It is our responsibility as parents, scientists, regulators, and physicians to protect the smallest among us from environmental hazards. A Mixed Review Children are our most precious resource, so it is critical that they have the opportunity to develop into healthy and productive citizens. We can be proud of the fact that the health and safety of children is better than at any time in recorded history. Yet, the report card on the well-being of our children is a mixture of success and failure. The infant mortality rate is at a record low, but is still higher than in many countries.
Academic achievement is up, but still lags behind many industrialized nations.
The high rates of homicide, suicide, unintentional injury, poverty, violence, alcohol and tobacco use, asthma, autism, and developmental and behavioral disorders suggest that many challenges remain. The environment in which we raise our children is dramatically different from that of a few generations ago. Intensive use of pesticides, dependence on automobiles, a regular regime of vaccinations, new consumer products, highly refined foods and beverages, and a steady diet of television and computer games are but some of the more obvious differences in our children's environment. All of these changes occurred in the past 50 years, creating an environment vastly different from that of the previous 100,000 years of human existence. It is not too great a leap to wonder if the changes in our children's environment are responsible for some of their health problems.