During the 1990s, as a community environmental activist and academic researcher, I focused for several years on endocrine disruptors, especially plastics. By then–and, in fact, many years earlier– scientific studies had shown that compounds used in plastics production disrupt hormonal systems, which play critical roles in nearly all human physiological processes, including brain function.

Over 20 years ago, I read Terminus Brain; The Environmental Threats to Human Intelligence by Christopher Williams. From the Amazon book blurb:

“According to the author of this study, millions of people are suffering a decline in intelligence due to pollution, the absence of environmental micro-nutrients and a degraded psycho-social environment. This decline can range from severe intellectual disability to a variety of mild, “sub-clinical” dysfunctions experienced by most people in the population…In response to these fears, the US Congress declared the 1990s the “Decade of the Brain.”

What did the “Decade of the Brain” accomplish?

Apparently little to nothing. Perhaps worse than nothing.

In 2000, I read “In Harm’s Way; Toxic Threats to Child Development” by the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility. If nothing else, read the executive summary. It’s alarming. One bullet point: “The incidence of autism may be as high as 2 per 1000 children. One study of autism prevalence between 1966 and 1997 showed a doubling of rates over that time frame.”

The statistics are now much worse. I recently came across this headline: Autism among American children and teens surged 50% in three years from 2017, with one in 30 kids diagnosed with the disorder by 2020, study finds. ” Wow–one in 30?  Another article highlight: “Children that are poor or black are at a higher risk as well.”

I haven’t yet read the full study. I will probably do so, but with great trepidation, as it will only deepen my despair.

[Caveat: As this article points out, increasing surveillance and better diagnosis could be part of the rise in autism. But this is very unlikely to completely explain such dramatic rises in the last several decades (and especially most recent years, when surveillance and diagnostics haven’t changed significantly). It’s very telling that this explanation (the rise is due to better diagnosis) is increasingly being used by corporate polluters, chemical manufactures and others who want to dismiss the harmful effects of toxic pollution–often backed by slick PR campaigns whose talking points end up in mass media articles. These PR campaigns are clearly efforts to dismiss connections between toxic chemical exposures and the alarming rise in autism and other neurological problems in children.]

Are we ALL getting dumber?

Today this Op-Ed–“Are we getting dumber”?–popped into my email inbox from Environmental Health News, which is what prompted me to write this post.

I’ll cut to the chase. Their answer? “Yes — we are getting dumber. And we are watching it happen, pretending that the regulatory system that has overseen this debacle can reverse the trend.“

Indeed, we are “pretending” the regulatory system works, when it is clearly beyond broken. Anyone even vaguely paying attention who doesn’t see this is, well, dare I say it…dumb?

And this is happening even as we publish study after study–thousands of them over the last several decades– documenting how we are poisoning ourselves. The studies keep coming out, practically daily.

For example, today after receiving “Are we getting dumber” I got this “cheery” update from UC-San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health & the Environment: “Long-term National Study Finds Increasing Chemical Exposure. PRHE’s latest research is a national study of diverse pregnant women which revealed higher levels of exposure to chemicals from plastics and pesticides than have previously been seen, many of which may be harmful to fetal development. Funded by the NIEHS Environmental Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program and in partnership with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, researchers used a new method that captured dozens of chemicals or chemical traces from a single urine sample. They found that many chemicals the women had been exposed to were replacement chemicals – new forms of chemicals that have been banned or phased out that may be just as harmful as the ones they replaced – and neonicotinoids, a kind of pesticide that is toxic to bees.” (highlights added)

In other words, as specific toxic chemicals are banned, manufacturers make simply make chemicals with slightly different formulations that are eventually shown to be as or more toxic than those they replaced. The regulatory system allows this, and scientists and activists have been pointing this out for a long time. Need I say it again? The system is beyond broken.

How many scientific studies do we need before fixing our broken regulatory system, holding polluters accountable, stopping the production and release of toxic chemicals, and changing how we live so that we do not need or use them anymore?

Here in highly educated Madison, Wisconsin: More educated, more dumb?

More scientific studies, reports, and education are clearly not panaceas. Sometimes it seems they even get in the way of meaningful action–e.g., scientists study the chemical, find it to be very toxic, publish a paper in a journal and feel that’s all they need to do. Or scientists write a report, file it in the library or online, and hope that someone else will find it and take action.

Sometimes it seems that the more educated and privileged people are, the more they can’t (or won’t?) see what is happening right in front of their noses. Or maybe they just don’t think it’s their problem? That it doesn’t affect them–just other people less fortunate than themselves?

Case in point. Here in Madison–a highly privileged city and home of a major research university (the city has among the highest–if not the highest?–number of PhDs per capita in the U.S.)–government agencies, public health officials, and many highly educated residents do nothing or look the other way as brain-dumbing chemicals spew from multiple sources into our lakes and fish, are repeatedly blown up over the city while people scream and cheer, and are drawn up into our drinking water as municipal wells are pumped harder and harder so the city can grow rampantly. And city and county agencies knowingly spray neurotoxic chemicals on our parks and green spaces, violating their own policies. And more…

And who is most negatively affected by these poisons–in a city that purports to care about racial justice and social equity? Low income people, people of color, elderly, children.

Hmmm. Ironically, maybe the deep denialism about the impacts of our decisions and actions (or rather, inactions) is contributing to our own, and our children’s, stupidity?

As the old proverb says, “You reap what you sow.“

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Are we getting dumber?

An Op-Ed by Barbara Demeneix and R. Thomas Zoeller

Brain function, especially in children, is often evaluated by intelligence tests resulting in an Intelligence Quotient or “IQ.” IQ scores, after having increased for most of the 20^th century, have been going down since the mid-1990s.

The decline is well documented across Europe, the U.S. and Australia.

Is this trend for real?

Some technical issues related to IQ measurements may be playing a role. However, scientific studies show that chemical exposures harm brain function in our children.

Every baby born in America (and in the developed world) is contaminated with industrial chemicals and many professionals – including numerous medical and scientific organizations – are focusing on the soup of chemicals in which we raise our children. Many of these chemicals affect brain development, especially endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Reducing exposures to these mixtures of chemicals offers the single best approach to improving the mental and physical health of our children.