(Page 2 of 5)

Children today live in an environment that is quite different from that of their parents’ generation. Rapidly expanding technology and a post-World War II chemical-production revolution has forever changed the way we live, for better or for worse. Since the 1950s, more than 80,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our lives and our environment. In a typical year, industrial facilities release more than seven billion pounds of chemicals identified by the federal government as “toxic” into America’s environment. Not all of these chemicals will have identifiable adverse health effects for those exposed, at least not for healthy adults. But for pregnant women, babies, and young children, the possibility that these untested environmental pollutants will seep into the air, water, and food supplies poses a significant danger.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-quarter of American children live in counties whose air violates health-based pollution standards designed to protect the developing lungs of young children. The report further notes that four million of these children live within a mile of a one of the U.S.’s 1,400 Superfund sites, which are the nation’s worst toxic waste sites. According to the EPA, the health effects of the contaminants found in Superfund sites include damage to the central nervous system, kidney, and liver, as well as numerous cancers. In recent years, the government’s efforts to clean up federal Superfund sites has slowed significantly on account of a 30% decrease in funding, a reduction attributable to Congress’s failure to renew the so-called “polluter- pays” tax on oil and chemical companies which had previously funded Superfund site remediation.

In February 2006, researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital published the results of a study of 300 newborns that most parents would find disturbing. Ninety-nine percent of the babies tested were born with trace levels of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), an industrial chemical that is suspected to be a cancer causing agent. This chemical is used in the manufacture of Teflon pans, computer chips, cellular phones, and many other consumer products. At this time, it is unclear exactly how the PFOA made its way into the newborns’ systems, but it is hardly surprising given that this chemical is so widely dispersed in the environment that it has even been found in polar bears.