On November 3rd, 2009 Frontline aired a program on the subject of a dramatic increase in the number of children being diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/view/

The program opens with a video clip of an activist protesting on behalf of children's rights and bringing light to this epidemic sweeping across the nation.

A lot of the credit for lighting a fire under the FDA goes to the much-maligned anti psychiatry movement and its most prominent spokesperson, Peter R. Breggin, MD.  Dr. Breggin the author of many scientific articles and books which includes Toxic Psychiatry, and Medication Madness: A psychiatrist exposes the dangers of mood- altering medications (2008), for years along with a few others have been the lone voices in pointing out how drug companies have essentially bought and paid for the psychiatric establishment. This includes lead academic researchers who have been paid to lend credibility to questionable industry research. According to Dr Breggin, this research, most of which is done on adults, has been used to "justify coercing unsuspecting kids into submission".

While she was hunting around for some new acquisition of the outlandish apparel teenagers relish these days, I sauntered idly around the shops. The stores are all chains common to malls across our country. She spent her time at two places I had never heard of, Rue 21 and Wet Seal, jam-packed with girls her age.

There was not a natural product among all the offerings as far as my eyes could see. Every item of apparel was constructed of a man-made fabric, mostly acrylic, some nylon. In the mall plaza where I then sat down to wait, a free-standing booth was selling wind-up toys, plastic one and all.

My granddaughter emerged with her purchases of a fake fur vest (acrylic) and animal-patterned tights (nylon). She explained she intended to wear this outfit as a Halloween costume, to be discarded after that single use.

The common thread (no pun intended) throughout the mall is petroleum. Both acrylic and nylon are manufactured from oil. Just as 98% of all manmade chemicals are. Acrylic was originally created by DuPont. Monsanto entered the picture when it developed a chemical process to keep acrylic from pilling.

Our doctors and nurses carry as many harmful chemicals in their bodies as the rest of us. You might think that, being trained in chemistry and medicine (as most of us are not) and therefore perhaps more careful, not to mention highly-educated and relatively affluent, health care professionals would have found ways to avoid toxics. But they are in fact exposed to the same kinds of chemicals and hazards as workers in blue collar industries. A report published today by three nonprofit health-related organizations, "Toxic Chemicals Found in Doctors and Nurses," is the first examination of the ‘body burden' of 20 members of the medical profession. Every one of them carried toxic chemicals, every one carried 18 of the same chemicals, and each participant bore a burden of at least 24 individual chemicals of the 62 chemicals for which labs ran their analysis. That adds up to major chemical pollution with major potential for harm.

The bottom line from this study for all of us is, that we cannot shop or sanitize our way out of this problem. We need a shift in the way chemicals are made and sold and used.

The chemicals found in every one of these doctors and nurses include four that EPA is now considers top priority: bisphenol A (used to make rigid plastic polycarbonates), mercury, PFCs (for stain-resistant coatings), and phthalates (used in PVC plastics and cosmetics). Almost every participant also carried signs of flame retardants and the antimicrobial chemical triclosan, two other highly-suspect chemicals. One and all, these are endocrine disruptors, meaning they harm our hormonal systems. They can trigger reproductive problems, from testicular and breast cancer to lowered fertility, as well as altered brain development, and cancer, and they are linked to problems with our metabolism, such as obesity, high cholesterol, and diabetes.