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

Pesticides

Pesticides are meant to be toxic109_0940

Pesticides constitute the largest group of substances that have caused neurological signs and symptoms in adults. By 2013, a total of 96 pesticides are known to affect the brain. Many pesticides are aimed at being toxic to insects, usually by targeting their nervous system – but the brain biochemistry is quite similar. It also seems likely that the human brains during early development would be particularly vulnerable to pesticides.

16
NOV
2018

Chlorpyrifos drains brains

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16 November 2018. The most commonly used insecticide in the EU and the USA has been approved on the basis of a toxicity test that has now been found to be faulty. Chlorpyrifos is used against worms and insect pests on a wide range of crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, and fruits. Residues are often found on conventional fruits, such as grapes, and metabolites appear in the urine of children, even in countries that don’t use the product. Under the name of Dursban or...
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13
FEB
2017

Is organic food better for new brains?

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13 February 2017. The answer may appear straightforward. Of course organic food is better. But there are some caveats as well. First, let us look at the research findings. They were recently summarized in a report requested by the European Parliament. In the 88-page review of 381 publications, researchers from four EU countries covered a variety of topics, including potential human health benefits of the organic food as such, and indirect benefits from organic feed and production methods....
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10
DEC
2015

After the fact

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10 December 2015. A few days ago, a Swedish mother called and asked for advice. Her house is in the countryside right next to a field used for agricultural experimental production. A major purpose, it turns out, is to test different pesticide regimens, thus involving different substances, i.e., herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, including compounds not (yet) approved in Sweden or in the EU. This past summer, a mistake happened, and plants withered away in the gardens of eight...
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13
JUN
2015

More pesticides drain brains

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15 June 2015. A new report links a commonly used class of pesticides to chemical brain drain. The French birth cohort Pelagie measured five break-down products of pyrethroid insecticides in the morning urine obtained from 287 children at age 6 years. The children also underwent neuropsychological testing. After adjustment for other pesticides and relevant cofactors, the researchers found that the children’s urine concentrations of two major metabolites (3-PBA and cis-DBCA)...
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31
MAR
2015

Thyroid dysfunction causes brain drain

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30 March 2015. Human brain development is critically dependent on the thyroid hormone. In the beginning of pregnancy, the fetus depends entirely on the mother’s hormone. Once the fetal thyroid begins to function, it relies on iodine from the mother’s thyroid hormone. If the mother is iodine deficient, the child may be mentally retarded. Even if maternal iodine intake is only slightly below what is needed, the child may suffer deficits in cognitive function, as indicated by...
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05
DEC
2014

Greenhouse pesticides

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5 December 2014. Pesticides are meant to be toxic to various pests, including insects. As our nervous system is quite similar to insect brains in regard to its biochemistry, pesticides that control insects may also present a hazard to the human nervous system. The current list of suspected brain drainers includes 100 pesticides. Each of them has caused neurological symptoms in adults. However, for most of them, we do not know whether they damage brain development in children. In order to...
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27
MAY
2014

ADHD and brain drainers

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27 May 2014. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common behavioral disorder of childhood, and the prevalence among school children may be as high as 10%. Children with ADHD have a decreased attention span, they have difficulty concentrating, they are more impulsive and often hyperactive. The symptoms change with age, and ADHD in adults is associated with academic underachievement, employment problems, decreased income as well as unstable personal relationships and...
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10
MAR
2014

Brain development in developing countries

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10 March 2014. The easy availability of brain-toxic pesticides in developing countries makes poisoning a common event. Worse, frequently used products include some of the most toxic substances that have long been banned elsewhere. The magnitude of the problem is difficult to ascertain, as hospital records can be incomplete and may not reflect the true occurrence of pesticide poisonings. A new study from Tanzania shows that the true number of poisonings is almost three times higher than...
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07
FEB
2014

Canadian pesticides and Canadian brains

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Comments : 1
7 February, 2014. Pesticides are less necessary at latitudes far from the Equator, as fewer pests survive. So Canada would not have reason to use the same battery of chemicals as in the tropics. Not quite. The Ottawa government and Health Canada have supported the necessity to allow multiple pesticides that have long been banned elsewhere, e.g., in the European Union. Now the government has agreed to review 23 pesticides again. Two NGOs, Ecojustice and the David Suzuki Foundation, filed...
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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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