What’s in Children’s Drinking Water? Far Too Often, Something Neurotoxic

By the Children’s Health Defense Team

Hollywood seems to love a good David versus corporate Goliath tale, and the stories it brings to the silver screen not infrequently revolve around real-life contamination of community water. Twenty years ago, the film Erin Brockovich called attention to a cancer-causing chemical dumped in a California community by Pacific Gas & Electric, while the recent film Dark Waters focuses on DuPont’s contamination of a West Virginia town’s water with the chemical PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid). Outside of Tinseltown, occurrences such as the 2014 lead debacle in Flint, Michigan—and especially its dramatic impact on children’s cognition and behavior—have helped ensure that water-quality-related incidents continue to get occasional media attention.

PFOA belongs to a wider family of chemicals called PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). The scientific evidence clearly indicates that drinking water contaminants such as PFAS, lead and many others—as well as the fluoride that, incredibly, is intentionally added to drinking water—are not doing anyone any good. However, these exposures are of particular concern for children. This is because growing children drink more water than adults (per pound of body weight) and are exquisitely vulnerable to adverse developmental effects. As the Environmental Working Group (EWG) points out, “A baby fed exclusively powdered formula mixed with tap water drinks the most water for its small size of any age group”; in this scenario, tap water may represent up to 85% of a formula-fed baby’s diet.

Water systems in many of the nation’s largest cities routinely violate Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety standards for drinking water. This observation was confirmed in a comprehensive EWG review of reports collected from close to 50,000 water companies and utilities nationwide (2010-2015), which found over 250 tap water contaminants and identified studies linking many of these chemicals to cancer; brain and nervous system damage; fetal toxicity; impaired fertility; and hormone disruption. EWG concluded that millions of American children are exposed to unsafe levels of contaminants in municipal water supplies (with an unknown number of children exposed via unmonitored private wells)—and in this context, even “a passing grade from the federal government” means little.

Pervasive PFAS

PFAS, extensively used in manufacturing and consumer products, are one of the more well-documented and worrisome drinking water contaminants. Environmental groups have dubbed PFAS “forever chemicals” because they resist degradation and build up in the blood and organs. Although other routes of exposure (such as food, house dust and indoor air) are also significant, the chemicals’ “extremely durable” and water-soluble properties have facilitated widespread PFAS infiltration of community water supplies and private wells around the world, even in the most remote areas. In the U.S., PFAS levels in tap water have increased significantly since the late 1980s.

Research shows that virtually everyone on the planet now harbors PFAS in their bloodstream. One nationally representative U.S. study detected the compounds in the blood of 99% of American adults and adolescents age 12 and up. Although some countries have banned or begun to phase out certain PFAS compounds, the chemicals’ propensity to bioaccumulate—and the continued or increased use of other PFAS compounds—means that the PFAS body burden remains high.

For children, the implications of PFAS exposure are profound, with a wide range of potential effects that may begin in utero and continue into adulthood. Possible adverse outcomes include:

• Lower birth weight and birth size
• Lower IQ and increased risk for learning disorders
• Effects on levels of sex hormones and insulin-like growth factor 1, both of which play a critical role in growth and sexual maturation
• Increased risk of overweight and obesity
• Dysregulated glucose metabolism
• Increased risk and severity of liver disease
• Lower bone mineral density

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Via

What’s in Children’s Drinking Water? Far Too Often, Something Neurotoxic

© 27 Feb 2020 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.