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Wed 8 Nov, 2006 11:01 pm
Reuters
Quote: By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Exposure to industrial chemicals in the womb or early in life can impair brain development but only a handful are controlled to protect children, researchers said on Wednesday.
There is also a lack of research and testing to identify which chemicals cause the most harm or how they should be regulated, they added.
"Only a few substances, such as lead and mercury, are controlled with the purpose of protecting children," said Philippe Grandjean of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts and the University of Southern Denmark.
"The 200 other chemicals that are known to be toxic to the human brain are not regulated to prevent adverse effects on the fetus or a small child," he added.
In a review published online by The Lancet medical journal, Grandjean and Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York identified 202 industrial chemicals known to be toxic to the human brain.
They suggested millions of children worldwide may have been harmed by toxic chemicals and may suffer learning disabilities and developmental disorders. But only substances such as lead, methylmercury and polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs) have been sufficiently studied and regulated.
This has been something that has worried me for years. Why don't we monitor all the chemicals known to damage human dna or tissue? Why aren't all carcinogens regulated? What happens if whole populations grow up with high frequencies of learning disabilities and developmental disorders (and possibly physical disorders)? Do we, as a global people, come together and care for vast populations once the damage is done? Or do we step up and reduce environmental toxins now to prevent massive human effects?
It's easy to think we know what all these chemicals do. But we don't. And would it be a better use of resources to exhaustively track all industrial chemicals and their potential teraogenic effects, or make sure that every pregnant woman and neonatal child in the third world are properly nourished?
I don't mean to be glib, really, and of course we aren't doing either of the things mentioned in the last paragraph, but if I had to make an economically savvy decision (in terms of returns on investment), I'd go with simple gains on the larger scale.
Sure, knock yourself out.
(Just being grim.)
As weve recently discovered from long term studies, one of the most important of the "endocrine disrupters" is a series of chemicals so ubiquitous as to be almost indespensible from most products. These are the dispersants and surfactants(detergents). Almost every product you use and every food product you eat contains dispersants , emoliants and detergents, and these products should be reviewed (read the labels) and yo should make your decisions accordingly.
We eat a huge amount of fresh veggies and even those must be wshed to remove waxes and detergents.
Things that we can do something about more quickly, like heavy metals,are being replaced and remediated and this has gone on for about 20 years, but even this has been a slow process.
A study by a team from Yale med school looked at the diet of the French, who admittedly eat more fats and butter than we do. They seem to be (as a group) more trim than USers and statistically having fewer chronic conditions. The only major differences were their intake of flavinoids and(more importantly to the YAle guys) THEY eat less processed foods .
RE YOUR DREAMS ENTERTAINING?
I have great dreams. They are like a less violent Tarantino movie. I dream in color because I always remember interirors and they atre usually weird. LAst night, myy entire dremas took place in a series of rooms that were tiled with terra ciotta blocks with dark viridian accents.Floors , ceilings, walls etc. I had a dream that brought together many old girlfriends who were there while I ws trying to have dinner with my wife. One girl (I remember her as a young girl) was our waitress and she kept bringing cooked dead animal heads under a deep blue tray cover.
Do you have weird dreams? Most times I only remember my dreams for a few minutes after I wake up, and, unless I write them down, the entire point of the dream begins to fade rather quickly.
Does this mean I have Alzheimers?
Well Farmer, as you asked! You know coupled with some of the other noticeable symptoms, it's possible.
But carry on as normal, I'm not qualified.
as Janco said 9except in Romanian) "Its all da-da"
Was that simply da-da or more like da-dada-dada?
Stumble It!
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