“Toxins can have a lifelong impact on children. Extremely low levels of toxins can impact brain development, leading to lowered intelligence, and learning and behavioral problems.”

Bruce Lanphear is a Clinician Scientist at the Child & Family Research Institute, BC Children’s Hospital, and Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.His primary goal is to help quantify and ultimately prevent disease and disability – like asthma, learning problems and ADHD – due to exposures to environmental contaminants and pollutants. Over the past decade, Dr. Lanphear has become increasingly vexed by our inability to control the “pandemic of consumption” – the largely preventable, worldwide epidemic of chronic disease and disability due to industrial pollutants, environmental contaminants and excess consumption. He is leading an effort to produce videos – including, Little Things Matter: The Impact of Toxic Chemicals on the Developing Brain – to enhance public understanding of how our health is inextricably linked with the environment.