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August 16, 2018

Restore Children’s Health

America’s children are facing epidemics that the world has never seen. We are in a crisis. Chronic diseases are crippling our children in far greater numbers than in any generation in history. We need to make our children healthy again! #restorechildhealth #childrenshealthdefense

American children’s ability to develop and thrive is being sabotaged by an avalanche of chronic ailments, with pediatric rates of some chronic conditions among the highest in the world. Behavioral and developmental disorders have become epidemic in our children. One in every six children today has been diagnosed with a developmental disability, such as autism, ADHD, or learning disabilities, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s 1.8 million more children than were diagnosed with similar conditions in the late 1990s. And nearly twice as many boys as girls have these conditions. American kids are 70 percent more likely to die before adulthood than kids in other rich countries with mortality of kids in the US higher than in peer nations since the 1980s.

American children are also the most highly vaccinated in the world. Since 1990, when the U.S. began substantially expanding its vaccine schedule, the number of vaccines required for school entry has increased by approximately 260%.  Currently, children receive repeated shots for 16 separate illnesses.  Counting vaccines administered during pregnancy and yearly flu shots, by the time our children are 18 years old they have received up to 73 doses of vaccines!

As part of our continuing efforts to restore child health, the Children’s Health Defense is launching a set of videos highlighting the chronic health issues plaguing our children. Everyone—children, parents and family, education leaders and teachers, health care and insurance providers, cutting edge businesses that employ graduates, our country’s military—has a stake in this fight to restore our children’s health. As children are the keys to our successful future and prosperity, we don’t have a moment, or the health of any child, to lose.

It’s Time to Pay Real Attention to Children’s Health

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stresses in this article, It’s Time to Pay Real Attention to Children’s Health, that there is no crisis more urgent than the chronic illnesses now affecting over half of our nation’s children. He also explains how the U.S. is not living up to the vital responsibility of children’s health and, in fact, is failing children miserably: “American children’s ability to develop and thrive is being sabotaged by an avalanche of chronic ailments, with pediatric rates of some chronic conditions among the highest in the world.”

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