Given my recent
exposé's of the pseudo organic and potentially toxic Naturebabe's
ingredients, how can they justify the self-righteous safety claims
made for their products given their infant and toddler target group?
There should be an intuitive recognition that as vulnerable members
of society, children merit special attention and protection with
respect to environmental hazards. This position can be supported
purely on philosophical and moral grounds, but there is also considerable
scientific rationale for such concern. Children are not little adults.
They have an exceptional vulnerability to both the acute and chronic
effects of environmental chemical hazards and they are disproportionately
susceptible by comparison with adults. There are many physiologic
features that are unique to infants and these factors cause the
absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of chemicals
to be different to that in adults. Young bodies are not as capable
of segregating toxins (i.e., keeping toxins from the target organs),
and the target organs themselves may be more susceptible to the
toxic action of chemical compounds.
(International Programme on Chemical Safety, World Health Organization,
Environmental Criteria 59, Principles for evaluating health risks
from chemicals during infancy and early childhood: The need for
a special approach, WHO, Geneva, 1986)
Early developmental stages of an infant's
organs, nervous system, and immune system, greater rates of cell
division and lower body weight all increases susceptibility to chemical
exposure. Immature organs and other developing biological systems
are particularly vulnerable to toxicological disruption of anatomical,
physiological and neurological and behavioral development. Body
fat is low and plasma protein binding is reduced due to lower plasma
albumin concentration, so plasma chemical levels may be higher than
normal. The blood brain barrier is also less developed and hepatic
toxin metabolizing enzymes are immature, leading to increased risk
of chemical toxicity. Renal efficiency is low at birth and only
develops in the 1st year. Infants have much greater susceptibility
to neurotoxins because their nervous system is in a state of rapid
growth up until about the 7th year. At birth, much of an infant's
nerve system is not protected with a myelin sheath, the sheathing
process progressively continuing up to the 7th year. If exposure
begins in childhood, there is more of time both for exposure to
be chronic and for adverse health effects to be manifest, including
diseases with a long latency such as cancer.
(Calabrese E, Age and susceptibility to toxic substances, John Wiley
& Sons, NY, 1986); (Bearer C, Environ Health Perspect, (Supplement
6), 103: 7, 1995); (Au W, Intnl J Hygiene Environ Health, 205(6),
2002); (Wild K et al, Cancer Epidem Biomarkers Prev, 12, 1389, 2003);
(Ginsberg G, Exploring child/adult differences in chemical metabolism
and cancer susceptibility, 131st Annual Meeting of APHA, November
15-19, 2003); (Iyaniwura T, Risk World, 1 July, 2004)
Skin surface area of an infants and toddlers
are very large compared to their body weight, so their surface area
to body weight is much greater than adults, increasing their potential
dermal absorption of chemical compounds. A typical newborn weighs
one-twentieth of the weight of an adult male, but the infant's surface
area is one-eighth as great. Therefore, the total area of skin that
could be exposed to a chemical is 2.5 times as great per unit of
body weight in the infant as in the adult. Barrier thicknesses,
regional blood flow, diffusional surface areas, surface-to-volume
ratio and the temperature, hydration and pH of the skin all ensure
that any chemical coming into contact with the skin is going increase
overall exposure on a milligram per kilogram basis. At birth there
is no stratum corneum to speak of and in the weeks that follow,
organization of the skin as well as a stratum corneum is just developing.
Absorption at this stage is very rapid due to greater capacitance
and therefore more permeability in addition to just the thickness
of the skin. Even in older children aged 1 to 6 years of age, there
is higher skin blood flow than in adults and that can increase absorbance
despite the fact that they then have normal skin thickness and hydration.
(Paediatric Toxicology: Handbook
of Poisoning in Children, Bates N et al, Eds, MacMillan Press, 1997);
(Spielberg S, Characterizing Age Susceptibility, The Toxicology
Forum - Summer Meeting, July 9-13, Aspen, CO, The Toxicology Forum,
Wash, DC, 2001) (Plunkett L, Children and chemical safety and risk
assessment, Forum IV, Chemical safety in a vulnerable world, Bangkok,
Thailand, 1-7 Nov. 2003); (Environment, Health and Safety Committee,
Harmful Effects if Chemicals on Children, Royal Society of Chemistry.
15 July 2004) |