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.
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