Chemicals and our children's health

I subscribe to Gwyneth Paltrow's "Goop" newsletter. Today's was a really interesting (and disturbing) look at environmental toxins and the effect it has on children.

Philip J. Landrigan, MD, pediatrician and epidemiologist, has an article in the newsletter that includes:

• Asthma incidence has nearly tripled in the past three decades. It is the leading reason children are admitted to hospitals and the leading cause of school absenteeism.
• Cancer, after injuries, is the leading killer of children in the United States.
• Leukemia and Primary Brain Cancer have increased in incidence – brain cancer by nearly 40 percent in the past three decades.
• Developmental Disabilities are now commonplace, with ADHD, dyslexia, other learning disabilities and mental retardation affecting one of every six American children.
• Birth Defects such as hypospadias, a birth defect of the reproductive organs in baby boys, have doubled.
• Autism is now diagnosed in one in every 150 American children.
• Childhood Obesity has quadrupled in the past ten years.
• Type 2 Diabetes, previously unknown among children, is becoming epidemic.

Children are at risk of exposure to 80,000 chemicals, 3,000 of which are high-production-volume synthetic chemicals produced in excess of one million pounds per year. Nearly all of these are new chemicals developed in the past 50 years and never before seen on the face of planet earth. These chemicals are used widely in consumer and household goods like personal care products, cleaning supplies, pesticides, paints, toys, home furnishings, carpeting and electronics. Most disturbing to me as a doctor is that nearly 80 percent of these chemicals have never been tested for toxicity or examined for their potential to damage children’s health.

Read the rest here.