Masters of Health Magazine May 2025 | Page 76

Michelle Perro, MD, DHom

NOTE:  This proposal was first written in  November 2021, in response to the myopic and restrictive Covid narrative that was thrust upon children, their parents, and society.  The creation of this Bill has been updated to reflect what has occurred since that time.

Globally, the health of our children is under assault.  Chronic disease amongst our most vulnerable is rampant.  The main drivers of this present health disaster are environmental toxicants.  Californian state lawmakers proclaimed that  October 2021 is Children’s Environmental Health Month, raising awareness about the need for clean air, water, and food to protect children.

Let’s make it a global law, starting with a Children’s Health Bill of Rights, with the goal being to support every child.

The following editorial is a summary statement of the main factors affecting the well-being of our children, and not meant to provide an all-inclusive list.  Whilst it is known that children are inundated with over 100,000 chemicals according to the European Environment Agency (EEA), as well as other environmental insults, there are clearly priorities that must be principally showcased and addressed.  Six major areas that require urgent attention are addressed below.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their associated pesticides entered our children’s diets in 1996, and they have been consuming them for over 25 years.  Despite harm first identified by Dr. Arpad Pusztai, upon revealing his findings from the first GMO study, agribusiness was allowed to roll out GMOs into our children’s mouths ever since. The findings of his work were rapidly followed by a slanderous personal attack and his immediate removal from the Rowett Institute where he had dedicated 37 years of superlative research. In 2019, the FDA released a guidance document for industry regarding ‘voluntary labeling,’ and how to identify products from genetically engineered plants.

The FDA document goes on to define what comprises “genetic engineering”:

In this guidance, we use the terms “genetic engineering” and “bioengineering” to describe the use of modern biotechnology. Modern biotechnology means the application of in vitro nucleic acid techniques, including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles, or fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family, that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombinant barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection of plants. The term “modern biotechnology” may alternatively be described as “recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology,” “genetic engineering,” or “bioengineering.” These terms are often used interchangeably by industry, federal agencies, international bodies, and other interested stakeholders and are used in this guidance to refer to foods derived from new plant varieties developed using modern biotechnology. The term “genetic modification” is also sometimes used to refer to the use of modern biotechnology, although FDA’s longstanding position, as discussed later in this guidance, is that such use of the term is less accurate because the term encompasses the broad spectrum of genetic alterations that can be made in plants.

The end result of this position held by government regulatory agencies like the FDA, requires parents to have a PhD in genetics to be able to shop the aisles of their local market while trying to avoid GMOs.  Without labeling in the US, parents are unable to identify which foods are industrialized “food-like” products and which are produced without engineering, fueling confusion as to what was once the simple act of feeding a child.

A key feature in scientific research is the replication of findings of a study.  The impetus to further study GMOs which could identify and reproduce the harm first demonstrated by Dr. Pusztai was not willingly taken up by researchers, secondary to potential conflicts of interest often at odds with the subsidies/grants institutions received from industry.

However, Dr. Michael Antoniou, the Director of Gene Therapy and Gene Expression at King’s College in the UK, employing cutting-edge technology, identified metabolomic changes resulting in lab animals fed GMOs as well as other metabolite changes disproving ideas of equivalency between GMO and non-GMO products.

Dr. Gilles-Eric Seralini also published findings of significant toxicity from GMOs and glyphosate-based herbicides in a rat toxicology study. Thus, other scientists have since substantiated the findings of health harms originally shown by Dr. Pusztai.

Despite clear cut demonstrable health hazards from this technology, new GMOs were released, more sophisticated technologies regarding gene editing/CRISPR were made available and genetic engineering regulation by the government essentially disappeared.  This is a formula for a children’s health tsunami.

While the GMO effects are significant, remember that they are consumed with their concomitant pesticides.  Since the time of Rachel Carson and her landmark book,

A Silent Spring (1962), the negative effects of pesticides have been long known regarding children’s health.  Again in 1993, there were reports calling out the lack of regulatory safeguards to protect children from pesticides.  These warnings have gone unheeded as global glyphosate usage continues to skyrocket.  While there are many harmful effects of glyphosate, the main toxic effects can be seen in their ability to disrupt intestinal permeability, alter the microbiome (a key player in immune, neurologic and hormonal health), identified as a causative agent of autism (which has now reached pandemic levels), as well as having been shown to have a direct link to asthma.  This is a brief account of the many ill effects caused by glyphosate-based herbicides on children.  Additionally, industry lists many ‘inert’ ingredients in their formulations which are neither inert or reported due to proprietary discretion. The struggle is against pesticides is real, and it’s personal, affecting families universally.

A mother in Argentina describes her family’s severe health problems linked to the large quantities of pesticides (notably glyphosate) sprayed on GM soy. Toxicology tests showed that her son’s body contains a level of pesticides 120 times higher than he is capable of tolerating. Her daughter has a little less, 100 times more than she could tolerate. They both have at least twice the levels found in adults. The entire family has genetic damage. Read the full story of Sabrina Ortiz, mother of two children severely harmed by pesticides here.

The situation is in constant flux and it is only very recently that Bayer (owner of the glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup) decided to withdraw this product from garden usage in the US as litigation against Bayer spirals into the hundreds of thousands of victims.  There are presently over 1,000 glyphosate-based formulations available for purchase, so the outcome of this action on the herbicide market remains to be seen.