The toxic load our children bear

If you want to shock yourself, go to the website for the Global Alliance for Our Children’s Future, a north American network that ‘creates and disseminates tools to educate professionals, the public, and policy makers on holistic models of health for our children’.

First read the stats as they apply to North America:

• In the last 20 years the incidence of autism (in the US) has increased from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 52.
• Anxiety is the fastest growing neurodevelopmental condition in the world.
• ADHD conservatively impacts more than 5% of all children.
• Food allergies affect 1 in every 13 children.
• More than 100 active toxins can be found in the cord blood of newborns.

Then spool down and watch the short presentation by Dr Bruce Lanphear from the Simon Fraser University, a public research university in British Columbia, looking at the toxic load that all North American children bear.

He focuses on mercury, lead, organophosphate pesticides, PCBs, BPA and PBDEs (flame retardants) and he shows that between 90 and 100% of all children have traces of all of these chemicals in their bodies. While each toxic chemical has its own effect, there is also the synergistic effect of these chemicals when they come together, not to mention the many thousands of other chemicals in our environments – many benign but others less so although not as toxic as these. While the chemical industry claims that the levels found in children are too small to have any effect, the levels are in fact similar to levels of drugs such as Ritalin (used to treat ADHD children) and therefore presumably thought to be sufficiently powerful to have an effect. Dr Lanphear then goes on to show how, as the level of toxic chemicals in children’s blood increases, so those children’s IQs decrease.

In Canada and the US chemicals are used in consumer products and released into the environment before they are tested for safety.  In Europe, thanks to the 2006 REACH programme, this is not the case and both new and existing chemicals are subjected to rigorous testing before being cleared for use. But many of the chemicals now recognised as the most dangerous were in use long before 2006 and will persist in the environment for many generations to come. So the danger to our children in Europe remains.

Kid’s Brain Summit

For those who are interested in this area there is a free on line summit – the KidsBrain Summit – running from 20th to the 24th October covering every possible aspect the holistic approach to managing children with chronic health, and especially chronic behavioural issues, many of which appear to have been caused by toxic overload.

The summit is being hosted by Michelle Riddle, the moving spirit behind the Global Alliance. On the Global Alliance website she also suggests a series of interventions which can help chemically damaged children.

EMFs – another toxin

Michelle was also a guest speaker at the EMF Hazards summit in early October. In her talk she suggested that electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) were just another toxin to which we were subjecting our children and that minimising children’s exposure to EMFs could significantly improve both their physical, and more especially their mental health. To highlight a few of the points that she made.

• Sixty percent of children in the US either have a chronic disease or they are obese.
• Inflammation is a factor in most of these conditions and inflammation is caused both by toxic overload and by exposure to EMFs.
• In 2019 the WHO issued a call to action to minimise exposure to toxins especially among children, and included EMFs under their list of toxins to be avoided.

Why are children more susceptible to EMFs?

• The absorption of EMFs by children’s heads and the bone marrow in children’s skulls is significantly greater than that in adults. See here.
• Children’s heads are much smaller so the centre of the brain is much closer to, for example, a mobile phone than in an adult.
• Children are growing so their cells are developing. The membrane around red blood cells includes receptors designed to recognise toxins and launch an immune response. This causes the red blood cells to close down to protect themselves against danger. However, if this response is activated too often, the cells are unable to open and shut as they should to take in nutrients and expel waste.

Michelle’s suggestions for minimising exposure in children.

• Use wired devices whenever possible and limit wifi exposure.
• Reduce phone use. Both so that your children are not carrying the phone close to their bodies all the time and so that parents can monitor what they are looking at. Especially for very young children this is advisable given the amount of undesirable material that is openly available on the internet.
• Turn off all devices as long as possible before bedtime and turn off all wifi at night.
• If possible, get children to go outside without shoes and stand on the naked ground to ‘ground’ themselves before bed.
• Have an Epsom salts bath before bed. Epsom salts are high in magnesium which helps to block inflammatory reactions.