Our Children today live in a world that is fundamentally different from that of 50 years ago. In many ways their world is better. The traditional infectious diseases have largely been eradicated. Infant mortality is greatly reduced. The expected life span of a baby born today in the United States is more than two decades longer than that of an infant born at the beginning of the twentieth century.

But at the same time our children face hazards that were neither known nor imagined a few decades ago. Children today are continually in contact with thousands of new synthetic chemicals. Since World War II, at least 80,000 chemical compounds have been invented and dispersed into the environment. Only a fraction of these new chemicals have been tested for their possible human toxicity. Fewer still have been assessed for their toxic effects on children.

Nearly 3,000 of these chemicals are high-production-volume (HPV) chemicals. They are produced in quantities of 1 million pounds or more per year. These HPV chemicals are distributed widely in the environment-in air, food, water, and consumer products. They can enter children's bodies by ingestion, inhalation, or through the skin. Of great concern is that only 43% have been tested for their possible human toxicity, and fewer than 20% for their capacity to interfere with children's development.

Learn more about the environmental toxins that can affect children.