Reducing our children's exposure to chemicals

[Lynn from OrganicMania]

Non-profits such as the Environmental Working Group have led the way in identifying and educating parents about carcinogenic and other dangerous chemicals that are allowed to be included in personal care and household cleaners in small amounts. The US government currently does not study the compound effects of small amounts of many different chemicals in the many thousands of different cosmetics, personal care, and household products for sale in the US. Under President Obama, should this change? How would this change? What can be done to more closely regulate exposure to chemicals, particularly for vulnerable populations such as children and women of child bearing age?

[Diane MacEachern]

Great questions. Under a "prevention" agenda, to have the greatest benefit, the impact of chemicals should be evaluated for their compound effect. What do others think?

[greenandhealthy]

The Kid Safe Chemicals Act must be passed in order for us to overhaul the chemical regulatory system that has so overwhelmingly failed us. And, the National Children's Study will give us amazing insights into chemical and environmental impacts on children's vulnerable developing systems, but I think we need more. If I remember right, Sweden has a breastmilk biomonitoring system in place whereby they regularly test women's milk. If they notice a chemical accumulating in breastmilk, they ban it. They don't need years of studies demonstrating negative health impacts. They simply have the common sense to know that industrial chemicals don't belong in breastmilk. Sheer genius.

[Lynn from OrganicMania]

GreenandHealthy,

Thanks for the info about the Swedish system. I can't believe all of Europe seems to be so far ahead of the US in this area. We're only talking about the future of the human race, right?

I know the wonderful folks at The Environmental Working Group are behind the Kid Safe Chemicals Act. What about the National Children's Study? What else can you say about that?

Lynn

[greenandhealthy]

The NCS is an unprecedented government study that will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21. http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/

[Diane MacEachern]

What an amazing idea - if you have any links to what the Swedes are doing with breast milk, I'd love to get them.

[greenandhealthy]

I can't find a direct link to their national program at the moment, but if you google something like sweden breast milk biomonitoring you'll find reference to it all over the place. The biggest success story so far is that when they saw PBDEs accumulating in breastmilk, they banned them and immediately saw a decrease.

[Rachel A. Markel]

This has been an issue that I have been advocating for the past 15 years. Dr. Dorris Rapp, an expert in environmental medicine has published several cutting edge books on this topic, I reccommend, "Is This Your Child's World?" She explores in detail the "cocktail" of chemical exposures and the direct impact on our children's health. She was a guest on Oprah years ago and the footage that she provided was astounding. Cases where children were exposed to chemicals in the school system and their physical and behavioral effects were truly frightening.

We must urge President Obama to make this a primary issue. Over 80,000 chemicals have been introduced into the manufacturing of products since the late 1950's. Rachel Carson warned us of the fall out of toxic chemicals in the 1970's. The Bush administration relaxed many of the laws within the EPA designed to protect human health and policies need to be revisited and changed. Several other countries have been successful at reducing and eliminating the use of toxic chemicals, this should be our primary goal as well. Children are the most at risk.

[Diane MacEachern]

Yes, you're absolutely right. It is critical to include this in any prevention agenda. Even if we started with EWG's list of 250 chemicals to regulate, we'd be going in the right direction.

[Steph @ Greening Families]

In addition to chemicals in products, I believe medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, should be evaluated in terms of compound effect as well. The current evaluation methods do not reflect the reality that children and adults face.