How Environmental Pollution
Impairs Brain Development
— and How to Protect the Brains
of the Next Generation

Brain drain updates

This section will bring updates on chemical brain drain research and update the bookhjerne
“Only Once Chance” in regard to the implications of environmental chemicals and
their effects on brain development.

25
NOV
2014

Hormones on EU brains

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25 November 2014. Hormones are essential for brain development. But it seems that the discussions on industrial chemicals that affect our endocrine system have completely ignored the most important organ – the brain. The EU Commission recently released a plan to identify the so-called endocrine-disrupting chemicals that may require attention. But not a single sentence refers to the need to detect and protect against chemical brain drain caused by hormonally-active industrial...
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24
NOV
2014

Brain drain video

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24 November 2014. A new video ideal to raise attention to chemical brain drainers has been released at YouTube. It features pioneer scientist, Professor Bruce Lanphear from Simon Fraser University in Canada, and lively graphics illustrate how chemical pollutants enter our bodies and affect brain development. The video was highly praised in a review in Huffington Post. Says Lanphear: “I firmly believe that until mothers and the public become more familiar with this science not much...
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17
SEP
2014

The right to a brain

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17 September 2014. There are property rights, rights of way, right of free speech, and there is the right to life. But do we have a right to develop a brain? Legal scholar Laura Westra takes up this issue in her new book, Child Law. She highlights the “intractable conflict” caused by the U.S. Supreme Court Decision that a mother’s right to privacy supersedes the child’s right to life before birth. This decision results in a clash with the obvious right of a child to begin life...
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12
SEP
2014

African brains in danger

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12 September 2014. Chemical brain drain is and will be a much greater problem in Africa than on other continents. “It’s critical to invest now in African children’s wellbeing”, said Peter Spencer, pioneer neurotoxicologist and professor at a conference in Luxembourg earlier this week. According to Dr. Spencer, the focus on Africa is necessary due to two factors. One is that African women have high fertility rates. According to a new report from UNICEF, almost half of...
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09
SEP
2014

Mercury fillings

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9 September 2014. A new draft report from an EU scientific committee shows how difficult it is for experts to draw conclusions from incomplete evidence. When reviewing possible adverse effects from mercury-containing fillings in teeth, the committee says that “in vitro evidence provides new insight into the effects of mercury on developing neural brain cells at concentrations similar to those found in human brain”. The experts also recognize that “effects of genetic...
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26
AUG
2014

Flame retardants – brain retardants

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26 August, 2014. Supposedly useful chemicals that are said to protect against fire may be devils in disguise, or, rather, chemical brain drainers in disguise. From the 1970s, these chemicals have been used in widely different products, from construction materials and furniture to electronics enclosures. The so-called flame retardants were said to prevent fires and to save lives, a claim that Chicago Tribune reporters found “misleading”. Because the compounds are highly stable,...
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25
AUG
2014

Are we getting dumber?

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25 August 2014. The cover story of New Scientist’s current issue asks: “Are we evolving stupidity?” The magazine highlights that the well documented increase in intelligence scores has reversed, at least in countries with long-term records, such as Australia, Denmark, and the UK. The previous increase in test scores is often called the Flynn effect, as it was first reported by social scientist James R. Flynn. The new data show that the increase has stopped and that average...
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13
AUG
2014

Inherited brains

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13 August 2014. New evidence supports the crucial role of genes for brain functions. A large study had recently concluded that about half of the variation in intelligence can be attributed to inheritance. Now, another large-scale study shows that inheritance can also explain approximately half of the high correlation between reading and mathematics capabilities in children aged twelve. This means that so-called Generalist Genes jointly rule about half of the functional capabilities. This...
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11
AUG
2014

Lead polluters jailed

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11 August 2014. Last week, three executives from Innospec, the world’s only remaining producer of lead additives to gasoline, were sentenced to jail. They will each spend between 18  months and four years behind bars. The company, previously known as Associated Octel Ltd., itself pleaded guilty in 2010 to bribing state officials in Iraq and Indonesia and was fined $12.7 million (see “Only one chance”, chapter 9). The bribes were intended to secure, or serve as rewards for having...
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“Only One Chance”

The book was released in mid-2013. It can be ordered directly from Oxford University Press – click here.

E-book versions are also available both for Kindle and Nook.

"Only One Chance shaves off layer after layer of ignorance, naiveté, and corruption as it exposes the hidden dangers from industrial chemicals. Grandjean's book reads like a thriller and gives us a unique chance to decide that the next generation's brains must be protected against toxic brain drainers." - Devra Lee Davis, PhD, author of The Secret History of the War on Cancer and National Book Award finalist.

See scientific journal reviews here and here.

A Danish version now available from Gyldendal: publisher page. E-book and audio versions are also available in Danish.

A French translation ("Cerveaux en danger") was published by Buchet/Chastel in February, 2016. A Kindle version is also available.

In a review for Le Monde, Hervé Morin writes: "La démonstration de Philippe Grandjean est implacable et désespérante... son ­exposé invite à l’indignation... il est plus que temps de protéger le cerveau des enfants." In Cerveaux & Psycho, André Picot concludes: “Dans cet ouvrage passionnant, Philippe Grandjean delivre un message clair: il est urgent d’agir, sans quoi le prix à payer pour les générations futures risqué d’être lourd. Merci à lui de nous informer si précisément, son témoignage nous est essentiel.”

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