Welcome to the Age of Toxic Anxiety
The conscious shift that’s happening is expressed in a mounting public toxic
anxiety. It is a societal change as profound as any yet experienced, and it marks
the beginning of a new era.
How is it evident that we’re entering the Age of Toxic Anxiety? Pure Research,
a division of Pure Branding, identifies four key indicators:
1. An increased awareness of the serious health risks posed by everyday products,
including epidemics of birth defects with high-level scientific studies pointing
directly to toxins as the cause.
2. A series of high-profile national studies recently launched that will shortly
prove out the extent of those risks.
3. Government institutions publicly acknowledging
the correlation of environmental toxins and leading epidemics.
4. Millions of moms leveraging social networks to
say what’s safe and what’s not.
There is a growing awareness in our society that
is gaining fierce momentum in health institutions,
regulatory bodies, media and most significantly in
peer-to-peer networks where parents share information. Our children are not safe. The very institutions
that we have relied on for every aspect of our consumer society have not been looking out for our
best interest and the children are paying the price.
major pesticides were banned from the
residential market.
Landrigan sees pesticides as akin to
the lead poisoning epidemic of the
1980s. “We used to talk about lead poi-
soning as the silent epidemic when we
came to understand that lead was toxic
at low levels that produced no obvious
symptoms at first. The delayed effects
manifested in intelligence and ability
to function in society,” he
says. “Organophosphates
(OP) in conventionally grown
food are just as insidious.”
When it comes to develop-
mental disruptions, OPs are
at the top of Landrigan’s list,
followed by bisphenol A
(BPA) and phthalates found
in personal care and plastic
containers where they have
the potential to leach into the
products.
In a testing of umbilical cord
blood of newborn babies, the
Environmental Working Group
(EWG) in collaboration with
Commonweal found 287
industrial chemicals and
pollutants present.
Increased Awareness of Health
Risks of Everyday Products
Let’s take a look at the first indica-
tor: the increased awareness of the health
risk posed by everyday products. Toxic chemicals
can be found in every category, from clothing, bed-
ding and cleaners, to toys, cosmetics, personal care
and food. These toxins are now in our bodies and
wreaking havoc on the health and future well-being
of our children. Shocking evidence of this emerged
in a recent study from The Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collabora-
tion with Commonweal in which the umbilical cord blood of newborn babies was
tested and found to contain 287 industrial chemicals and pollutants.
The “Silent Epidemic” Lurking in Food
To understand the effects of toxins on children, the Pure Research team interviewed Dr. Phillip Landrigan, one of the world’s leading advocates for children’s
health and a revered figure instrumental in both passing the Food Quality
Protection Act of 1996 and spearheading the effort to remove lead from paint
and gasoline.
Dr. Landrigan recounted his five-year study at the National Academy of Sciences to examine whether the accepted standard for pesticide exposure—meant
to protect a 150-pound adult—was adequate to protect the health of children. In
1993, the Landrigan Committee released a report, Pesticides in the Diets of Infants
and Children. This represented the first irrefutable proof that children are
uniquely susceptible to the adverse effects of pesticides and called for standards
ten times more stringent than those in effect at publication. Subsequently, two
The Stakes Are Very High
Organophosphates are
one of the most prevalent
families of chemicals used as
a pesticide in agriculture.
First developed in the 1920s,
they came into heavy use as a
replacement for DDT. They
are designed and used as a
neurotoxin that interferes
with the action of enzymes
within the brain and nervous system of
insects. This is also how they affect
humans.
According to Dr. Landrigan, “In the
human population, the group of people most susceptible to these toxins are
children, and the most sensitive are
the unborn children, the fetuses. We
used to think that the fetus was protected by the placenta barrier, but now
we know that is not true. The chemicals pass right into the child during a
very susceptible time. If a pregnant
woman eats a piece of fruit with
organophosphates, she will pass them
to her developing baby and into the
baby’s brain.”
