children are exquisitely sensitive to disease caused by chemicals. Exposures in early development—during pregnancy and in the first years after birth are especially dangerous. Early-life exposures to air pollution cause asthma, which has tripled in frequency since 1980 and become the leading cause of pediatric hospitalization and school absenteeism.
Nneka Leiba reviewed the Landrigan’s most recent book, Children and Environmental Toxins: What Everyone Needs to Know:
As industrial chemical manufacturing expanded over the last 50 years, the rate of noncommunicable diseases in children—like asthma, birth defects and certain cancers—increased, the Landrigans explain. Mounting evidence links many of these health problems to chemical exposures.
Here are some sobering statistics from the book:
- Childhood asthma has nearly tripled in frequency since the early 1970s.
- Learning disabilities affect 1 in 6 children. One of every 68 children born in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
- Since the 1970s, childhood birth defects have doubled in frequency and obesity among our youth has more than tripled.
- Both leukemia and brain cancer in children have increased by nearly 40 percent since the early 1970s.
Saying “it’s up to us to keep children safe from toxics,” the Landrigans offer a few ways we can educate ourselves and protect our children from a world awash in man-made chemicals:
First, we can act within our own homes. Every parent is the CEO of their home and has the power to decide which products to buy and which to avoid, what to bring into the home and what to leave outside. Buying organic is a very smart move. Families who eat a mainly organic diet have 90 percent less pesticides in their bodies than families who eat conventionally grown foods.
Another effective action is to avoid or at least minimize pesticide use. Instead of routinely spraying your kitchen or your lawn with chemical pesticides, read up on Integrated Pest Management and use pesticides as a last resort rather than a first line of defense.
School is another place where you can take action to protect your children. Children spend many hours of each day in school and day care. Talk with your school principal or local elected officials about creating a child-safe school environment. Make sure that your child’s school has no asbestos and no lead paint. Be wary of synthetic turf fields. Insist on child-safe art supplies.
Finally, you can take action on the political stage—in your city or town, in your county or state, or even nationally. We have come to learn that the people we elect to office can make an enormous difference for the health of our children—for better or for worse. We have been reminded that democracy is not a spectator sport.
It’s up to us.
Indeed it is.