Environmental toxins that can affect children are commonplace in our world today. Most parents are aware of the dangers of lead (commonly found in older paint and in some household window blinds), but heavy metals frequently found in fish and other toxins released from the burning of coal are also prevalent. Mercury exposure’s dangers are memory impairment, attention and language ability damage, and interference with visual spatial and fine motor skills.
According to Maureen Swanson, MPA, the director of the Healthy Children Project at the Learning Disabilities Association of America, “Researchers are finding harmful effects at lower and lower levels of exposure. They’re now telling us that they don’t know if there’s a level of mercury that’s safe.”
Evidence suggests a clear connection between toxins and children’s school performance. Lead poisoning, for instance, lowers IQ and shortens attention spans. While it is unknown exactly what the impact of many toxins may have on children’s developing neurological systems, groups such as the Autism Society of America, the Learning Disabilities Association of America, and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (formerly the American Association on Mental Retardation) have teamed with dozens of other organizations to form the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative, whose goal is to protect children from pollutants that can adversely affect brain development.
Chemicals used in pesticides, particularly a class called organophosphates, have been associated with hormonal disruption and cancer. Although Dursban, the brand name of a chemical pesticide used on school grounds, has been banned in the United States, it may still be present in the environment. Other now-banned chemicals such as organochlorines, found as recently as 2003 in head lice medication and dioxin, found in pesticides, and other chemicals may still be entering the environment and causing problems for children.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), some of which are a form of dioxin, have been banned in the United States for years. However, they are still found in the environment. Research has found that low-level exposure to PCBs in utero leads to poor reading comprehension, memory problems, and low IQ in children.
Flame retardants and plasticizers, such as bisphenol A (found in dental sealants, pacifiers, and baby bottles) cause health problems for children as well. According to Elise Miller, MEd, executive director of the nonprofit Institute for Children’s Environmental Health and national coordinator of the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative, “We all have bisphenol A in our bodies now.” Bisphenol A can affect both the neurological and reproductive systems and appears to accumulate more around the fetus than in the mother’s blood.
Miller states that “Of the tens of thousands of chemicals that have been introduced into the environment in the last half-century, most have not been tested for human health problems—and only 15 have been thoroughly tested for neurotoxicity.” There is much debate among researchers as to how these chemicals affect children, and there has not been much research on the effects of how these chemicals might act in combination with one another.
However, as Miller states, “We all have hundreds of chemicals in our bodies today that didn’t exist a few decades ago. And we’re seeing increases in learning and developmental disabilities as well as many other chronic diseases. Currently, one in six children under the age of 18 have [sic] some kind of learning, or developmental, or behavioral disorder.”
Debate swirls around whether the increase in children affected is an actual increase and how much is due to factors like more accurate diagnoses, but Miller states that people who have worked with children for years are seeing an increase in the numbers of those affected by learning disabilities or behavioral issues.
Although the research may not be clear on many points, one thing is certain: toxins in the environment affect children more than adults. For instance, in a home with radon, an adult’s exposure level is half that of a 6-month-old. Children have a higher metabolic rate and consume more fluids, food, and air than adults do, and spend far more time on the floor and in the dirt than children do.
Because children are still growing, their systems are more vulnerable than adults’ systems are. Baby food and school busses have been found to contain pesticides and high levels of diesel exhaust respectively. Children also put non-food items into their mouths, increasing their exposure to toxins.
Efforts to reduce lead exposure have been successful; in 1971, the government banned lead paint, and later, lead in gasoline and food cans, significantly reducing exposure.
However, lead has accumulated in soil and there are still lead paints in older housing. Questions about potential lead paint exposure are standard in pediatricians’ offices, and in New York State, every child must be tested for lead at ages 1 and 2.
Research into autism and environmental exposure is ongoing. An emerging area of research is studying whether there is a confluence of genetics and exposure that triggers autism. Swanson states that “We know autism has a strong genetic component [to autism], but researchers are now studying whether the increase in autism rates might be linked to a combination of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors. Several major research centers are looking into this, and study results already suggest it’s not just environmental factors and it’s not just genetics—it’s probably a nexus of both.”
Read more about environmental toxins and child development from Social Work Today here.