NYT: Do Toxins Cause Autism?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 24, 2010
Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children.

Over recent decades, other development disorders also appear to have proliferated, along with certain cancers in children and adults. Why? No one knows for certain. And despite their financial and human cost, they presumably won’t be discussed much at Thursday’s White House summit on health care.

Yet they constitute a huge national health burden, and suspicions are growing that one culprit may be chemicals in the environment. An article in a forthcoming issue of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Current Opinion in Pediatrics, just posted online, makes this explicit.

The article cites “historically important, proof-of-concept studies that specifically link autism to environmental exposures experienced prenatally.” It adds that the “likelihood is high” that many chemicals “have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders.”

...Continues at Link

Giant Babies, Obesity: Are chemicals in plastics to blame?

Are plastic chemical compounds in the environment behind the birth of giant babies and the epidemic of obesity?
Link
Our Stolen Future

Pharmawater everywhere, and not a drop to drink

"PHARMAWATER I
Pharmaceuticals found in drinking water, affecting wildlife and maybe humans

By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD
Associated Press Writers
A vast array of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed."




This special AP investigation - Pharmawater - addresses a matter we have been concerned about for years.

Environmental Protection Agency: Corruption worse than we thought

What's in your water?
Censorship exposed at US Environmental Agency
Erin Brockovich Redux: Newsweek reviews a new book on falsification of statistics in industry, "Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health" here

Pharmawater: Drugs in the Drinking Water

An interactive feature online
Pharmawater from KALB
The US Government suppressed a major public health report. Apparently top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thought this was too hot for the public to handle.
Download excerpts from the report

Pharmaceuticals Anonymous Frogs Poster

Click on the image to download a free fair-use copy.

Apart from dangers of addiction, dependency, health damage and birth defects which some which some medications present, there are environmental concerns we must address.
Scientific American reports that fish you eat may contain a pharmochemical load sufficient to cause
breast cancer
The very same companies that make medications to treat cancer may be making the chemicals that cause it.
Is Avon's cancer ambassador, Reece Witherspoon, aware of this?