Originally published August 4 2005
American bodies carry dozens of foreign chemicals, CDC study shows
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A study of humans and chemical exposure by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found dozens of pesticides and toxic chemicals from consumer products are present in the bodies of most Americans, especially in children. Such chemicals can have adverse health effects on many areas of the body, including the brain, hormones, reproductive system and immune system, and many chemicals have also been linked to cancer.
The latest installment, which looked for 148 toxic compounds in the urine and blood of about 2,400 people age 6 and older in 2000 and 2001, is "the largest and most comprehensive report of its kind ever released anywhere by anyone," Gerberding said.
At Thursday's news conference, CDC officials emphasized the good news: Steep declines were found in children's exposure to lead and secondhand cigarette smoke.
Lead levels in children have dropped significantly over several years, which Gerberding called an "astonishing public health achievement" attributable largely to its removal from gasoline and paint.
About 1.6% of young children tested from 1999 to 2002 had elevated levels of lead, which could lower their intelligence and damage their brains, compared with 88.2% in the late 1970s and 4.4% in the early 1990s.
But the discovery of more than 100 other substances in humans, particularly children, distressed environmental health experts.
"The report in general shows that people --- kids and adults --- are exposed to things that aren't intended to be in their body," said Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, an associate professor of pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences who specializes in children's environmental health.
The new data in the 475-page report reveal how "we have fouled our own nest," Paulson said.
For many compounds in the report, experts have little information on what amounts may be harmful or what they may do in combination.
Pyrethroids are synthetic versions of natural compounds found in flowers, and they have been considered safer than older pesticides, such as DDT and chlordane, that build up in the environment and have been banned in the United States.
They echoed the CDC in saying that discovery of the chemicals in the human body did not automatically mean they posed a threat.
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