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Cara Natterson - Dangerous or Safe?: Which Foods, Medicines, and Chemicals Really Put Your Kids at Risk

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Book:
Dangerous or Safe?: Which Foods, Medicines, and Chemicals Really Put Your Kids at Risk
Author:
Cara Natterson
Publisher:
Penguin USA, Inc.
Genre:
Books / Children
Year:
2009
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3 / 5
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A leading pediatrician answers a question thats on every parents mind: Whats safe for my kids? There is no doubt that children today are living in an increasingly toxic world. Parents are more worried then ever, and conflicting reports in the media and rumors on the playground can cause even more confusion about which products are perfectly safe and which are harmful, even deadly. Dangerous or Safe? provides desperate parents with concrete answers on what foods, chemicals, and medicines pose real danger to kids. Combining scientific data, medical expertise, and a parents intuition, Dr. Cara Nattersona top pediatrician and mom herselfoutlines these threats by first explaining the newest scientific research and then providing a bottom line for parents to follow based on the facts and her medical expertise. Making complicated medical and scientific information accessible, Dr. Natterson shows parents how to maximize their childrens health and safety. Dangerous or Safe? explains the hazards of commonly known materials like lead and plastics; debunks myths about perceived threats; and exposes startling new evidence on seemingly benign productssuch as cell phonesthat may in fact endanger us all. An indispensable resource for parents, this relatable guide gives moms and dads clear instructions on what scary products to avoid, and which so-called poisons are completely safe. Whether its allergens in the atmosphere or pesticide spray in the yard, Dangerous or Safe? prepares parents for nearly every hazard their child will face.

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Table of Contents

For Paul, Talia, and Ry

Acknowledgments

THIS book took shape during years of clinical practice, in exam rooms and at conferences. But it became a real entity along the sidelines of the soccer field where my kids play after school. Thanks to all the parents who asked questions and particularly to the moms from Circle of ChildrenSuzy Feldman, Maya Pinkner, Laura Fox, Missy Polson, Amy Hanning, Amy Listenwho sat in the grass week after week sharing the latest hype. Also to Michele Gathrid, Carrie Casden, and Alek sandra Crapanzano, who read through drafts along the way, and to Lindsey Kozberg who got me away from writing when I needed a break.

To my guides and pillars: Richard Abate, Trena Keating, and Nancy Josephson. To Bryan Wolf and Jamie Afifi at Ziffren. And to Luke Dempsey and Meghan Stevenson at Hudson Street Press. Thanks to my mentors and friends at Tenth Street Pediatrics, especially Bill Gurfield and Jim Varga (who peppered me with science throughout the writing of this book) and Lisa Stern (the sister I never had). I am also grateful to the women of Telepicturesparticularly Sheila Bouttier, Lisa Hackner, and Hilary Estey McLoughlinwho provided me a new home outside of clinical practice.

To my own mom, who is an extraordinary parent without breaking a sweat. To Talia, Ry, and Rosa, who fill my home with happiness. And to my husband Paul, the love of my life and the most risk-averse person I know.

Introduction

What Does Dangerous Really Mean?

OVER and over we ask ourselves a simple question: is it dangerous or safe? We wonder, should I take this medicine? Eat this food? Buy this product? All day, every day, we make mental calculations that boil down to this black-and-white question: dangerous or safe? When we ask this question about ourselves, it is usually easy to answer. But when it comes to our children, nothing seems clear, and the gray zone feels enormous. For ourselves, we may be comfortable accepting uncertainty when the answer isnt obvious. But for our kids we are not: for them we need concrete, clear answers without risk or ambiguity. When it comes to our children, we worry more.

I suppose its human naturewe simply dont have enough brain space to worry about everything for everyone all the time. So we pour our angst into our highest priority, our children. Should they be drinking out of plastic bottles, using cell phones, eating processed foods, taking antibiotics, receiving vaccines? Some of these questions have real answers; others just hype. Regardless, we parents have hit a point where we torture ourselves over every detail of our childrens livesall while sipping from our own plastic bottles, talking on cell phones, snacking on processed foods, and swallowing medications.

I am the mother of two young children. This means that I belong to the parenting generation that has been accused of being overbearing, worrying about every little thing, and trying to control every aspect of our childrens lives. Generally the accusers are our own parents. You survived childhood, they say, in a slightly mocking tone, and we never worried as much about every little thing as you do.

This is true. But our parents lived in a very different world. When our parents had young kids, information was largely limited to the newspaper and the evening news. As a result, the news focused on the most important issues of the day. Today news is a constant barrage that includes twenty-four-hour cable networks, live Web streaming, and anything that might fill a few minutes of screen time or a few inches of crawl space along the bottom of your TV. This lends itself to Breaking Alerts! about pediatric-health horror stories: Child stops speaking after receiving a vaccine! Flesh-eating bacteria spreading through school community! And then there are the headlines about product recalls: Dont Give Your Child a Toy Train Because the Paint Is Leaded! Dont Let Your Child Sleep in Flame-Retardant Pajamas Because They Are Toxic! With these arriving on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, how can we possibly be expected to ignore them?

Beyond being a mom, I am also a pediatrician. A big part of the job is fielding phone calls from worried parents. With each breaking news story, parents want to know what to do for their child. Some take the time to do research on their own, but most people have learned that if you Google long enough, youll find two sides to every story. This leaves parents even more confused than they were at the outset. So they call the doctor, looking for the simple yes or no answer. When do I need to worry? Thats all parents really want to know.

It is ironic that despite our need for simple, straightforward answers we crave more and more information. So much news is coming at us all the time, but most people have no sense of what to do with it, how to prioritize it, and when to worry about it. This is certainly not to say that information should be kept from the public. But as a result of the onslaught, we begin to fear that danger lurks at every turn. With so much to consider, it is easy to lose sight of both the true and relative risks.

Relative risk simply means the risk of an event occurring in connection to an exposure. If one group of people is exposed to something and another is not, the relative risk is the probability that the exposed group will have a specific outcome. In medicine, that outcome may mean developing a disease or even dying.

Risk assessment is a calculation we make many times every day without even knowing it. What is the chance that I will be hit by a car if I jaywalk? What is the chance that I will get a sunburn (or one day even skin cancer) if I dont put on that sunscreen? What is the chance that I will be late to work if I roll over for five or ten more minutes of sleep? Risk assessment can be applied to every decision in our daily life, down to the most mundane.

Relative risk can also be used in a broad sense, forcing us to step away from the trees and look at the whole forest. There are things in our world that are relatively more dangerous than others. For instance, playing with a loaded handgun is a heck of a lot more dangerous than taking a break to get a drink of water out of a plastic bottle. We all know thisno one would disagree. But millions of Americans keep guns in their homes, loaded and accessible to their children. This may seem like a ridiculous example, but during the past few years the debate over the safety of plastics has been a continuously covered news item while guns in the home rarely make headlines. Ultimately, what we read about in the paper or online, hear about on TV, and talk about with friends tends to be in the forefront of our minds, often magnifying the actual risk. These days, because we are increasingly focused on specific issues, we may overlook things that are relatively more dangerous.

Whether we agonize over the foods we eat or the chemicals in our environment, it is easy to lose sight of the actual number of people affected in a negative way. When we blow potential hazards out of proportion, we think intently about tiny decisions and start to see much of our world through a narrow lens. Many parents tell me they dont like approaching the world this way but they just cant help it.

The inspiration for this book came from my desire to unburden parents while also educating them about what is truly dangerous for their kids (and themselves). There is good scientific data available out there; unfortunately it is often difficult to decipher unless you are trained to read medical articles. Thats why you are reading this book: so that you can understand where the hype ends and where the truth begins, so you can learn to identify what might really endanger your kids and then be able to avoid those hazards like plagues.

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