The Chemical Environment and Children’s Health

Abstract

Abstract More than 85,000 synthetic chemicals have been developed in the past 50 years. These chemicals are used today in millions of consumer products. They are dispersed widely in the environment. Several hundred can be detected in the bodies of most people around the world. Children are exposed extensively to them. Most of the chemicals in widest use have never been tested for safety. This failure to test chemicals represents a grave lapse of stewardship. It reflects the unwillingness of the chemical industry to take responsibility for its products, coupled with the failure of governments around the world to protect their citizens. Evidence is strong and rapidly growing that toxic chemicals are important causes of disease in children. A major unanswered question is whether there are chemicals of unrecognized toxicity in wide use today whose impacts on children’s health have not yet been discovered. Research to answer this question is urgently needed. The alert clinician is a critical line of defense against the unanticipated hazards of new chemicals. Alert pediatricians have frequently been the first to recognize new chemical hazards.