The TED Talk below features Penelope Jagessar Chaffer, director of the documentary film “Toxic Baby,” and Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, who has dedicated most of his career to studying the health effects of the herbicide atrazine.
According to Chaffer, the average American woman today has 30,000 to 50,000 chemicals in her body that her grandparents did not have. Many of these chemicals have been linked to the rapidly rising incidence of chronic childhood diseases.
In her talk, Chaffer cites the following statistics, which are likely higher today, since this talk was given in 2010:
- In the United Kingdom (U.K.), the incidence of childhood leukemia rose by 20% in one generation.
- In Canada, the prevalence of asthma increased by 400% in 20 years; 1 in 10 children is now diagnosed with asthma.
- In the U.S., childhood cancers have seen a similar rise as that of childhood leukemia in the U.K. Autism spectrum disorder has also increased by 600% in the past 20 years; the incidence of autism rose by 57% between 2002 and 2006 alone.
- In the Netherlands, Rotterdam has seen a 400% increase in genital birth defects.
Obesity and juvenile diabetes have also skyrocketed, and while a high-sugar diet likely bears the brunt of the blame, there’s every reason to suspect that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) — many of which enter our system via processed foods — add to the metabolic dysfunction we now see.
Hellbound and Down 