Protecting children’s health from toxic chemicals: Fixing farming and food first

Protecting children’s health from toxic chemicals: Fixing farming and food first

Medicine spent the last century tackling infectious disease. Now, a different threat is emerging: a rise in chronic childhood illness linked to synthetic chemicals entering children’s bodies through what they eat. Henry Rowlands, Director of the Institute for Preventive Health, examines the growing concern and the case for prevention and solutions. In January 2025, twenty-five scientists, physicians, economists and legal scholars, writing as the Consortium for Children’s Environmental Health, published a stark warning in the New England Journal of Medicine NEJMms2409092; Rising levels of neurodevelopmental disorders, asthma, obesity, diabetes and childhood cancers are all linked to manufactured chemicals, which face few meaningful legal constraints. Shockingly, fewer than 20% of the roughly 350,000 registered chemicals in circulation have been tested for toxicity at all, and fewer still for effects on infants and children.