Can Pesticides harm Your Children (Archived Pedcast)

News flash-the world that your children are growing up in is a world full of chemicals.  We are just beginning to understand what these chemicals do to your children's health. Pesticides, manufacturing chemicals, jet fuel, chemicals in sunscreens and cosmetics, household chemicals, flame retardants, plastic packaging, medicines etc etc.   The EPA requires that manufacturers log their manufactured chemicals in a database and by 2012; they had logged 82,000 chemicals being manufactured and used in the U.S.!  Very worrisome, since many of these chemicals have strong biologic effects on children, persist in the environment long after use, have potentially damaging effects on a child's nervous systems, have the potential to alter a child's delicate hormone balances that regulate much of their physiology, and can even triggered some cancers. Image by Pixabay More on all that in a moment. In today's pedcast you are going to hear a discussion about one family of chemicals that you definitely need to be familiar with, namely pesticides.  Your child's long-term health may be on the line from exposure to these chemicals so it is upon you to familiarize yourself with these chemicals.  Stay tuned and I am going to fill you in on some of the essential facts parents need to know about the adverse health effects of pesticides on children and how you can avoid your child's exposure to them. Stay informed, stay engaged, and of course, stay tuned.   How do pesticides work?  A Trip Down Science Drive. First let's define the type of products that make up the pesticide category; these include insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fumigants- all meant to kill or keep pests away. To understand the damaging effects of pesticides, we are going to need to take a brief trip down Science Drive to understand how pesticides work. Let's start with a quote from the World health Organization's 2008 report on Toxicity of pesticides on children: "Pesticides are toxic by design – they are BIOCIDES, designed to kill, reduce or repel