Here is our mission
The purpose of Children’s Health Corps is to shout out a warning that often goes ignored – the environment is telling us that challenges our children face such as autism, chronic infections, diabetes, stress and anxiety can be seen to have origins in our global ecosystem.
This site is based on the works of Majid Ali, MD whose over 50 years in medicine has given him a unique perspective in the evolution of children’s health issues that will effect the 21st century.
Featured article
Human Canaries on the Autism Spectrum
Majid Ali, M.D.
Children and others on the autism spectrum make a clarion call for the future of humankind. They teach us that humans have a finite capacity to sustain and survive existential threats to their brain cells. Specifically, they inform that environmental toxicities that put in jeopardy the oxygen order and energetics of their brain cells can be expected to affect all humans with time. Simply stated, they are human canaries on the autism spectrum.
Fatigue Canaries
I opened my book The Canary and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (1994) with the following words: “Chronic fatigue sufferers are human canaries—people who tolerate poorly the biologic stressors of the late 20th cenutury…[They] are telling us something important about the shape of things to come. None of us are really immune to oxidative stressors that fatigue them.” My point then: Given planetary chemicalization and “angerization” trends, Nearly all humans in the future can be expected to develop fatigue that is considered undue today. How could I have imagined that in merely two decades I would hear the same clarion call from children with autism and related disorders on the spectrum.
Autism Canaries, One in 29 Boys
Consider the following quote from the November 6, 2012 issue of New York magazine: “Before 1980, one in 2,000 children was thought to be autistic. By 2007, the Centers for Disease Control were reporting that one in 152 American children had an autism-spectrum disorder. Two years later, the CDC updated the ratio to one in 110. This past March, the CDC revised the number upward again, to one in 88 (one in 54, if you just count boys, who are five times as likely to have one as girls). A South Korean study from last year put the number even higher, at one in 38. And in New Jersey, according to the latest numbers, an improbable one in 29 boys is on the spectrum.”
Autism Is Not a Psychologic Disorder
Nor is it a psychiatric disorder. To think so, as I have shown in articles on my Oxygen Modebelow to order l of Autism, is a grave injustice to children and others on the autism spectrum. Psychologists and psychiatrists do not study nor practice nutritional medicine. Nor do they study or practice environmental medicine. Stress simply cannot be managed without effectively addressing nutritional and environmental issues relevant to individuals on the spectrum. I discuss this subject at length in two video seminars linked below. Please click on the boxes to order them
Our planet is warming and so are we. Our planet is acidifying and so are we. Our planet is fermenting and so are we. Our planet is chemicalized, overpopulated, and angerized. All these factors are seriously affecting animals and plants. We cannot be immune these adverse effects. In this article, I reproduce from The New York times an extraordinary group of photographs and accompanying texts. In other articles in this series, I offer additional comments on these important subjects.
Evolution Under Our Noses
This is evolution under our noses. This, of course, is not new. What is new is the scale of the change. Humans can think only on linear scales. For example, I can say that going at 50 miles an hour, my car will travel 100 miles in two hours. This is clear cut math. That is not the way of nature however. Natures moves on an exponential scale. The changes are not clear cut because nature moves within its own parameters with steps and counter-steps, masking the rate of change. There are of cours exceptions to it on geologic scales when violent volcanic or asteroid activity can change thing smore quickly on th eevolutionary scale.
Climatic Changes of Chaos Scale
The evidence is rapidly accumulating that the current climatic changes are likely to build up changes on exponential scale that may impact us the same way the catastrophic extinction events in our past did. A rapid acceleration of evolutionary progress down a completely different path than nature intended.
Consider the case of the rising prevalence of autism spectrum, I rest my case by reproducing here a dramatic graph reproduced from the science journal, Nature (Nov.3, 2011):
![Diag850[1]](https://kidskirto.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/diag85011.jpg)
What impacts the tea harvest – impacts Autism
In China, the tea harvest depends on the monsoons: The best tea is harvested in springtime, when the weather is still dry. But climate change threatens to extend the monsoon season.
“Post monsoon season, farmers get much less from their harvest, and a lot of the chemicals that give tea its flavor drop,” said Colin M. Orians, a chemical ecologist at Tufts University. “If climate changes the onset of the monsoon season, farmers will have a shorter window in which to harvest their tea.”
Over the next four years, Dr, Orians and his team will investigate the effects of changing temperatures and rainfall on tea quality and on the livelihoods of farmers who depend on the harvest.
Weather changes that effect tea – effect people
Shrinking Salamanders
Salamanders in the Appalachian Mountains are getting smaller, and species at lower altitudes, where the greatest drying and warming has occurred, are the most affected. One species became 18 percent smaller over 55 years.
t-weight:400;”>“It could be that a change in body size is the first response to climate change,” said Karen Lips, an ecologist at the University of Maryland. “Their food may be affected, and they may be producing smaller babies.”
Dr. Lips partially relied on the data of Richard Highton, a retired ecologist from the University of Maryland who spent 50 years studying and collecting salamanders that are now preserved at the Smithsonian Institution. At the time of his retirement, he noted that salamanders were mysteriously disappearing.
“If they are not nearly as big, they may not be producing as many offspring,” Dr. Lips said.
To test the theory, Dr. Lips and her team plan to raise salamanders in incubators that mimic different climates.
The Bumble Bee Die Out
SINDYA N. BHANOO
Bumblebees and other pollinators are critical to global agriculture, but recent studies suggest that up to one-quarter of Europe’s bumblebee population may die out.
Researchers say that climate change is at least partly to blame, along with disease and loss of habitat.
Scientists estimate that pollinators indirectly contribute about $30 billion a year to the European economy. “Pollinators are essential to our population,” said Jean-Christophe Vié, deputy director of the species program at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Switzerland.
Roe Deer
Roe deer, a small, reddish-brown species that flourishes all over Europe, give birth when new plant growth provides ample nutritious food for the mother. But flowers are blooming earlier than they used to, and the deer are missing their meals.Researchers tracked deer births from 1985 to 2011 in the Champagne region of northeastern France, where average spring temperatures have steadily increased and flowering time is coming gradually earlier. The study is online in PLOS Biology.
The deer time their fertility by light availability, not temperature. With earlier springs, they are now giving birth too late to take advantage of the best food.
Using data on 1,095 births, the scientists calculated that the mismatch between flowering time and birth over the period had grown by 36 days.
The researchers estimate that deer fitness declined by 6 percent over the period, and by 14 percent in 2007 and 2011, when flowering was particularly early.
Roe deer are very dependent on large quantities of high quality food, and the critical stage is the first week’s supply,” said the lead author, Jean-Michel Gaillard, a director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research at the University of Lyon. “Unlike birds, for example, that can migrate and breed earlier, roe deer cannot.”
The Olive Tree Crisis
NICHOLAS BAKALAR
In the Mediterranean Basin, small olive farms can support entire families. Olive trees are notoriously drought-resistant, and even in arid ecosystems they attract migratory birds and a host of insect species. But as the region warms, some olive trees will not be as productive.
“In the south, you’re going to see a lower crop yield,” said Andrew Paul Gutierrez, an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “In marginal areas, the farmers will just go out of business.”
Dr. Gutierrez and his colleagues predict that some local farmers ultimately will have to abandon their orchards, leaving barren swaths of desert where biodiversity once flourished.
The Lemming Natural Causes Die Off
Contrary to myth, lemmings do not commit mass suicide. But populations do rise and fall in predictable cycles, to the benefit and detriment of predators like arctic foxes and migratory birds.
Recently, scientists noticed that some groups of lemmings have died off.
“The lemming cycle is the heartbeat of the terrestrial Arctic,” said Nicolas Lecomte, a biologist at the University of Moncton in Canada. “Now we’re seeing the collapse of the main prey of many terrestrial predators.”
Lemmings survive harsh winters by hiding in the snow. When warmer temperatures bring off-season rain, that snow turns to ice, and the lemmings cannot burrow.
Dr. Lecomte has found that as lemmings die off en masse, the fragile Arctic ecosystem is growing weaker.
Wheat, Rice and Corn
If wheat, rice and corn are going to continue to feed the world, the crops will have to adapt to warmer temperatures. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers some predictions. published last spring in Nature Climate Change, concluded that a 3.6 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature will bring a significant decline in crop yields.
Most projections see a decrease from 2030 onward, with greater decreases in the 2040s and 2050s.
Selective breeding and changes in irrigation methods, pest control, fertilization and planting dates may compensate, partially, for the temperature change. But most of these adaptations will work better in temperate regions, while tropical crop yields will continue to decline.
Extreme weather events — another consequence of climate change — will affect yields year-to-year in ways that are difficult to forecast.
“There are two pieces of bad news here,” said the lead author of the I.P.C.C report, Andy J. Challinor, a professor of climate impact at the University of Leeds in England. “One is that average yields are going down. The other is that yields in any given year will be less reliable.”
Sharks who can’t smell blood
NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Sharks pursue their prey partly by odor, but rising carbon dioxide levels may severely impair their sense of smell. Scientists used the smooth dogfish, a small shark, as an experimental animal. They created tanks in which some jets of water held the odor of squid, a favorite food, or no odor at all. The water in the tanks also contained varying levels of carbon dioxide.
With carbon dioxide levels resembling today’s, the sharks spent 60 percent of their time nosing about the plume with the squid odor. But in water with carbon dioxide concentrations predicted for the year 2100, the animals actively avoided the jet with the food odor, spending only 15 percent of their time there.
Any change in shark feeding habits might affect other species as well.
“There might be a decrease in hunting behavior among sharks, and an increase in prey animals as a result,” said a co-author, Ashley R. Jennings, a researcher at Boston University. “That’s assuming the prey animals aren’t being affected by CO₂ as well.”
Snails that don’t jump
NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Conch Snails
As the oceans gather carbon, a small sea snail that lives in the Great Barrier Reef risks losing its famous ability to leap.t-weight:400;”>The conch snail jumps to escape from a predator, also a sea snail, that tries to inject it with a poisonous dart.
In laboratory experiments in water with increased carbon dioxide levels, the snails were 50 percent less likely to jump. And snails that did jump took nearly twice as long to do so.
The carbon dioxide and acidity disrupt a neurotransmitter receptor in the snail’s nervous system, one that other marine animals also rely on.
“They are very widespread,” said Sue-Ann Watson, a biologist at James Cook University in Australia. “It could affect many marine animals and their behaviors.”
Oceans today are 30 percent more acidic than they were 250 years ago, when the Industrial Revolution started. And it is getting worse.
“By the end of the century, if we carry on with business as usual, they will be 150 percent more acidic than they were 250 years ago,” Dr. Watson said.
Moss adapts and proves humans cause climatic changes
SINDYA N. BHANOO
As Arctic temperatures rise every summer, some of the ice on Canada’s Baffin Island melts, revealing the moss trapped underneath. Now, using radiocarbon dating, researchers have determined that until recently some of that moss hadn’t seen daylight in 44,000 years. The melting ice not only gives scientists the chance to study ancient moss, but adds to evidence that climate change is caused by human activities, not Earth’s natural warming and cooling cycle, said Gifford H. Miller, a geologist at the University of Colorado.
Cyclical warming is mostly related to the Earth’s irregular orbit around the sun,” he said. The Earth warms when it’s nearer the sun and cools when it’s farther away.
“For the past 10,000 years, we’ve been getting farther away,” he said. The exposure of such ancient moss suggests “the Arctic is now experiencing warmer summers than at any time since the end of the Ice Age.”
Carolina chickadees are trying to move north — like many other species dealing with climate change
Black-capped chickadees are commonly found in the Northeastern United States. Carolina chickadees make their home in the Southeast. Between them is a narrow zone in which both breeds reproduce in the spring. As winter temperatures have risen over the past decade, the birds’ social scene has moved steadily northward. Today, it is about seven miles farther north than it was in 2004.
The reason? Carolina chickadees are trying to move north — like many other species dealing with climate change — and are running into the black-caps.
“As they start interacting with the black-caps, they try to hybridize,” said Robert L. Curry, a biologist at Villanova University who has studied the birds. But a high percentage of the hybrid eggs don’t hatch, he has found, and hybrid chickadees are probably less fertile.
This is unfortunate for both species in the short term, but it would be even worse for two species not accustomed to mixing.
“This is a model for what could happen if you had an introduced species moving into a new area because of climate change, then come in contact with a species it’s never met before,” Dr. Curry said.
Wild flowers can’t focus
DOUGLAS QUENQUA
To everything there is a season — including, of course, the flowering of plants. But a warming climate is changing the timing in complicated ways. Scientists reviewed 39 years of records of flowering plants in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, a period in which each decade saw a 0.72 degree Fahrenheit increase in average summer temperatures and a 3.5-day earlier spring snow melt.
In a study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last spring, found considerable variation in the changes in flowering, and a much larger number of species affected than previously believed.
Some form of flowering change occurred in 41 of 60 species examined. On average, first flowering advanced by 3.3 days per decade, peak flowering by 2.5 days, and final flowering by 1.5 days.
“The changes in the flower community are potentially reshuffling what’s available for the pollinators,” said a co-author, Amy M. Iler, a postdoctoral researcher at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. “We don’t know what all the consequences will be. It’s likely it will be good for some and bad for others.”
Fruit Flies Panic Because They Cannot Reproduce Efficiently
As temperatures rise, insect populations may relocate around the globe in search of more hospitable environments. But it is the extreme highs, not just the average rise in temperatures, that may determine where they end up.t-weight:400;”>Scientists studied 10 different fruit fly species in Australia (both temperate and tropical), noting the temperature ranges each preferred for mating and everyday life, and their thresholds for extreme hot and cold.
All the species lived in environments where temperatures were sometimes less than optimal, the researchers found, but none chose places that forced them to endure extreme heat.
“Many species might undergo seasons where conditions are not optimal for growth and reproduction,” said Johannes Overgaard, a biologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and an author of the study. “They just survive the season. But what they can’t survive is temperatures beyond their threshold.”
This is bad news for the insects in Australia, who might find themselves with fewer habitable lands as extreme conditions dominate the continent. Whether this will also hold true for other continents is not yet known, Dr. Overgaard said.
Rock Snot invasion
An unsightly algae known as “rock snot” has been surfacing in lake waters in Eastern Canada. “It looks like torn-up toilet paper that is attached to rocks,” said John Smol, a biologist at Queen’s University in Ontario who is studying the algae’s growth. “It’s an aesthetic issue, and as it decomposes it becomes a smell issue.”
Rock snot, or didymo, was thought of as an invasive species introduced by humans. But an analysis of fossilized algae in the lakes indicates that it is native.
The algae was present in one lake in Quebec since at least 1970, 36 years before it was first noticed, Dr. Smol’s team found.
Didymo tends to grow in flowing waters. Warmer winters may be producing less ice and snow that disrupt the flow.
Over time, the rock snot will become much more than an eyesore, Dr. Smol said. It will displace other organisms and destroy fish habitats.
A new type of Reef that thrives in high acidity
SINDYA N. BHANOO
Ocean acidification endangers coral in every ocean. But researchers have recently discovered unusual reefs in Palau that are thriving in increasingly acidicified waters. Ocean acidification occurs when carbon emitted by human activities mixeswith ocean waters. This decreases carbonate ions in the water, which coral andother organisms need to form their protective shells.
Yet in 2012, researchers working in the waters off Palau identified coralreefs that were both extremely acidified and very healthy. What’s differentabout these reefs, said Kathryn Shamberger, anoceanographer at Texas A&M University, is that the waters became acidified through natural means.
“The growth of the reef itself and the breathing of the organisms on the reef,” not man-made emissions, added carbon to the water, she said.
Shell Fish who can’t build shells
Increasing ocean acidity makes it difficult for marine species to build their shells and, by softening calcium carbonate, makes shells weaker. That’s bad news not only for clams, oysters and scallops, but for tens of thousands of lesser known species — echinoderms like star fish and sea urchins, colonies of tiny invertebrates, reef corals and many others.The Biological Bulletin devoted an issueto research on ocean calcification with papers and reviews on a large variety of organisms.
“Climate change and ocean acidification are going to manifest themselves in the ways species interact — eating each other, facilitating each other’s growth,” said an editor of the issue, Gretchen Hofmann, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
And yet, she added, there is some hope. “In coastal areas there are plants that actually change the pH of the water — in a good way. Eel grass and surf grasses can provide refuge from future acidification.”
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
The goal of this website is to provide urgent, up to the minute information on changes in our environment and children’s ecosystems.
Good health is a right as well as a responsibility. This fundamental truth must be taught to every child in an age-appropriate setting. For this, this truth must be learned, accepted, and practiced by everyone willing and able to promote the goals and objectives of Children’s Health Corps.
In acute illness, the right of personal health means access to compassionate, ethical, safe, and effective treatments, pursuing the best in the art and science of healing practices. Evidently, many aspects of this right need to be assured by the society.
In chronic absence of health, the responsibility of personal health means:
1. Understanding of what health is and what it is not;
2. Knowledge of actions that preserve health and those that jeopardize it;and
3. Willingness to apply that understanding and knowledge to be responsibility for personal health.
None of the above can be assured by legislative actions. There are two other tenets of C-Corps’ vision:
1. All ethical practitioners of healing arts deserve full freedom to use safe and effective remedies without subservience to one or more schools of medicine; and
2. All pernicious influences of the Medical-Corporate Complex on the practice of healing arts must be vigorously and effectively exposed and countered.
Founders
Talat Ali and Majid Ali
Mission Statement
To establish an all voluntary national Children’s Health Corps (the “Corps”) in the U.S. to develop and implement a national program of voluntary participation by children, parents, teachers, and clinicians to pursue the Corps vision worldwide;
1. To assure that the goals of the Corps are pursued by clinicians, parents, teachers, and civic leaders—willing and able to offer pro-bono services—who do not have any financial relationships with any medical, pharmaceutical, or health insurance organizations.
2. To guarantee that the curriculum for education, motivation, mentoring, and monitoring in nutrition, environment, stress, and global resources is defined by all voluntary clinicians (the “Clinicians”) who are completely free of the nefarious influence of the Medical-Corporate Complex. Specifically, the Trust clinicians must have a minimum ten-year experience in clinical nutritional and environmental medicine and earn at least fifty percent of their income from the practce of these arts.
3. To organize a national program of education in schools and colleges in nutrition, environment, stress, and global resources instructed by teachers and open to parents and grandparents. Specifically, the teachers will be trained to teach the Trust curriculum in weekly classes, using age-appropriate materials.
4. To organize a program to provide free-of-cost nutritious meals (breakfast and lunch) for all students in the nation’s schools and colleges.
While the Trust’s trustees and clinicians will offer their services pro-bono, the Trust teachers will be fairly compensated for training, and when appropriate, for teaching classes. The meal program will be an expansion of the existing program of federal dollars for meals. The funding for the educational program can be most appropriately obtained by congressional allocation of an estimated 0.2% of the current expenditure on health care. Below are links to the Corps’ Vision Statement and other information:
Childrens Health Corps 