One of the most exciting reports I have ever read, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk – What We Can Do Now, was released this week by the President’s Cancer Panel, along with significant coverage by Nicholas Kristof in The NY Times, Lyndsey Layton in The Washington Post and Liz Szabo in USA Today.

This signals a pivotal change in how we approach cancer (and, I hope, how we approach other illnesses that have increased in our lifetimes). The report acknowledges that we face “grievous harm” from chemicals that surround us every day and that we have “grossly underestimated” the amount of illness caused by these exposures – illness “that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.”

Why is this so exciting? By recognizing the importance of chemical and environmental causes of disease, we open the door to achievable environmental solutions. We can run in the right direction as we race toward prevention – not just race toward a cure. This report is about cancer – but the same issues apply to asthma, autism, learning disabilities, allergies, and more.

And it starts with kids. The report highlights the game-changing Environmental Working Group studies on umbilical cord blood that I helped EWG develop and release, where we found 180 carcinogens in babies (and 217 chemicals that were toxic to the brain or nervous system), even before the babies were born – chemicals that could set a trajectory for disease much later in life.

Parents can take simple steps right now to lower their children’s risk, from the cleaners you use in your home, to the plastics you use around food and beverages (watch our for BPA and phthalates!), to the sunscreens you put on your family’s skin.

In particular, the report highlights the value of organic food. There are ten foods (eleven, if you count wine) that I see as most important to choose organic.

And we can work together to change our chemical laws, under which the government has only assessed about 200 chemicals for safety out of the 80,000 chemicals on the market.

It’s a new era in our fight against cancer. It’s a new era for health.

To me, this is very exciting.

When parents learn about the possible dangers from chemical estrogens in the environment, such as those found in some plastics, pesticides, and personal care products, one of the first questions I’m asked is, “What to do if your child was already exposed?”

BPA, one of these chemical estrogens, is found in hard plastics, in the linings of many food cans, and in many cash register receipts. And it doesn’t stay there. It gets into our bodies when we eat or drink something that has been stored or especially heated in one of these containers. It could get into our bodies when we handle receipts, then eat without washing our hands.

The CDC estimates that right now BPA is in the bodies of 93 percent of Americans, with higher levels in teens than in adults, and higher levels in children than in teens.

In animal studies, exposure to even trace amounts early in life has been linked to health problems including obesity, early puberty, and breast and prostate cancer.

Researchers at Duke University have shown that this early exposure affects the offspring’s epigenetics: it turns on and off different genes, resulting in the problems that we see.

Here’s the exciting part: They found that they could completely block BPA damage, even in the face of significant exposure, by giving pregnant animals extra folate (found mostly in green leafy vegetables – foliage – such as spinach) or extra genistein (found mostly in legumes such as soy). The amount of genistein given was comparable to what we would get in our diets if we ate soy foods regularly.

These nutrients switched the genes back the way they should be, and the BPA effect was completely nullified. The researchers describe this as compelling evidence that certain nutrients can counteract BPA when given during pregnancy.

Beyond this, the researchers propose that these nutrients could block the effects of chemical estrogen exposures, even if given later in childhood and possibly even in adulthood.

This research is still preliminary, but it makes sense to me.

Before this study, I already recommended including some green leafy veggies and whole soy foods in your family’s diet. This study suggests these may nourish and protect your child in more ways than we expected. Of course I do not recommend knowingly ingesting BPA or other potentially harmful chemicals, but eating a healthy diet that includes green leafy vegetables and soy is a great idea for the times you or your children are unknowingly exposed.

Calafat, A.M., Kuklenyik, Z., Reidy, J.A., Caudill, S.P., Ekong, J., and Needham L.L. “Urinary Concentrations of Bisphenol A and 4-Nonylphenol in a Human Reference Population. Environmental Health Perspectives, Apr 2005, 113:391-395.

Dolinoy, D.C., Huang, D., and Jirtle, R.L. “Maternal Nutrient Supplementation Counteracts Bisphenol-A-Induced DNA Hypomethylation in Early Development.” PNAS, 7 Aug 2007, 104(32):13056-13061.

Many parents assume that our current government regulations do a pretty good job of protecting our children from exposures to unhealthy chemicals – not realizing that the current law from the 1970’s is now as ridiculous and out-of-date as a polyester leisure suit. Of the more than 80,000 synthetic chemicals now on the market in the US, the EPA has only been able to require safety testing on about 200. This needs to change, and leaders across the political spectrum are calling for action.

On January 21, 2010 a broad coalition called Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families has released a powerful, readable report called The Health Case for Reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Yes, they make a strong health case (at least one percent of all disease comes from environmental exposures, and 10 percent of diabetes, and up to 30 percent of now-epidemic conditions like asthma). But beyond this they (Or I guess “we”. both DrGreene.com and Healthy Child Healthy World are part of this coalition) make a powerful economic case. Chemical policy reform should save us at least $5 billion in health care costs each and every year.

Whether you care about preventing cancer, learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, reproductive and fertility problems, or asthma — or just saving our society billions of dollars – read the report, share the report, join the movement.

“In simplest terms, real reform will lead to more healthy babies, fewer women with breast cancer, a return to normal fertility patterns, and a lower number of people with Alzheimer’s disease. This is the promise of TSCA reform.”

From 1973 to 1999, childhood cancers increased by 26 percent, making cancer the greatest health threat to children. Currently, one in a 100 8-year-old children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, and the number might be as high as 1 in 58 for boys, according to a phone survey in the journal, Pediatrics. According to Robyn O’Brien, author of The Unhealthy Truth, one out of every three U.S. kids currently suffers from allergies, asthma, ADHD, or autism—our children’s bodies are clearly under assault. But why?

In yesterday’s article I mentioned how, as one concerned father, I set out to try to find out the dangers that are children are facing and how I learned about something called endocrine disruption, or the disruption of the hormones that control everything from mood to gene expression.

As I was researching my fact-based novel, one of the things I discovered was that since World War Two, approximately 80,000 chemicals have been invented, and thousands of these have been produced in excess of millions of pounds per year. Only a small percentage of these chemicals have ever been tested to discover their effects on animals and humans. (If you want to discover how the chemical industry undermined government regulation, watch Bill Moyers brave and brilliant documentary, Trade Secrets.)

We feed these chemicals to our children through the chemicals on the food they eat, in the water they drink, in the lotions we put on their skin, in the products that they touch, and even in the air they breath. A recent study of fetal cord blood—the blood a child is born with before they take their first breath—found 413 chemicals and on average more than 200 different chemicals per child.

Many endocrine disrupting chemicals are plastics. You may have heard of the chemical Bisphenol A, or BPA, which is a plasticizer that has been used to make plastic bottles (including baby bottles), to coat children’s teeth so they don’t get cavities, and to line canned food. In lab animals (we can not do controlled studies on people for obvious reasons), BPA has been shown to impair brain development, cause down syndrome, cause breast cancer, prostate cancer, low sperm count, and even obesity.

Obesity? Have a look at this picture. The mouse on the left is a normal mouse; the one on the right was exposed to tiny amounts of BPA during its gestation. Could exposure to this chemical, seven billion pounds of which is produced and put into our environment every year, play a role in the epidemic in adult and childhood obesity that is spreading around the world?

Why don’t you know about this? Well, let’s just say there are lots of people who don’t want you to know about this and have worked hard to obscure the facts. On Sunday, May 31, 2009, the Washington Post broke the story that manufacturers of packaging for beverages and foods, including some of their customers, like Coca-Cola, were trying to defend the use of BPA and use “scare tactics” to make sure that the chemical was not banned. I couldn’t believe it. It was as if some of the villains from my novel had come to life. But if I had my characters try to recruit a pregnant woman to discuss the benefits of BPA—as they industry execs apparently did—no one would have believed it.

Out of shortsighted economic interests, also known as greed, we are conducting an unprecedented experiment on the health of our children.

Tomorrow, we will look at how what’s happening to our children is happening to the whole planet, and the next day why some children get sick and other’s don’t. Then we’ll discover the silver lining and what can turn this around. Finally, on Friday, we look at what you can do to try to keep your family safe.

For more information about endocrine disruption, the research mentioned in this blog post, and about Doug’s fact-based eco-thriller, Eye of the Whale, please visit www.DouglasCarltonAbrams.com.

Parents are often surprised when I tell them that a great number of the products we use in our homes are not necessarily evaluated and declared safe by a government entity. The paints that cover your walls, the stain-resistant fabric that covers your furniture, the very carpet under your feet… these things can contain toxic chemicals that could be harmful to you and your family.

This fall I filmed a short video for Healthy Child Healthy World (I’m proud to be a member of their advisory board) that talks about how you can be a knowledgeable, diligent advocate for products that are good for your family and for the planet. Kids have the most to gain. According to the EPA, carcinogens average 10 times more potent for your kids than for an adult – and in some cases 65 times more potent – or even more – at the same dose that adults get. And kids get typically get higher doses. Adults may eat about 1/40th of their body weight each day; kids may eat 1/10th of theirs. Pound for pound, kids eat more than we do, drink more than we do, and inhale more fumes than we do.

Many of the biggest health concerns for our children are on the rise: asthma, ADHD, allergies, cancer in babies, diabetes, etc.. All of these are linked to environmental exposures. When you’re making decisions about the products in your home, cast a knowledgeable eye from the ground up. Think about the carpet and the pad underneath, the paint on your walls, the antibacterial cleansers you use throughout the home – even the personal care products you use on your body. The choices you make today are opportunities that could give your kids a better chance for the best of health throughout their lives.

As a father, I have a desire to teach, provide for and protect my children. For me, one way to do all three of these is to choose organic foods for my family. I now know this as a physician, but I first learned it as a father and a husband.

That’s often the way it is. Medical textbooks don’t contain all the answers. Intuition and personal experiences often pave the way for later scientific understanding.

Today there is a strong, mounting body of science that is illuminating the benefits of growing crops organically. There is also evidence showing the harm of certain chemicals used in foods. And where we just don’t know the effects of new chemicals, we can proceed with precaution and protection for our children and their world. But I didn’t always feel this way.

When my first son was born, I was still in medical school. His knowledge of food came from what we fed him and what he saw us eat. Children learn more from what we do than from what we say. As a busy medical student, intern and then resident, I ate a typical rushed American diet: convenience foods, fast foods, junk foods. I ate some fruit most days and even less in the way of vegetables.

I was more interested in nutrition than my peers and went out of my way to take additional nutrition courses to supplement the meager offerings in the core curriculum. Still, I knew little. And what I did know was pushed aside by habit and a busy schedule.

By the time my youngest son came along, I was an established pediatrician. I had learned a lot about many aspects of health and wellness. I knew that there were benefits to foods grown organically, but I didn’t believe this deeply enough for it to become a priority in my family’s life. Then everything changed…

Crashing Insight When my youngest was a baby, my wife, Cheryl, was radiant and full of life. We were enjoying parenting and working together. Life was great!

Then Cheryl was diagnosed with stage III, high-risk, inflammatory breast cancer. The prognosis was grim. She was not expected to live to see the New Year. I grappled with the question “Where does breast cancer come from?” Like so many women with breast cancer, Cheryl had no history of the disease in her family. But she grew up on a farm.

It turns out that even though farmers in the United States are healthier than the general population in many ways, they have higher rates than the American public at large for several cancers, including leukemias, lymphomas, myelomas, brain cancers, and cancers of the lip, stomach, skin and prostate. But it’s not just the farmers themselves who get sick. Their children also have higher rates of reproductive tumors, leukemias and brain cancers—kidney and bone cancers, too.

As a girl, Cheryl could hear the pesticide sprayers rumble as she lay in her bed. She drank water from a well on the farm, a water source we later learned had been contaminated with pesticides. She bathed in this water. Her family cooked with it.

Several lines of reasoning suggest that agricultural pesticides used on farms are partly responsible for the increased cancer rates we see in farm families . The structure and function of these chemicals, their effects on animals and what we are learning about their effects on people are all reasons for concern.

The first studies I read about pesticides and breast cancer were a startling wake-up call for me . If these chemicals are hurting people and animals on the farm, how might they be harming the rest of us? Why wait for science to answer this question? The enormity of what we still don’t know about their effects demands thoughtful choices.

Against all odds, Cheryl survived her cancer. Did her early toxic pesticide exposure cause her cancer? I don’t know for sure, but I do know that I don’t want our children and other children put at this risk.

A Father’s Protection Most children today don’t grow up on farms. Does choosing organic food make a difference for them? Researchers at the Department of Environmental Health in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington started tackling this question by measuring pesticide levels in urine samples from preschool children in suburban Seattle. They divided the children into two groups: those who were fed mostly conventional foods and those who were fed mostly organic foods.

The urine samples of children who ate what people call conventional diets had mean pesticide concentrations about nine times higher than did those of children who ate organic! The results indicated that these preschool kids had exceeded the safe pesticide exposure levels set by the EPA and that their health was at increased risk. By contrast, those children who ate organic foods were well below the EPA levels deemed to cause negligible risk. By feeding your family organic foods, you safeguard them from harm and help them build healthy bodies.

Choosing organic for my family is one way I protect it. Additionally, when we provide our children with organic foods, we are often giving them an even bigger edge—like organic blueberries instead of partially hydrogenated snacks or organic orange juice instead of high-fructose sodas. What a gift! What an important part of our responsibility!