Author Archive
Posted April 18th, 2012 by Alice Shabecoff
The just-released data on autism shows a count of one in 88 children, up from a rate of one in 100 three years ago, and one in 150 five years ago. With each change, the response remains the same: Oh that’s because of better detection and broader definitions. How, then, to account for the sharp [...]
Posted July 8th, 2011 by Alice Shabecoff
False news reports debunking the declining sperm count
Posted April 4th, 2011 by Alice Shabecoff
Radiation now pollutes the drinking water in Tokyo, far from the scene of the ruined power plants. Could that happen in the United States, with our 104 active nuclear power plants, the most of any nation in the world? In fact, it’s already happened, and goes on still, not the outcome of a unique triple [...]
Posted September 16th, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
The following awesome letter to parents and grandparents was written by Nancy Myers, who works at the nonprofit organization, Science and Environmental Health Network, www.sehn.org. We are among the many people now trying to figure out how to stop the toxic assault on our children. If you, dear reader, have any thoughts, please comment below. [...]
Posted August 30th, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
To: Everyone in the San Francisco Area Here’s a huge and unprecedented opportunity to take action to stop the toxic assault that threatens our communities and our children. Here’s a huge and unprecedented opportunity to take action to stop the toxic assault that threatens our communities and our children. Right now some serious reforms to [...]
Posted August 26th, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
This article offers an impartial introduction to the otherwise hotly-contested subject of childhood vaccinations. And it shows how vaccines fit into the whole problem of the toxic assault on our children. Donna Curless’s three children were born and spent their early years in Brick Township, a mid-size, middle income New Jersey city whose rate of [...]
Posted August 6th, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
Part 2 Privatizing profits and socializing costs. Businesses are adept at passing along the true costs of their pollution onto the rest of us. Parents and the health care system pick up a tab of $54.9 billion a year for four childhood disorders: lead poisoning, cancer, asthma, learning and behavioral disorders. Special ed (half the [...]
Posted August 6th, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
Part 1 The BP Gulf oil catastrophe is not the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, contrary to news headlines. The hugeness of the blow-out captures our attention, but the worst pollution actually takes place here in our ordinary lives, in hardly noticed events that add up day after day. Of course BP gets a [...]
Posted July 21st, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
Why do we write about, talk about, meet about and in general complain about children’s chronic illnesses in the U.S. when statistics show that, year by year, we Americans are living to an ever riper old age? That’s a favorite gotcha question, intended to squash or at least minimize the impact of the damage we [...]
Posted July 2nd, 2010 by Alice Shabecoff
Part 1 As soon as a teenage girl walks into her pediatrician’s office, he will suggest another vaccination, to be delivered through a series of shots spaced out over six months. This time the vaccine is Gardasil, intended to protect her from being infected by the human papilloma virus, HPV, which might cause cervical cancer [...]
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