Kids at Risk
Chemicals in the environment come under scrutiny as the number of childhood learning problems soars
For more than 40 years, the family shared the big house and two trailers a mile from the Monsanto chemical plant, on the west side of Anniston, Ala. In time, the 18 of them learned to put up with the rotten-cabbage odor that wafted through town. The plant, after all, is what stood between many residents and poverty. Besides, there were family troubles: Jeanette Champion, 44, is nearly blind and has what she calls a "thinking problem." Her 45-year-old brother, David Russell, can't read or write. Her 18-year-old daughter, Misty Pate, has suffered seizures and bouts of rage. Misty's 15-year-old cousin, Shane Russell, reads at a second-grade level.
The Monsanto plant has made industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals since the 1930s. But for decades it also saturated west Anniston with polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs have long been linked to cancer. More recently, however, researchers have discovered evidence tying the compounds to lack of coordination, diminished IQ, and poor memory among children. So when the extent of the PCB contamination in Anniston finally became clear a few years ago, a hazy picture came into focus. Perhaps the multigenerational problems of some families were not the result of poverty or bad genes. Perhaps they were caused by the chemicals in the ground.
More than 20 years ago, when Champion was still threading looms in the cotton mill, toxicologist Deborah Rice was conducting studies on young monkeys for Health Canada. The studies strongly suggested that substances like PCBs and mercury didn't just cause cancer or birth defects--the only problems for which they were tested in the United States. They also suggested that even at extremely low levels, these substances could affect the developing human brain. When given doses comparable to what a child would receive, the monkeys became impulsive and distracted and couldn't learn.
Many scientists were slow to see the significance of such research. Why worry about the loss of a few IQ points, they argued, when the real threat of chemical exposure was life-threatening disease? Today, however, a dramatic increase in learning disabilities has forced Environmental Protection Agency officials to acknowledge that they have ignored a much broader problem. One of every six children in America suffers from problems such as autism, aggression, dyslexia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In California, reported cases of autism rose 210 percent, from 3,864 to 11,995, between 1987 and 1998. In New York, the number of children with learning
disabilities jumped 55 percent, from 132,000 to 204,000, between 1983 and 1996. It was in the midst of reports like these that the EPA last week essentially banned the popular pesticide Dursban as an unacceptable risk to children.
Experts have advanced a variety of theories for the increase in disorders, including better diagnostic methods. But a growing body of evidence suggests that compounds called neurotoxicants may be contributing significantly to the problem. Neurotoxicants are found in substances as common as tuna, lawn sprays, vaccines, and head-lice shampoo. Fetuses and infants exposed to these chemicals during critical windows of development, researchers now believe, may be at far higher risk for childhood learning problems than once thought. A new study from the National Academy of Sciences suggests that a combination of neurotoxicants and genes may account for nearly 25 percent of developmental problems. Chemicals alone may account for only 3 percent of cases, the study shows, but they can trigger many more. "Think of the genes as the country road," says John Harris of the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program. "And the neurotoxicants as driving 90 miles per hour in the rain."
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