Page 28 - Spring2015

Toxicity and Chronic Illness

by Mark Schauss, MBA, DB

nvironmental toxicity and its effects on chronic

illness is, in my and many prominent scientists’
Eminds, one of the most important health crises fac-

ing us today. While adults are certainly adversely affected,
it is our children who are hurt the most. According to Dr.

Leo Trasande, “We are in an epidemic of environmentally
mediated disease among American children today. Rates

of asthma, childhood cancers, birth defects and develop-
mental disorders have exponentially increased, and it can't

be explained by changes in the human genome. So what
has changed? All the chemicals we're being exposed to.”
1
The issue of toxicity and our children was most disturbingly reported by
the Environmental Working Group’s release of an investigation called Body
Burden in July 2005. The report revealed that they detected two hundred
2
eighty-seven chemicals in the cord blood of newborn babies, one hundred
eighty of which are known carcinogens, two hundred seventeen of which
are known neurotoxins, and two hundred eight of which have been shown
to cause birth defects or abnormal development in animals. This insult to
newborns is unprecedented in human history and lays the groundwork for
a dramatic upswing in chronic illnesses as these children mature into adult-
hood.
26 Wise Traditions SPRING 2015 Wise Traditions

150123_text.indd 26 3/27/15 2:58 AM