[Falls Church, Virginia] Manufactured chemicals pose a real danger to children’s health, due to inadequate legal controls, said leading international health experts at the launch of the Institute for Preventive Health (IPH) on Tuesday.
Exposure to manufactured synthetic chemicals has worsened the levels of chronic disease and developmental disorders in children, over the last 50 years, including childhood cancer, male reproductive birth defects, pediatric obesity, neurodevelopmental disorders, autism spectrum disorder, and IQ reduction, according to a newly published peer-reviewed paper in the world’s leading medical journal, The New England Journal of Medicine.
The paper was authored by the 25 scientists, clinicians, economists and legal experts, from 17 top institutions, including Boston College, Harvard University, Duke University, the University of California, the Centre Scientifique de Monaco and the United Nations Environment Programme, many of whom have now joined the Institute for Preventive Health to make sure that policy and legal changes outlined in the study are implemented to protect children’s health.
Fewer than 20% of the estimated 350,000 manufactured chemicals, chemical mixtures and plastics, registered for production and use, have been tested for toxicity, and fewer still for toxic effects in infants and children.
“Manufactured chemicals are currently subject to inadequate regulation that fails to safeguard children’s health, due to general regulatory failure, and the chemical industry’s financial and lobbying influence,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, pediatrician, IPH Board Member and Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College.
“Some of the increases in children’s chronic disease over the past half century have been alarming, for example, here in the U.S. childhood cancer is up 35%, male reproductive birth defects have doubled, fertility levels are falling, pediatric asthma has tripled, and pediatric obesity has nearly quadrupled,” Dr. Landrigan continued.
The Institute for Preventive Health (IPH) has been launched to push for the introduction of new laws and regulations that better protect children and infants from the health dangers posed by toxic manufactured chemicals. In its first actionable call to action, the IPH has released a blueprint for change which draws on The New England Journal of Medicine paper, and will encourage governments, regulators, brands, and the chemical industry, to take the necessary steps to protect children’s health from chemical harm.
One of the blueprint’s key suggestions is that the legal and regulatory frameworks governing manufactured chemicals should be shifted worldwide to the precautionary principle, which will better protect children’s health. Instead of proving manufactured chemicals are harmful many years after our children have already been exposed to them, the emphasis needs to shift to proving they are harmless before they are allowed on the market.
“Applying the precautionary principle is common sense, if we are serious about protecting human health, including our children, manufactured chemicals should only be permitted to enter markets if rigorous, independent, analysis establishes they are not toxic at anticipated levels of exposure,” stated Dr. Hervé Raps, IPH Scientific Advisory Board member and Research Delegate Physician at the Monaco Scientific Center, the National Research Agency of the Principality of Monaco.
The IPH is providing the first ever international structure for independent safety studies and biomonitoring, which will enable policy makers, brands and investors to be given the true picture of current levels of harm to our children as well as future risks.
“Nations must start testing and regulating chemicals and chemical products as closely as the current systems that safeguard prescription drugs, or risk the continuation of rising rates of chronic disease among children. Going forward, we must implement science-led solutions that protect health,” said Dr. Linda Birnbaum, IPH Scientific Advisory Board member and former Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health, and the National Toxicology Program (NTP).
“Preventing harm to children’s health must become the new guiding light of modern science, so the IPH looks forward to enabling this to happen by working with governments, regulators, brands and investors to create real change,” Dr. Birnbaum concluded.
ENDS
Information for Editors:
Press contacts:
Dr. Philip Landrigan,
Institute for Preventive Health
contact@toxicfreesolutions.org
Notes for Editors:
- A major scientific paper on protecting children’s health from harmful chemicals, has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the world’s leading medical journal. Twenty five independent experts in child health – including environmental health scientists, toxicologists, economists, and legal experts from seventeen of the world’s leading scientific institutions – contributed to this seminal peer-reviewed paper – ‘Manufactured Chemicals and Children’s Health – The Need for New Law’: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms240909
- This new research offers a workable roadmap of actionable steps and solutions to address the growing impact of manufacturerd synthetic chemicals on children’s health.
- The science-led Institute for Preventive Health (IPH) has been launched by many of the study authors to make sure policy makers, investors and brands around the world take the necessary steps to protect children’s health. toxicfreesolutions.org
- ‘Over 350,000 chemicals and mixtures of chemicals have been registered for production and use, up to three times as many as previously estimated’: Wang Z, Walker GW, Muir DCG, Nagatani-Yoshida K. Toward a global understanding of chemical pollution: a first comprehensive analysis of national and regional chemical inventories. Environ Sci Technol 2020;54:2575-2584:
- ‘Production of manufactured chemicals, chemical mixtures, and plastics has expanded 50-fold since 1950, is currently increasing by about 3% per year, and is projected to triple by 2050.’: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms2409092
- Less than 20% of manufactured chemicals have been tested for toxicity in children.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms2409092
The Current Crisis:
After a century-long focus on combating communicable diseases by the medical and scientific community, a new threat to children’s health is on the rise. Today, chronic diseases are the leading cause of public health threats to children, with rising cases that are credibly linked to synthetic chemicals in our food, water, air, and environment.
Since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was first created in 1970, exposure to toxic chemicals among the U.S. population has increased strongly. No one has been more harmed by this failure than America’s infants and children, who now face some of the worst health outcomes and incidents of debilitating chronic diseases in the world:
Alarming Children’s Health Statistics Over the Past 50 years (USA):
- Childhood cancer: Up 35%
- Male reproductive birth defects: Have doubled across western countries
- Neurodevelopmental disorders now affect 1 child in 6 in the U.S.
- Autism spectrum disorder: 1 in 36 children now affected in the U.S. (roughly 3% of children), compared with 1 in 150 in the year 2000 (0.75%).
- Pediatric asthma: Has tripled in the U.S. (now roughly 6% of children)
- Pediatric obesity: Has quadrupled, driving type 2 diabetes in youth.
- Reduced fertility and altered sexual development: 59.3% reduction in sperm count.
- IQ reductions being a major cause of over $340 Billion a year in economic damage just in the U.S
The Institute for Preventive Health’s Call to Action
As leading environmental health scientists, toxicologists, economists, and legal experts on the frontline of our current chronic health crisis, our team believes now is the time for immediate action. Further inaction and delays in enacting common sense reforms founded on rigorous science is unconscionable in the face of the mounting evidence of harm.
As a result of our decades’ long research and with our understanding of the emerging science, we emphatically believe that:
- Synthetic chemical pollution poses a critical threat to children’s health and humanity’s future.
- Immediate, large-scale reform is needed to prioritize health, restructure the chemical industry, and redirect investments – on a scale comparable to the transition to clean energy.
- Inaction is no longer an option to safeguard future generations.
Recommended Solutions:
- Stronger Laws:
- Require rigorous pre-market safety testing for all synthetic chemicals.
- Implement rigorous post-market health monitoring for long-term risks.
- Precautionary Approach:
- Shift from presuming that synthetic chemicals are harmless to requiring proof of their long-term safety for children and infants.
- Implement independent safety testing and biomonitoring structures.
- Chemical Footprinting:
- Track and reduce harmful chemicals in supply chains, similar to carbon footprinting.
- Safer Alternatives:
- Invest in and promote safer alternatives, formulations, and eco-friendly manufacturing.
- Global Policy Reform:
- Enact a Global Treaty and National Legal Frameworks for protecting children’s health from the harm being caused by toxic chemicals.