Our Toxic World
Who is Looking After Our Kids?
INTRODUCTION
To paraphrase Charles Dickens, these are difficult times, but they are also exciting times. They are dangerous times, but they are also times of unprecedented opportunity.
American children today may be confronted with the greatest difficulty and danger that can be placed on any generation, that of a subtle deterioration in health, largely the result of an increasingly hostile and toxic environment. Considering the circumstances, the marvel is that many do turn out well.
Children are much more vulnerable to toxic exposures than adults. Because they have borne the brunt of these exposures and suffered the consequences in terms of impaired health, it can be predicted that the present generation of children, in years to come, will find definitive answers in terms of restoring a clean human environment and restoring natural balances that all too often, have been disrupted by modern technology.
It has been said that difficulties carry the seeds for their own cure. In the present case, the ultimate cure must rest with the children. It is fairly safe to anticipate that the present generation of children will become the culture bearers of the future.
Increasing health problems in children today largely involve two closely related and interacting systems of the body, the immune system and the brain and nervous system. Health problems involving these systems express themselves as various manifestations of crippled immune systems, delayed development, and "minimal brain dysfunction."
Allergic disorders such as asthma are rapidly increasing, both in frequency and severity.(1,2) Although more difficult to quantify statistically, susceptibility to common viral infections and their complications appears to have increased on a scale largely unknown in earlier generations, as indicated by the increasing numbers of children who are becoming dependent on frequent or prolonged courses of antibiotics.
Corresponding increases have taken place in behavioral disorders, attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), and learning disabilities. ADHD, with its long-term consequences in terms of impaired learning capacity and social adjustment difficulties that commonly ensue in later adolescence, is arguably one of the foremost health problems of our times. (3,4)
Although statistics confirm the increasing prevalence of ADHD and related problems among children,5 statistics alone do not tell the entire story. Many factors involved are subtle and intangible and are difficult to measure statistically. Perhaps the best way to gain insight into the pervasiveness of the problem is to talk with veteran teachers with a perspective of 20 or 30 years teaching experience. In our office we have asked a number of these teachers inquiring if they have observed a change in children during their teaching careers. Without exception, they have replied there has been a dramatic change, most notably since the 1970s. Steadily increasing numbers of children, they report, are restless, impulsive, less focused, less able to maintain sustained concentration, and therefore, less able to learn.
Pediatric physician Lendon Smith estimates that 6% to 8% of children are hyperactive in the average elementary school classroom, whereas in the 1950's this problem was rarely seen.
The primary therapy today for ADHD is Ritalin~or related drugs, despite studies showing that the long term benefits are negligible or at best questionable when used without other therapies. (5,6)
There is a growing consensus that the causes of these adverse health trends among American children can be placed in four categories, which will be the subjects of later chapters
- · Commercial food processing including increasing use of chemical food additives and inadequate screening for pesticide residues.
- · Toxic environmental chemicals.
- · Overuse of antibiotics.
- · Overuse or improper use of fluoride. To this we feel compelled to add a fifth category
- · Current childhood immunizations - which will take many readers by surprise, as few people today question the efficacy of these vaccines. However, if we are to do justice to today's children, it must be included.
The question is not about the principle of immunization, which is an ongoing natural process, but about the current forms and schedules. When vaccines simulate natural processes, we believe their use can be relatively safe as well as protective, but we do not believe this is the case with current vaccine programs.
There are three basic concerns about current childhood vaccines, which will be reviewed at greater length in another chapter of this book.
The first is that viral vaccines are incubated in animal tissues and, therefore, may carry animal genetic material into the child, setting the stage for later disease.
Second, live virus vaccines are subject to viral contamination.
A third concern, current schedules call for numerous vaccines during the first six months of life of the child, which is certainly a departure from natural processes. Natural infectious challenges, according to standard pediatric texts, come an average of once every 6 weeks following birth, the great majority of which occur without illness. Simultaneous vaccines over a short period of time comprise a wide variant from this natural process. Also, all vaccines, with one exception that is given orally, are injected by needles directly into the system, thereby bypassing the mucosal immune system (the secretory IgA system of the gastrointestinal and respiratory systems) which ordinarily cushion a majority of infectious challenges.
It is difficult to conceive that these abnormal challenges would not use up to an abnormal extent the limited reservoir of the highly immature immune system of the infant, thereby creating long-term and weakening imbalances.
How then can we restore to children that most precious of all gifts, a healthy body with strength, stamina, and a stable nervous system? We believe that meaningful progress will best come about through public education. Large portions of the public are already seeking sound guidance in this area. Above all, there should be freedom of choice in matters pertaining to health. Those seeking health for themselves and their families must return to more natural patterns of living. This requires effort and,
very often, the braving of public opinion. This cannot come about in a society where basic freedoms in the health field are denied.
References
1. Weitzman M, et al. Recent trends in the prevalence and severity of asthma. JAMA. 1992;268 (19) :2673-2677.
2. Hunt LW, et al. Accuracy of the death certificate in a population based study of asthmatic patients. JAMA. 1993;269(15):1947-1952.
3. Satterfield IH, et al. Therapeutic interventions to prevent delinquency in hyperactive boys. l Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1987; 26 (1) :56-64.
4. Barkley RA, et al. The adolescent outcome of hyperactive children diagnosed by research criteria: 1. An 8-year prospective follow-up study. l Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1990;29(4) 546-557.
5. Wolraich ML, et al. Stimulant medication use by primary care physicians in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics. 1990; 86 95- 101.
6. Hechtman L. Adolescent outcome of hyperactive children treated with stimulants in childhood: a review. Psychopharmocol Bull. 1985; 21:178.