Scientists issue “call to arms” to protect children’s health from chemicals causing disease
Authored by more than 20 leading public health researchers,
including one from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and another
from the United Nations, the paper lays out “a large body of evidence” linking
multiple childhood diseases to synthetic chemicals, and recommends a series of
aggressive actions to try to better protect children.
The paper is a “call to arms” to forge an “actual commitment
to the health of our children,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the US
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the
paper.
In conjunction with the release of the paper, some of the
study authors are helping launch an Institute
for Preventive Health to support the recommendations outlined
in the paper and to help fund implementation of reforms. A key player in
launching the institute is Robertson Stephens Wealth Management Vice
President Anne Robertson, who
is a member of the family that built RJ Reynolds Tobacco.
The paper points to data showing global inventories of
roughly 350,000 synthetic chemicals, chemical mixtures and plastics, most of
which are derived from fossil fuels. Production has expanded 50-fold since
1950, and is currently increasing by about 3% per year – projected to triple by
2050, the paper states.
Meanwhile, noncommunicable diseases, including many that
research shows can be caused by synthetic chemicals, are rising in children and
have become the principal cause of death and illness for children, the authors
write.
Despite the connections, which the authors say “continue to be discovered with distressing frequency,” there are very few restrictions on such chemicals and no post-market surveillance for longer-term adverse health effects.
“The evidence is so overwhelming and the effects of
manufactured chemicals are so disruptive for children, that inaction is no
longer an option,” said Daniele Mandrioli, a co-author of the paper and
director of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center at the Ramazzini
Institute in Italy. “Our article highlights the necessity for a paradigm shift
in chemical testing and regulations to safeguard children’s health.”
Such a shift would require changes in laws, restructuring of
the chemical industry, and redirection of financial investments similar to what
has been undertaken with efforts to transition to clean energy, the paper
states.
The paper identifies several disturbing data points for
trendlines in the US over the last 50 years:
- Incidence
of childhood cancers is up 35%.
- Male
reproductive birth defects have doubled in frequency.
- Neurodevelopmental
disorders are affecting 1 child in 6.
- Autism
spectrum disorder is diagnosed in 1 in 36 children.
- Pediatric
asthma has tripled in prevalence.
- Pediatric
obesity prevalence has nearly quadrupled, driving a “sharp increase in
type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents.”
“Children’s health has been slipping away as a priority
focus,” ‘said Tracey Woodruff, a co-author of the paper
and director of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Program on
Reproductive Health and the Environment. “We’ve slowly just been neglecting
this. The clinical and public health community and the government has failed
them.”
The authors cite research documenting how “even brief,
low-level exposures to toxic chemicals during early vulnerable periods” in a
child’s development can cause disease and disability. Prenatal exposures are
particularly hazardous, the paper states.
“Diseases caused by toxic chemical exposures in childhood
can lead to massive economic losses, including health care expenditures and
productivity losses resulting from reduced cognitive function, physical
disabilities, and premature death,” the paper notes. “The chemical industry
largely externalizes these costs and imposes them on governments and
taxpayers.”
The paper takes issue with the US Toxic Substances Control
Act (TSCA) of 1977 and amendments, arguing that even though the law was enacted
to protect public health from “unreasonable risks” posed by chemicals, it does
not provide the EPA with the authorities needed to actually meet that
commitment.
Instead, the manner in which the law is implemented assumes
that all manufactured chemicals are harmless and beneficial, and burdens
government regulators with identifying and assessing the chemicals.
“Hazards that have been recognized have typically been
ignored or downplayed, and the responsible chemicals allowed to remain in use
with no or limited restrictions,” the paper states. “In the nearly 50 years
since TSCA’s passage, only a handful of chemicals have been banned or
restricted in US markets.”
Chemical oversight is more rigorous in the European Union,
the paper says, but still fails to provide adequate protections, relying
heavily on testing data provided by the chemical industry and offering multiple
exemptions, the paper argues.
The authors of the paper prescribe a new global
“precautionary” approach that would only allow chemical products on the market
if their manufacturers could establish through independent testing that the
chemicals are not toxic at anticipated exposure levels.
“The core of our recommendation is that chemicals should be
tested before they come to market, they should not be presumed innocent only to
be found to be harmful years and decades later,” said Phil Landrigan, a
co-author who directs the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good
at Boston College. “Each and every chemical should be tested before they come
to market.”
Additionally, companies would be required to conduct
post-marketing surveillance to look for long-term adverse effects of their
products.
That could include biomonitoring of the most prevalent
chemical exposures to the general population, Mandrioli said. Disease
registries would play another fundamental role, he said, but those approaches
should be integrated with toxicological studies that can “anticipate and
rapidly predict effects that might have very long latencies in humans, such as
cancer.” Cluster of populations with increased cancer incidences, particularly
when they are children, should trigger immediate preventive actions, he said.
Key to it all would be a legally binding global chemicals
treaty that would fall under the auspices of the United Nations, and would
require a “permanent, independent science policy body to provide expert
guidance,” the paper suggests.
The paper recommends chemical companies and consumer product
companies be required to disclose information about the potential risks of the
chemicals in use and report on inventory and usage of chemicals of “high
concern.”
“Pollution by synthetic chemicals and plastics is a major
planetary challenge that is worsening rapidly,” the paper states. “Continued,
unchecked increases in production of fossil-carbon–based chemicals endangers
the world’s children and threatens humanity’s capacity for reproduction.
Inaction on chemicals is no longer an option.”
Landrigan said he knows the efforts faces an uphill climb,
and could be particularly challenging given the incoming Trump administration,
which is widely expected to favor deregulation policies.
“This is a tough subject. It’s an elephant,” he said.
“But it is what needs to be done.”
