In a Making Our Children Healthy Again report published last week, it explored the cumulative impacts of environmental exposures to chemicals including glyphosate and atrazine on the health of Americans. The report, which supported independent gold standard science, strongly linked toxic chemicals to “the chronic disease crisis facing America’s children.”
While “no country in the world has fully accounted for the fact that children are often exposed to complex mixtures of chemicals,” the U.S. government’s MAHA report was a first of its kind.
“The U.S. government is committed to fostering radical transparency and gold standard science to better understand the potential cumulative impacts of environmental exposures,” the report said. “We must understand and ameliorate any potential links between cumulative chemical exposure and childhood chronic disease.”
The report stated that while some studies have raised concerns about adverse health effects of exposure to pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, especially in children, there are limited human studies.
For example, a selection of research studies on a herbicide (Glyphosate) have noted a range of possible health effects, ranging from reproductive and developmental disorders as well as cancers, liver inflammation and metabolic disturbances,” the report said. “In experimental animal and wildlife studies, exposure to another herbicide (Atrazine) can cause endocrine disruption and birth defects.”
The report also targets exposure to PFAS, phthalates and bisphenols, as well as heavy metals. Dr. Philip Landrigan, Director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College, said that the report’s section on environmental chemical exposures “presents a brilliant diagnosis of the problem.” Dr. Landrigan along with other public health experts said environmental exposure to these chemicals “can have lasting effects that extend well beyond the teenage years.”
“This is the first U.S. government report to shine a light on the damage to our health being caused by the world’s most used weedkiller, glyphosate. Glyphosate herbicides, such as Roundup, were already under the spotlight due to the Billions of dollars that Bayer/Monsanto has had to pay out to cancer victims, and this report is another nail in the coffin of such companies who are knowingly poisoning our children,” Henry Rowlands, director of The Detox Project and owner of the Glyphosate Residue Free certification program, said.
A plan on how the U.S. government plans to address the public health and environmental crises and protect children’s health will be detailed in a later report, due in August.
“The current regulatory framework should be continually evaluated to ensure that chemicals and other exposures do not interact together to pose a threat to the health of our children,” the MAHA Report said.
COMMENTS