Humanity's worst crime

In the entire canon of human history, there is no worse crime than the killing and maiming of children.

Yet that is what modern civilisation now engages in, whether its citizens acknowledge it or not.

Children are the chief victims of all of the ten catastrophic threats created by humanity against its own future. Yet none of these threats does more damage to children, their birth, development, growth, their precious intelligence, mental health, reproductive health and wellbeing than does the worldwide flood of poisons that are one of the chief byproducts of the techno-industrial age.

Of the 220 billion tonnes of chemicals released by humans each year as a consequence of our exorbitant consumption, children are the primary victims, suffering its impacts from womb to infancy, through childhood, adulthood, and ageing, to their very grave.

For each child born today chemical poisoning is a life sentence.

“Childhood poisoning is a significant global public health concern and is the fourth leading cause of unintentional death among children aged 0–14 years,” according to a recent scientific study. However mere death rates obscure the full, appalling picture of the mass cruelty inflicted on the world’s children by the consumer society of their elders and parents.

The crime begins much earlier – just after conception, in fact. Throughout pregnancy the unborn child is assailed by a growing arsenal of chemicals, man-made or generated, that penetrate the ‘mother-embryo barrier’ and poison the developing foetus. Science has been aware of the problem for almost a generation but only in recent times, with the growing alarm over plastic waste, has it risen into clear public view.

In 2023 a shocking study reported unequivocal evidence that plastic microparticles and nanoparticles were crossing the placental barrier and entering the unborn child. Subsequent research found potential for this to cause serious harm to both mother and embryo – inflammation, oxidative stress and genetic damage, brain and other developmental problems in the newborn and even infertility when it grows to adulthood. Plastic poisoning in embryo may thus last a lifetime and affect generations.

Of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic produced by humanity since it first came into common use in the 1950s, most of it is still lingers, ground to powder and even finer particles that pose a never-ending threat to human health and mental wellbeing. These particles are now to be found in virtually all living creatures on the planet and in every human. A recent US study found that the average person held 6.7 grammes of plastic in their brain at the time of death – around 0.5% of their brain by weight.

However the time of maximum vulnerability to plastic (and other) contamination is from late pregnancy to four or five years old, when the infant’s brain and central nervous system are growing at their fastest rate – and taking up foreign matter in the process. Despite mounting evidence that most of the world’s children are contaminated by plastic, parents continue to swathe their newborns with plastic bedding, clothing, equipment, bottles, cutlery, furniture and toys, seemingly ignorant or heedless of the harm they inflict on their child and its future.

Yet plastics are only a small part of the story.

Mother’s milk, that most essential of all foods for the newborn, is now almost universally found to be chemically contaminated, mothers having absorbed industrial toxins through their own diet and living conditions. Breast milk today is often found to contain pesticides, air pollutants, metallic poisons, endocrine disruptors (EDCs), alcohol, nicotine, illicit and therapeutic drugs, forever chemicals and so on.

The poisoning continues throughout growth and adolescence. A US study found 93% of children aged 6-18 had one or more industrial chemicals in their bodies.

Nerve poisons, mostly byproducts of modern petrochemistry or industrial processes, are now implicated in a wide range of brain disorders which are spreading in a new pandemic around the globe. Metallic poisons such as lead, arsenic, mercury, and fluoride have long been associated with brain injury, including low IQ, attention deficits, memory faults, autism and behavioural problems.

Now a battery of thousands of new substances – such as the 15,000 listed PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl) substances, known as ‘forever chemicals’ – are flooding the child’s world and body through its home and diet. Exposure to PFAS, is now linked by science to diseases such as cancers, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, poor immunity, low fertility, high blood pressure in pregnancy, fetal and child developmental problems, obesity and high cholesterol – all conditions increasingly common in modern humans.

Yet these too, are a mere part of the toxic chemical flood that daily assaults our children.

Another prominent group are the 1000+ known endocrine disruptors (or EDCs), chemicals which scramble the human body’s own hormones and the vital life signals they send. “We are all exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) starting from embryonic life,” say three leading pediatricians. Children especially are extremely sensitive to very low doses of hormones and EDCs because they are at a crucial stage in their development, they warn. Chemicals that disrupt this can have life-long effects on things like fertility, gender and sexuality.

Nearly five million tonnes of ultra-poisonous pesticides are used every year to produce the world’s industrial food. Modern pesticides can be up to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT. These have been linked by medical science to diseases such as diabetes, kidney and liver failure, cancer, dermatitis, nerve damage, human fertility, hormonal disorders, lung and heart disease. Pesticide residues are commonly found in most foods especially fresh fruit and vegetables sold in supermarkets.

Figure 1 Some modern pesticides are up to ten thousand times more poisonous than DDT. Source: Bonmatin J-M, CNRS

“All humans are exposed to environmental toxicants, however child’s health, due to their high vulnerability, should be of special concern. They are continuously exposed to environmental xenobiotics (foreign substances) including a wide variety of pesticides, and other pollutants,” medical researchers caution.

Children, as well as insects and weeds, are thus a primary target of modern industrial pesticide use, albeit an unintentional one.

A decade ago, two Harvard scientists, Philippe Grandjean and Philip Landrigan, after years of research published an earth-shaking paper warning that the rising pandemic of brain diseases in children worldwide could be linked to modern industrial chemistry. “Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be increasing in frequency. Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence.”

“Strong evidence exists that industrial chemicals widely disseminated in the environment are important contributors to what we have called the global, silent pandemic of neurodevelopmental toxicity.

“The developing human brain is uniquely vulnerable to toxic chemical exposures, and major windows of developmental vulnerability occur in utero and during infancy and early childhood. During these sensitive life stages, chemicals can cause permanent brain injury at low levels of exposure that would have little or no adverse effect in an adult.”

Furthermore, evidence is mounting of a serious decline in human intelligence, literacy, numeracy and reasoning ability worldwide. IQ was found to be falling by around 7 points per generation.

The warning was unambiguous. Globally, children’s brains are being damaged by thousands of untested chemicals used daily in their food, drink, homes, schools, city air and living environment.

Grandjean and Landrigan called for all chemicals to be safety tested for danger to children – a warning that has been studiously ignored by governments, health authorities and industry worldwide, for fear of offending the rich who profit from it.

To the 350,000 man made-substances now produced by the world petrochemical industry some 2500 new ones are released every year, untested for child-safety. Nobody will ever know the harm they cause until untold thousands of children have been disabled or killed. Even then, industry will deny it, and governments will uphold its ‘right to poison’ against the right of the child to a healthy life.

It follows that current world policy is to poison children and damage their future lives everywhere – a policy in which many parents seem compliant, or at least indifferent to.

No nation or government takes full responsibility for the crime perpetrated against present and future generations of young humans. Most parents ignore it or act as if it does not exist. The luxurious lifestyle that yields the poison flood takes priority with most people.

Ironically a major solution to the poisoning of children is identical with the solution to another major child killer, climate change. It is to ban the use of all fossil fuels, not only because they are wrecking the Earth’s climatic stability. But also because they are the main source of the worst poisons that assail ourselves and our children. Yet governments and giant corporations are united to continue the toxic outpouring unabated, for the sake of monetary profit.

I have described the best solutions to global poisoning in a recent book, Earth Detox. Briefly they include:

· Form a ‘Clean Up the Earth’ global alliance of concerned citizens

· Create a new Human Right ‘not to be poisoned’

· Create a global chemical ‘IPCC’ to account for human chemical emissions

· Eliminate all fossil fuels

· Ban the use of toxins in the food chain

· Train scientists to ‘first, do no harm’ – instead of working to design more toxic chemicals

· Educate children to seek safe foods and products

· Reward industry by buying green and safe products and food

· Adopt Zero waste, green chemistry and responsible product stewardship

· Test all new chemicals for child safety.

Details of these measures and the reasons for them are provided in Earth Detox.

Global poisoning remains by far the largest threat to the human future, though it receives far less attention than do climate, WMDs and pandemics. Put simply, it affects everyone, every day – children most of all - and kills more people than the others combined.

History will view our civilisation as one that uncaringly sacrificed the health and lives of its own children for the sake of a comfy but toxic high-tech lifestyle.

It is hard to imagine a more shameful verdict being passed on any generation.