FDA必须对食品中添加的数千种化学物质进行更多监管

Pretend you're pregnant.

假如你怀孕了。

You're careful about every morsel you put into your mouth, exquisitely conscious about the potential impact on your growing baby's development.

你小心翼翼地吃进嘴里的每一口食物，非常清楚地意识到它对宝宝成长发育的潜在影响。

But there is a catch: No matter how careful you may be, the food you eat and the beverages you drink likely contain one or more of some 10,000 chemicals allowed to be added to foods -- some of which are known endocrine (hormone) disruptors linked to developmental, cognitive and other health problems in babies and adults.

但有一个问题：无论你多么小心，你吃的食物和喝的饮料都可能含有允许添加到食物中的大约10000种化学物质中的一种或多种——其中一些是已知的内分泌(激素)干扰因子，与婴儿和成人的发育、认知和其他健康问题有关。

Yet the agency charged with protecting our food from unsafe chemicals -- the US Food and Drug Administration -- hasn't been doing the job Congress intended when it passed the 1958 Food Additives Amendment, according to a citizen's petition filed Wednesday and provided exclusively to CNN in advance.

然而，根据周三提交给CNN的一份公民请愿书，负责保护我们的食品不受不安全化学物质侵害的机构——美国食品和药物管理局——并没有履行国会在通过1958年食品添加剂修正案时所打算做的工作。

"The FDA never considers the overall effect of these 10,000 chemicals on people's health, which is what Congress was after," said Tom Neltner, the chemicals policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund, a key signatory of the petition.

“美国食品和药物管理局从来没有考虑过这10000种化学品对人们健康的总体影响，而这正是国会想要的，”汤姆·内尔纳说，他是环境保护基金的化学品政策主管，也是请愿书的关键签到人。

"And it's not simply one plus one equals two. We know that synthetic chemicals that harm hormones have what we call additive or synergistic effects," said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' policy statement on the potential harms of food additives and packaging, which is part of the citizen's petition.

“一加一不等于二。美国儿科学会关于食品添加剂和包装潜在危害的政策声明的合著者莱昂纳多·特拉森博士说:“我们知道，有害激素的合成化学物质具有我们所说的添加剂或协同效应。”这也是公民请愿的一部分。

Consider the cumulative effect

考虑累积效应

Scientists used to think that it was a baby's thyroid hormone level that was important to brain development. Studies have now shown that a shift in an expecting mother's thyroid hormone, "even if it's so subtle it doesn't show up on a clinical test," can have consequences to a child's future development, Trasande said.

科学家们过去认为，婴儿的甲状腺激素水平对大脑发育至关重要。特拉森说，现在的研究已经表明，孕妇甲状腺激素的变化，“即使在临床测试中没有显示出来，”也会对孩子未来的发育产生影响。

The plastic wrap can contain chlorine, the nonstick cookware is made with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and the vegetables and drinking water may contain nitrates from fertilizers, which often leach into ground water, especially in agricultural areas.

保鲜膜可能含有氯，不粘锅是由全氟烷基和多氟烷基物质(PFAS)制成的，蔬菜和饮用水可能含有肥料中的硝酸盐，这些硝酸盐经常渗入地下水，特别是在农业地区。

All three of those chemicals are known endocrine disrupters. A review of the last five years of research by Trasande found an "explosion of evidence" about the negative impact on our health of such chemicals in agricultural pesticides and plastic or other containers used in manufacturing that touch our food.

这三种化学物质都是已知的内分泌干扰物。特拉森对过去五年的研究进行了回顾，发现“大量证据”表明，农业杀虫剂、塑料或其他用于生产食品的容器中的化学物质会对我们的健康造成负面影响。

Any negative impact of food additives will be much worse for children of any age, said Dr. Margaret Cuomo, author of "A World Without Cancer," a book that explores environmental impacts on cancer risk.

《没有癌症的世界》一书的作者玛格丽特·科莫博士说，食品添加剂的任何负面影响对任何年龄的儿童都将严重得多。这本书探讨了环境对癌症风险的影响。

"Children are always the most vulnerable especially when it comes to the endocrine disrupters," Cuomo said, "because their endocrine, neurological and reproductive systems are just developing. And so these chemicals have a much higher impact on their little bodies compared to adults."

科莫说:“儿童总是最脆弱的，特别是当涉及到内分泌干扰物时，因为他们的内分泌腺、神经系统和生殖系统才刚刚发育。因此，与成年人相比，这些化学物质对他们幼小的身体的影响要大得多。”

It's the FDA's responsibility to step up and remove the responsibility of avoiding such dangers from consumers, said Dr. Aparna Bole, chair of the AAP's Council on Environmental Health, who worked on the petition.

美国儿科学会环境健康委员会主席、参与起草请愿书的阿帕纳·博尔博士说，FDA有责任站出来，免除消费者避免此类危险的责任。

Regulate the class of chemicals

监管化学品类别

The way the FDA approaches its regulatory job contributes to the problem, experts say.

专家说，FDA处理其监管工作的方式是造成这一问题的原因之一。

Take PFAS chemicals, which have been linked to an increased risk of cancer, asthma and thyroid disease, as well as liver damage and decreased fertility. Called "forever" chemicals, because they do not degrade in the environment, PFAS are so widespread that levels have been detected in the blood of 97% of Americans, according to a 2015 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

以PFAS化学物质为例，它会增加患癌症、哮喘和甲状腺疾病的风险，还会损害肝脏和降低生育能力。被称为“永久”的化学物质，因为它们在环境中不会降解。根据美国疾病控制和预防中心2015年的一份报告，PFAS在美国非常普遍，97%的美国人的血液中都检测到了这种物质。