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content chapter 1 we re poisoning our children without knowing it 3 the rise in chronic illnesses in adults and children 3 our children are the guinea pigs for a dangerous experiment 4 your home is the #1 source of toxic chemicals 4 how i became interested in household toxics 5 the good news 6 chapter 2 toxic chemicals and the human body 6 how toxic chemicals get into your body 6 ingestion 6 inhalation 7 absorption 7 immediate versus long-term dangers 8 acute toxicity 8 chronic toxicity 8 why you should be concerned about household toxics 8 chapter 3 why children are at higher risk 9 children s bodies are less developed 9 children take in more pollutants 9 children put more foreign objects in their mouths 9 children absorb more pollutants 10 chapter 4 how toxic chemicals affect the health of children 10 asthma 10 cancer 11 add and other learning disorders 11 the various effects of endocrine disruptors 13 birth defects 14 sudden infant death syndrome 14 chapter 5 how safe are household products 15 the laws don t protect us 15 cleaning products 15 personal care products 16 about aerosols 17 household hazardous waste 18 chapter 6 the happy ending 18 where to get your toxic free products today at best product best prices axel henriksen phone 64 9 4834029 or mobile 027 4834029 email axel@axelhenriksen.com 2|page

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chapter 1 we re poisoning our children without knowing it as a parent you do everything you can to protect your child s health and well beings don t you of course you do you feed your children nutritious food make sure they get fresh air and exercise tell them to look both ways before crossing the street and protect them from well-known hazards such as burns electrical shocks falls and choking there is another hazard you may not be aware of toxic chemicals that are present right in your own home scientists and doctors are discovering that there is a connection between our health and the use of common everyday household chemicals if yours is the typical home you probably use dozens of cleaning and personal care products purchased at the local grocery store that contain chemical ingredients that may be harmful to you and your children since world war ii there has been a dramatic rise in the number of man-made chemicals we use in our homes the typical home now contains over sixty-three hazardous products that together contain hundreds of different chemicals.1 at the same time there has been an equally dramatic rise in the incidence of certain chronic health problems especially in children more children are afflicted with asthma learning problems and cancer than ever before i ll bet you personally know a child with one of these conditions i certainly do research indicates that it is more than coincidence that the unprecedented rise in these various diseases has occurred in the same time period as the increased use of hazardous manmade chemicals in our homes in this booklet i ll both explain the dangers and tell you what you can do to protect your family from the health effects of some of these chemicals actually it s very easy to protect your children when you have the right information so let s get started shall we the rise in chronic illnesses in adults and children have we always been this sick at the beginning of the twentieth century the cancer incidence rate was about one in fifty today one in three americans will suffer with cancer with that number expected to reach one in two in the twenty-first century cancer is the number two killer of adults and the leading cause of death from disease in children.2 since 1977 the rate of cancer among american children has been steadily rising at a rate of nearly one percent per year!3 the incidence of central nervous system disorders like alzheimer s and multiple sclerosis rises annually birth defects are on the rise as well over 150,000 babies are born with defects each year for unknown reasons another 500,000 babies are miscarried early in pregnancy each year with an additional 24,000 miscarried late in pregnancy or stillborn.4 infertility is increasing and widespread with over two million couples who want children but are unable to conceive.5 asthma was once a very rare disease now the condition is extremely common the asthma rate has tripled in the last twenty years with nearly 20 to 30 million americans currently afflicted.6 childhood 1 2 3 4 world resource institute the 1994 information please environmental almanac houghton and mifflin 1994 pauia diperna environmental hazards to children public affairs pamphlets 1981 national cancer institute h needleman p landrigan raising children toxic free farrar strauss giroux 1994 5 doris rapp m.d is this your child s world bantam books 1996 6 mary ellen fise indoor air quality consumer federation of america 1997 3|page

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asthma has increased by more than 40 since 1980.7 asthma deaths in children and young people increased by a dramatic 118 between 1980 and 1993.8 attention deficit disorder add in adults and children is also rising in 1993 4.5 million children took the drug ritalin so they could sit still long enough to learn by 1998 11.4 million children were being drugged with this powerful narcotic.9 these statistics show that the overall health of our children is declining illnesses that didn t even exist when i was a child are now common they are now so widespread that almost everyone knows a family with a child who suffers from asthma cancer learning disabilities add behaviour disorders or a rheumatoid disease could these illnesses he related to toxic chemical exposure although other factors are involved more and more scientists are linking these ailments to long-term chemical exposure this rise ¡n childhood diseases has been so dramatic that children s environmental health issues have now been recognized by congress and federal agencies in november 1996 the u.s environmental protection agency epa announced that for the first time children would be considered in all epa risk-assessment and standard-setting procedures in april 1997 president clinton signed executive order 13045 on children s environmental health and safety requiring federal agencies to include children and their unique susceptibilities in standard-setting procedures doctors now stress that early detection and removal of children from toxic exposures in their homes and schools are critical to successfully prevent or treat these illnesses these doctors scientists and government agencies are all concerned about the health consequences of children being exposed to toxic chemicals shouldn t you be concerned too our children are the guinea pigs for a dangerous experiment according to herbert l needleman m.d and philip j.landrigan m.d in their book raising children toxic free since 1950 at least 70,000 new chemical compounds have been invented and dispersed into our environment through new consumer commodities industrial products and food only a fraction of these have been tested for human toxicity we are by default conducting a massive clinical toxicological trial and our children and their children are the experimental animals i don t think you would voluntarily take your children down to a laboratory and offer them as experimental subjects for toxic chemical testing yet that is exactly what is going on today when we purchase many household products your home is the #1 source of toxic chemicals because we spend 80 to 90 of our time indoors and most of that at home our own home is where we are most likely to be exposed to toxic chemicals.10 this is especially true for young children who spend even more time indoors than adults and older children why are our homes so toxic in the last two decades the same period during which childhood illness has increased there has been an alarming increase of toxic chemicals in household products1 and for the first time we have been sealing our homes for energy efficiency weather stripping and caulking do an excellent 7 woodruff t grillo j schoendorf k the relationship between selected causes of postneonatal infant mortality and particulate air pollution in the united states environmental health perspectives june 1997 1056 8 environmental health threats to children epa 175-f-96-001 september 1996 9 your children and ritalin the detroit news march 8 1998 10 world resources institute the 1994 information please environmental almanac 4|page

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job of keeping the air you have heated or cooled inside your home but the lack of openings for air to escape also traps chemical air pollutants resulting in a greater concentration of pollutants indoors than out epa studies found that even in urban areas with high levels of industrial pollution the concentration of toxic chemicals was higher indoors than outdoors in some cases ten twenty thirty and even up to seventy times higher indoors!11 in 1987 the epa undertook an ambitious program to identify and compare the urgency of environmental problems the idea was that with limited resources the agency should be focusing on those pollutants that pose the greatest risk to society among the top hazards were those found indoors including exposure to cleaning products.12 another study conducted over a fifteen-year period found that women who worked at home had a 54 higher death rate from cancer than women who had jobs away from home the study concluded that the increased death rate was due to daily exposure to the hazardous chemicals found in ordinary household products.13 obviously the children in these homes were exposed to the same chemicals with even greater risk for illness how i became interested in household toxics in 1978 1 began to experience a number of seemingly unrelated symptoms that soon worsened to the point that i became disabled i was often depressed would binge-eat uncontrollably would cry for no reason and would faint when i took a shower i couldn t sleep at night and couldn t wake up in the morning i was tired all the time and had frequent headaches fortunately i went to the right doctor who correctly diagnosed my problem as an immune system dysfunction brought on by exposure to toxic chemicals in my home now popularly known as multiple chemical sensitivity moe i remember my disbelief when i heard this for the first time there are no toxic chemicals in my home i said i m a piano teacher what could possibly be toxic in my home i used products i assumed to be safe because they were sold in the supermarket and yet because the only cure for what ailed me was to reduce my exposure to toxic chemicals i started sleuthing around to find them in my home i discovered that when i stopped cleaning with supermarket cleaning products i wasn t so tired when i stopped wearing perfume i no longer had headaches these successes encouraged me to continue to detoxify my home in every way until i was symptom-free and could begin to regain my health i soon realized that my illness from exposure to household toxics could have been entirely prevented had i only known about the toxic exposures in my home it was then that i began to write and speak on this subject warning others of the dangers and letting everyone know that by choosing nontoxic products we can save ourselves and our families from many maladies and possibly even from death you are probably not aware of the potential health hazards present in many household cleaners and personal care products neither was i when i became ill i am neither a chemist nor a doctor i am just a homemaker and consumer like you but i have spent over twenty years researching this subject and have written half a dozen books about household toxics i want everyone to know that none of us especially children need be harmed by toxic products you may he shocked and disturbed by some of the information in this booklet connecting household chemicals and children s health if so consider yourself to be a caring parent it is shocking and disturbing that these products which can kill children are allowed to be sold i only present this information so that you can be informed and make the decisions necessary to protect your health and the health of your 11 lance a wallace the total exposure assessment methodology team study summary and analysis volume 1 washington dc epa 1987 12 same as above 13 nancy sokol green poisoning our children the noble press 1991 5|page

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children the good news fortunately for every toxic product there is a safe alternative available there are a number of conscientious companies now offering household products that are safer and more natural they work just as well or better than supermarket brands and in many cases actually cost less so there s really no reason to risk the health of your children any longer chapter 2 toxic chemicals and the human body when i learned that there were products in my home that might be toxic mv first reaction was oh no how am i going to be able to tell which products are safe and which are toxic i hadn t even taken chemistry in school this was entirely new to me but i learned about how toxic chemicals are in household products and how they can affect my health i ll share a little of what i ve learned in the next few pages hopefully this will help you realize that certain products in your home may be harming you and your children fortunately it s a simple and easy matter to replace them with safe alternatives how toxic chemicals get into your body there are three ways toxic chemicals can enter your body by eating or drinking the substance by breathing it and by absorbing it through the skin ingestion ingestion eating or drinking a substance is the route of most immediate poisonings that lead to accidental death young children are especially vulnerable to household poisonings through ingestion with their natural curiosity they learn by putting things in their mouths this is a tine way to learn but in a modern household full of toxic chemicals it s frightening to think of what might happen children cannot tell the difference between lemon-scented toxic furniture polish and lemonade they both smell the same to a child ammonia looks like apple juice a mothball designed to kill insects is the same size and shape as a piece of candy in addition to these confusions children can t read warning labels look around your home and see if there is anything anything in a bottle that is within your child s reach even things you think are safe like perfume and mouthwash can be poison to a child who drinks them look for anything that a child might put in her mouth rat poison mothballs drugs and medicines pretend you are a child you don t know toxic from safe and anything might go in your mouth anything you wouldn t eat or drink your-self should be out of the reach of children when peter schwab was one year old he crawled over to the dishwasher to watch his mother unloading it suddenly he put a finger into the chlorinated detergent and ate a finger full of wet but undissolved electrosol in minutes his face was red and blistered and the inside of his mouth and his tongue were burned white fortunately within minutes peter was being treated in a hospital and he recovered in a few days but others that day weren t so lucky across the hall was a little girl who according to peter s mother also ate dishwasher detergent and required seven operations to reopen her scarred oesophagus another child three-year-old jasson whitley suffered a lingering and horrible death after swallowing only three ounces of hair conditioner two weeks after drinking the liquid which contains ammonia the little boy died 6|page

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seven-month-old adrian gonzales spilled an open bottle of laundry bleach his mother left on the floor when he crawled through the puddle the bleach gave him third-degree burns on fifty percent of his tiny body and burned his lungs from the fumes as well after four agonizing days he died.14 i know these stories sound frightening and you may think this could not happen to your child but each year five to ten million accidental poisonings are reported to u.s poison control centres many are fatal and the majority of victims are children.15 among children ages five and under the most common poison is a household cleaner or personal care product.16 what do you have under your kitchen sink bleach ammonia dishwasher detergent window cleaner and in the bathroom hair colour perfume mouthwash these common household products could kill your child would you keep a loaded gun under your sink of course not yet according to the national safety council more children under the age of four die of accidental poisonings at home than are accidentally killed with guns at home!17 this statistic is shocking to me we think of guns as deadly and household products as safe our government requires a license to purchase and own a gun yet government regulations allow deadly products to be sold freely on supermarket shelves inhalation poisoning by inhalation breathing a substance is more common and can be much more harmful than ingestion i m talking about the kind of gradual poisoning that happens over time as children breathe the vapours from toxic chemicals toxic fumes can be released even when a chemical is tightly sealed in its container if you doubt this simply walk down the cleaning products aisle at your local supermarket and notice how strongly it smells of toxic vapours even though all the containers are sealed tight this release of chemical vapours is called outgassing when you inhale toxic fumes the poisons go directly into the bloodstream and quickly travel to organs like the brain heart liver and kidneys the results are symptoms such as headaches muscle aches and lightheadedness many products give off toxic vapours that can irritate your nose throat and lungs and give you sinus infections children can inhale toxic vapours while you are cleaning even if you keep the product out of their reach toxic residues from laundry products on bed sheets and pillow covers as well as finishes on the fabrics themselves can be inhaled throughout the night while children unsuspecting are sleeping absorption absorption admitting a substance through the skin is an often unsuspected route of exposure it used to be that we thought of the skin as an impermeable protective coating we now know that any chemical which touches the skin can be absorbed and spread throughout the body the skin is so absorbent that nicotine patches and analgesic creams administer medications into the bloodstream through the skin skin absorption of toxic chemicals is obvious when you apply a product such as cream or lotion to your skin it can also happen when you may not be aware of it such as when your hands are immersed in a cleaning solution skin absorption can even happen when you come in contact with a surface that was treated with a chemical days or even weeks earlier this is especially a problem for children as they may be touching or crawling around on recently cleaned surfaces with toxic residues 14 15 shirley camper sorman let s stop destroying our children hawthorne books 1974 debra lynn dadd home safe home tarcher 1997 16 national safe kids campaign poisoning 17 accident facts national safety council 1993 7|page

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immediate versus long-term dangers not all household poisonings happen instantly some occur only after repeated exposure acute toxicity acute toxicity refers to a one-time exposure that leads to life-threatening effects or death acute toxicity is why we have poison control centres usually these poisonings are the result of accidental ingestion of common household products that despite warning labels are not kept out of children s reach chronic toxicity chronic toxicity refers to poisoning as the result of many repeated exposures to small amounts of a chemical over a long period of time the effects of these exposures cancer birth defects and genetic changes may not show up for years this is where the effects of toxic chemicals become more difficult to evaluate and more insidious the different diseases and conditions linked to low levels of chemicals are usually the result of long-term exposure just as smoking one cigarette is not likely to give you cancer one ordinary exposure to chemicals in cleaners probably won t harm you either but just as smoking every day for years is likely to result in cancer so too cleaning your home every day or every week with toxic chemicals is likely to harm your health and is even more likely to harm the health of your children because we don t see immediate effects we think nothing is happening but slowly day by day our bodies and our children s bodies are being poisoned chronic toxicity also takes into account the combined effects of all the toxic chemicals we are exposed to throughout the day exposure to chemicals in `our mouthwash hair conditioner cologne or perfume laundry detergent window cleaner and everything else adds up to a chemical soup in your bod the combination of which is virtually impossible to evaluate one study dearly demonstrated that chemicals can become more harmful as they combine with each other dr benjamin ershoff at the institute for nutritional studies in california gave rats different combinations of three common food additives sodium cyclamate food dye red no 2 and polyoxyethelene sorhitan monostearate at first the rats were fed only one of the three additives and nothing happened then the test animals were given sodium cyclamate and red no 2 and they stopped growing lost their hair and developed diarrhoea when the rats were finally given all three additives they lost weight rapidly and died within two weeks if this is the result of only three food additives interacting which are not nearly as toxic as most cleaning products imagine what is going on in our bodies and in the bodies of our children with all the chemicals we are exposed to daily why you should be concerned about household toxics many people say to me i m not sick why should i worry you should worry because most household toxics are universally injurious and harmful to even otherwise healthy people the long-term health effects of many chemicals are unknown remember how many decades it took before scientists discovered that smoking causes cancer we do not know the possible cumulative reactions that can occur when chemicals are combined in consumer products or when for example the chemicals inhaled from cleaning products combine in your body with the pesticides you just ate for lunch and with the chlorine in that glass of water you drank after you went running we tend to think of toxic substances as something out there separate from us yet in reality once toxic substances enter our bodies they tend to stay inside our bodies particularly in our adipose fat tissue one study showed that 100 of the people tested had toxic styrene in their fat from drinking from disposable plastic foam cups or from eating warm take-out food sold in plastic foam containers number two on the list again found in the fat of 100 of the people tested was 1 ,4-dichlorobenzene a chemical frequently used in household deodorizers 8|page

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chapter 3 why children are at higher risk toxic chemicals in household products pose potential hazards to everyone children are at an even higher risk from exposures to toxics than adults because they have special vulnerabilities children s bodies are less developed beginning at the foetal stage and continuing through adolescence children are physiologically very different from adults they are in a dynamic state of growth with cells multiplying and organ systems developing at a rapid rate at birth their nervous respiratory reproductive and immune systems are far from fully developed because metabolic systems are still developing in the foetus and child their ability to detoxify and excrete toxins differs from that of adults generally they are not able to excrete toxins as well as adults and thus arc more vulnerable to them.18 because a child s immune system is less developed it cannot protect against toxic exposures as well as an adult is protected for some toxics children are missing important biochemical detoxifying mechanisms which only develop later in life.19 developing cells in children s bodies are more susceptible to damage than adult cells that have completed development especially for the central nervous system during the development of a child from conception through adolescence there are particular windows of vulnerability to environmental hazards exposure at those moments of vulnerability could lead to permanent and irreversible damage even small doses of neurotoxins which would be harmless in an adult can alter a child s nervous system development.20 children take in more pollutants children drink more water eat more food and breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults thus their bodies are easily overwhelmed by levels of pollutants that are much higher than adult exposures relative to body weight the average infant s daily consumption of formula or breast milk for example is equivalent to an adult male drinking fifty eight-ounce glasses of milk a day!21 growing children between one and five years old eat three to four times as much food per pound of body weight than the average adult giving them greater exposure to pesticides and other contaminants in foods.22 children put more foreign objects in their mouths children put their hands and other objects in their mouths more often than adults do and so transfer more foreign substances into their bodies because children are smaller and often play in the dirt or on the floor 18 echobichon dj and stevens dd perinatal development of human blood esterases clinical pharmacology and therapeutics 1973;14:41-47 19 h needleman p landrigan raising children toxic free farrar strauss giroux 1994 20 landrigan pj carlson je bearer cf cranmer js bullard rd etzel ra groopman j mclachlan ja perera fp reigart jr robison l schell l suk wa children s health and the environment a new agenda for prevention research environmental health perspectives 106 suplement 3 787-794 june 1998 21 bearer cf environmental health hazards how children are different from adults future of children summer/fall 1995;52 11-26 22 landrigan pj carlson je bearer cf cranmer js bullard rd etzel ra groopman j mclachlan ja perera fp reigart jr robison l schell l suk wa children s health and the environment a new agenda for prevention research environmental health perspectives 106 suplement 3 787-794 june 1998 9|page

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they are closer to pollutants that adults aren t even exposed to.23 imagine crawling around on a floor that was just washed with toxic chemicals adults don t do this but babies and children do this is particularly a problem in day care where chlorine bleach is used to clean toys on the one hand it s a good idea to disinfect toys that children are putting in their mouths on the other hand using a toxic chemical to do so poisons children if any residue remains children absorb more pollutants children absorb a greater proportion of many pollutants through their intestinal tract and lungs for example they absorb about half of the lead they swallow whereas adults absorb only about one-tenth.24 today children have chemical exposures from birth that their parents didn t have until they were adults because children are exposed to toxics at an earlier age than adults they have more time to develop environmentally triggered diseases with long latency periods such as cancer.25 chapter 4 how toxic chemicals affect the health of children according to philip landrigan m.d of mount sinai medical centre the most pressing health issues for children today are the rise of asthma the rise in childhood cancers the rise in central nervous system disorders attention deficit disorder and other learning disorders as the result of environ mental neurotoxins the effects of endocrine disruptors.26 all these are related to toxic chemical exposure in the home other common childhood problems that arise from exposure to toxic chemicals include birth defects and sudden infant death syndrome let s take a look at each of these health issues and how toxic chemicals may contribute to them asthma childhood asthma affects more than 4.8 million children under the age of 18 nationwide.27 one study concluded that the majority of the 400,000 annual emergency room visits for severe asthma attacks are brought on by poor indoor air quality,28 and of course many of those emergency patients are children doctors know that irritation of the lungs by chemicals can trigger asthma attacks and this is especially true for children the son of a friend of mine began having asthma problems almost the day he was born his parents brought him to the emergency room weekly until his mother realized that his worst attacks were on the day she cleaned her home with supermarket cleaning products when she switched to safe cleaning products without toxic ingredients the weekly trips to the emergency room ended now at age seven david has only a few asthma attacks each year 23 24 same as above h needleman p landrigan raising children toxic free farrar strauss giroux 1994 25 landrigan pj and carlson je environmental policy and children s health future of children summer/fall 1995;52 34-52 26 mindy pennybacker and aisha ikramuddin mothers others for a livible planet guide to natural baby care john wiley sons 1999 27 same as above 28 mary ellen fise indoor air quality 10 page

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the average child visits the doctor twenty-three times in the first four years of life with the most common complaint being respiratory ailment.29 could toxic household products be the cause of these breathing problems they are the most likely suspect cancer i would venture to say that almost everybody knows somebody who has died of or has battled cancer in my own family my mother and both grandmothers died of cancer a friend near my own age died of cancer a couple of years ago and last year i tended my best friend through her recovery from cancer surgery we now know that carcinogens cancer-causing substances can cross the placental barrier and that exposure to carcinogens while the foetus is in the womb can lead to childhood cancer nancy and jim lost their only child colette to a rare form of cancer known as wilm s tumor in 1991 after tests proved colette s cancer was not genetics they learned that ¡t was possible that something nancy had ingested or was exposed to during her pregnancy could have caused colette s cancer to develop after she was born four years later a newly released study published in the american journal of epidemiology revealed a link between parental pesticide use before pregnancy and the age of the child at the time of the diagnosis of wilm s tumour the study said that a mother s exposure to pesticides was the most likely cause of the disease when the tumour was diagnosed 48 months after the child s birth colette was diagnosed at exactly 48 months of age.30 while the death rate from cancer has declined due to improved detection and treatment cancer still remains the leading cause of death from disease for children over the age of five.31 almost all cancers are due to environmental factors.32 while most experts agree that as many as 80 to 90 of all cancers can be avoided by making lifestyle changes including changing one s diet and quitting smoking some argue that up to 30 of all cancers are caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.33 of my own family and friends who contracted cancer none of them smoked and all had at least relatively good diets my two friends were vegetarians and both developed colon cancer what they all had in common was the amount of chemical exposure in their homes like most americans and according to the epa toxic chemicals typically found in the home are three times more likely to cause cancer than airborne pollutants the national cancer institute has a list of twenty known chemical carcinogens and over 2,200 chemicals that are probable carcinogens.34 many of these chemicals are in the cleaners and personal care products you buy at your local supermarket add and other learning disorders it is estimated that nearly 12 million children in the united states suffer from one or more learning developmental or behavioural disabilities.35 according to the greater boston physicians for social responsibility an epidemic of developmental learning and behavioural disabilities has become evident among children and environmental neurotoxins are to blame neurotoxicants are not merely a potential threat to children they say adverse impacts are seen at current exposure levels 36 [italics added neurotoxins affect the nervous system and brain development of the top 20 chemicals reported by the toxics release inventory in 1997 almost three-quarters are known or suspected neurotoxins they include ammonia chlorine toluene xylene methyl ethyl ketone all common in cleaning products 29 30 national center for health statistics 1997 http www.checnet.org 31 h needleman p landrigan raising children toxic-free 32 john harte toxins a to z university of california press 1991 33 john harte toxins a to z university of california press 1991 34 world resource institute the 1994 information please environmental almanac 35 greater bosten physicians for social responsibility in harm s way toxic threats to child development 36 greater bosten physicians for social responsibility in harm s way toxic threats to child development 11 page

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dr doris rapp an expert on the treatment of environmental illness has treated hundreds of children for learning problems and behaviour changes caused by exposures to neurotoxins one of dr rapp s young patients linda showed a dramatic change of personality and ability to think in response to chlorine a chemical found in the laundry rooms of most american homes as well as in other cleaning products such as scouring powder and dishwasher detergent the problem was first discovered when linda was about four years old her mother noticed that after linda swam in a chlorinated pool she would cry much more easily than normal and would complain of a headache and leg cramps even though she was very bright and did well in school she could not follow even simple instructions after swimming class this problem happened so frequently that eventually she had to end her swimming lessons when linda was thirteen the chlorine problem recurred one afternoon she was doing her homework in her brother s room and as she wrote she became extremely irritable and tearful both the content of her composition and her handwriting suddenly began to deteriorate her mother found that there was a duct leading directly from the basement laundry room into the area where linda was writing at the time linda s behaviour changed her mother had just used chlorine bleach in the laundry room even a trace of the chlorine odour had affected linda s brain.37 there is clear evidence that neurotoxins can cause permanent brain damage if children are exposed to them while their brains and nervous systems are still developing at high doses neurotoxins can result in coma convulsions respiratory paralysis and death at lower doses neurotoxin exposure can show up as disturbed mood altered behaviour impaired thinking and attention problems 38 it s important to remember that only 10 of the chemicals that appear in household products have been tested for their ability to cause nervous system disorders,39 which can range from headaches and dizziness to multiple sclerosis parkinson s disease and alzheimer s disease we know little about the long-term effects of exposure to these chemicals but doctors have identified a condition known as toxic encephalopathy which is brought on by repeated exposure to solvents such as those found in cleaning products over several years symptoms include memory loss behavioural changes emotional instability confusion inability to concentrate neurological and personality changes and problems with manual dexterity.40 do you have or know a child on ritalin the numbers are rising in 1993 4.5 million children took the drug ritalin so they could sit still long enough to learn to read and write by 1998 11.4 million children were being drugged with ritalin.41 ritalin is a class-2 narcotic what could be wrong why is such a powerful drug being used to control our children s behaviour most veteran teachers will tell that the increased use of ritalin is not the result of an increased awareness in add as some would argue but an increase in the actual number of cases think back to when were in school was half of your class out of control were most of your friends taking medication for hyperactivity dr rapp says that many of these children are being misdiagnosed she believes as many as two-thirds of the millions of children on ritalin are actually suffering from acute allergic reactions to environmental agents found at home and in schools these children do not need powerful drugs removal of certain chemicals and a change of diet often solve the problem and dr rapp has proven this over and over again.42 when ryan was four he started school he would leave home in the morning feeling fine but come back weak and tired while in the gym at school he became so weak he had to be carried out ryan s mother noticed that they sprayed the table tops and rest area of his classroom with a popular aerosol disinfectant 37 38 dr doris rapp is this your child s world h needleman p landrigan raising children toxic-free 39 dr doris rapp is this your child s world 40 n ashford and c miller chemical exposures low levels and high stakes van nostrand reinhold 1991 41 your children and ritalin the detroit news march 8 1998 42 dr doris rapp is this your child s world 12 page

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dr rapp tested ryan by spraying a four-inch piece of paper towel with the same disinfectant and placing it a few feet away from ryan within thirty minutes ryan was obviously different he could no longer hold his pencil and his writing skills completely collapsed several tests confirmed his reaction.43 eight-year-old peter s first class in the morning was taught by a teacher who smoked heavily and smelled strongly of perfume in this class arithmetic peter typically had difficulty remembering thinking and completing his work his teacher noticed on some days he could not even add two and two peter improved over the course of the morning when he had another teacher who did not smell of either tobacco or perfume however the smell of perfume from lunchroom aides and the odour of cleaners from the dishroom caused his ability to learn and concentrate to deteriorate again dr rapp confirmed peter s sensitivities to many chemicals perfumes colognes and fragrances can contain harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde toluene ethanol acetone methyl chloride and benzene derivatives all can damage the nervous system peter now goes to school with an oxygen tank in case he needs to counteract a reaction.44 these reactions might be considered severe but they represent a growing number of young people who are reacting to chemicals in the air in their homes and at school just how many children experience learning problems because of chemicals in their environment it s impossible to know it may be that a significant number of children have only a slight reaction wouldn t it be a tragedy if one of your children should fail to live up to his learning potential because of neurotoxins in his environment it s a tragedy that should never happen because we can easily remove these toxic chemicals from our children s home and school environments according to sherry rogers m.d another environmental specialist the symptoms produced by chemical sensitivity are as varied as the people who are affected.45 while some children react with a breakdown of learning ability other children become hyperactive when chuck was six years old he would make very loud noises become uncontrollably bouncy and hit other children when exposed to certain chemicals fumes from furniture polish affected him so strongly that he told his mother he wanted to jump off the roof!46 these stories barely begin to describe the array of reactions children can have to chemical neurotoxins reactions are unpredictable and often change over time it s better to protect your children by significantly reducing their exposure by switching to brands that do not use chemicals like phenol and formaldehyde you can help your children reach their full potential the various effects of endocrine disruptors awareness of toxic chemicals as endocrine disruptors is fairly recent endocrine disruptors are synthetic chemicals that mimic or block the body s natural hormones thus interfering with its normal hormonal activity most of the functions of the body are triggered by the interaction between hormones and their receptors receptors are like locks hormones and other molecules are like keys the keys circulate through the body until they find the right locks then they make the connection to send messages to cells for proper functioning the problem is that certain toxic substances also fit the receptors like keys interfering with the body s ability to make its own natural connections this can cause problems in every body system the immune 43 44 dr doris rapp is this your child s world dr doris rapp is this your child s world 45 sherry rogers chemical sensitivity keats publishing inc 1995 46 dr doris rapp is this your child s world 13 page

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nervous endocrine and reproductive systems can be affected leading to a variety of illnesses that may not seem to be chemically related at all.47 although research in this field is very new scientists suspect that it takes a very small amount of these chemicals even a single exposure to disrupt normal functioning studies have shown a close correlation between exposure to endocrine disruptors and developmental problems which include incomplete and deformed reproductive systems reduced fertility and compromised immune systems in wildlife and in humans impaired mental development learning difficulties hyperactivity and clear cell vaginal cancer.48 birth defects birth defects are the leading cause of death among children ages one to four according to the march of dimes one in twelve children is born with a congenital defect environmental factors including exposure to toxic chemicals cause 7 to 11 of these defects sixty percent of birth defects have unknown causes and toxic chemicals are suspected in these cases as well.49 dr marion moses of the environmental sciences laboratory at mount sinai medical centre in new york strongly recommends that the unborn child should have no exposure to household toxics and carcinogens and where there is doubt about any chemical that we should err on the side of the child and prevent as much exposure as possible if we wait until we have absolute proof for all agents it may be too late for the child dr moses stresses.50 a niosh study that i ll mention in the next chapter stated that 314 chemicals present in personal care products can cause biological mutations.51 many of these chemicals including known carcinogens can reach the unborn child in the womb chemicals can also cause defects by damaging the egg cells in women by the fifth month of her foetal life the 3 to 4 million eggs a woman is born with have already localized in her ovaries chemical exposure at any point of development can destroy or damage these cells leaving her infertile or prone to birth defects or miscarriage.52 once damage has occurred repair is virtually impossible in men exposure to chemicals can have a profound effect on sperm development a study of male vietnam veterans found they were 70 more likely to father a child with a birth defect due to chemical exposure.53 many chemicals found in products used every day around the home can have similar effects editor s note a few years ago i worked for a large electronics manufacturing company in some of the manufacturing processes a certain grease-cutting chemical was used over the years a large number of women who worked there had miscarriages or gave birth to babies with birth defects many of the women including my aunt dotsie eventually developed cancer the grease-cutting chemical proved to be the culprit and the company finally stopped using it that same chemical is still used as the active ingredient in several of the most popular grease-cutting all-purpose cleaners available at the supermarket sudden infant death syndrome in the first book i wrote back in 1984 i mentioned a study in which formaldehyde was implicated as a possible contributing factor in sudden infant death syndrome sids though i no longer have the original study common sense tells me this is probably true 47 48 theo colborn j.p.meyers and dianne dumanoski our stolen future viking penguin 1996 http www.birthdefects.org/abstacts/edcs.html 49 paula di perna environmental hazards to children 50 same as above 51 judith burns the cosmetic cover-up human ecologist fall 1989 52 dr doris rapp is this your child s world 53 dr doris rapp is this your child s world 14 page

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among the symptoms known to be associated with formaldehyde exposure are swelling of the throat respiratory problems bronchial constriction and asthma attacks any one of which could cause a baby to stop breathing during sleep i would be willing to bet anything that every child who has ever died from sids was sleeping on bed sheets with a formaldehyde-based finish since these finishes are on all polyester/cotton and no-iron cotton sheets formaldehyde is a common ingredient in cleaning products that may have been used to clean the nursery and is a preservative in many personal care products that may have been rubbed on baby s skin also there s a documented higher incidence of sids in the wintertime closed windows increase the likelihood that outgassing chemical vapours will be inhaled we don t need to wait for the scientific and medical communities to get grant money and do a study we can put the facts together ourselves and determine when something is a risk not worth taking chapter 5 how safe are household products before we get into the horrors of just how toxic household products are i want to say this again for every toxic product in your home there is a safe alternative that said almost every item in your home could be hazardous to your health and to the health of your children the laws don t protect us most of us believe that the government has laws that protect us from harmful products yes there are laws but they don t protect us very well unfortunately many products are assumed to be safe and are allowed to be sold in the marketplace without adequate testing of the 17,000 chemicals that appear in common household products only 30 have been adequately tested for their negative effects on our health less than 1o have been tested for their effect on the nervous system and nothing is known about the combined effects of these chemicals when mixed within our bodies.54 it is only after the health of many consumers are affected that the government begins to look into possible health effects and make regulations it would take a whole book to cover the safety and danger of every household product so for the purposes of this booklet let s just focus on two of the most commonly used household products that are of particular danger to children cleaning products and personal care products cleaning products cleaning products are among the most hazardous substances you will find in your home they are so toxic that they are the only household products regulated by the consumer product safety commission unfortunately it s next to impossible to be sure about the safety of a particular product because there is no federal law requiring premarket safety testing by the manufacturer so the hazards of some products have not been revealed until after consumers have been injured feeling like a guinea pig again while children are not usually the ones doing the cleaning preschool-age children are often near a caregiver who is using chemical cleaning products here s a short list of some of the dangers associated with common household cleaning products 54 air freshener toxic may cause cancer irritates nose throat and lungs world resource institute the 1994 information please environmental almanac 15 page

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