The chemicals we've long feared the most —
heavy metals like lead and mercury — are less of a threat to kids' developing brains than they were two decades ago. But two new menaces may be taking their place: pesticides and flame retardants.
According to new research from New York University,
flame retardants resulted in a loss of 162 million IQ points among children in the US between 2001 and 2016.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, looked at the four chemicals known to impact the brain of a developing child most: lead, mercury, pesticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (otherwise known as flame retardants).
Leo Trasande, a pediatrician and public-health researcher at NYU who co-authored the study, described these pollutants as "hit-and-run" chemicals: Once a child is exposed to them, there's no reversing the damage.
"Kids' brain development is exquisitely vulnerable," Trasande told Business Insider. "If you disrupt, even with subtle effects, the way a child's brain is wired, you can have permanent and lifelong consequences."
Comment: While slightly hyperbolic, the above is an indication of the levels the pro-vaxxers are willing to go to to reach their goal of 100% compliance in the vaccine schedule. To try to convince kids to go behind their parent's back, going against the rights of the parents to raise their children as they see fit, is absolutely deplorable. They're trying to corrode the last vestige of protection a child has against blatant ideology - the parents. They know children are vulnerable to peer pressure, don't want to be different or stand out amongst their peers, and they're going for the jugular. Being a kid in today's society must be rough.
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