For full text of the new Healthy Schools law, click here. 40 states have fish consumption advisories because of dangerous levels of mercury in fish flesh. Vermont has a consumption advisory for every water body in the state. Women of childbearing age, pregnant women, and small children are at most risk from mercury poisoning, and should not eat fish from Vermont waters. Dioxin is among the most powerful carcinogens and known hormone disrupters in the growing child.
Humans store dioxin forever in our bodies, except for nursing mothers.
In June 1998, Consumer Reports published test results that showed all the major baby food brands had alarming levels of dioxin in meat-based products. Dioxin exposure to the general public occurs as a result of airborne dioxin from incineration and power production settling on Vermont farmland and being incorporated into meat and dairy products. Spreading of municipal sewage sludge is also a source of dioxin to farmland. Other pesticides permitted in food interfere with the nervous system, the immune system or the reproductive system. Cancer now kills more children under 14 than any other disease.