Glyphosate, Gut Health, and Healing: Protect Your Child

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Welcome back. We're continuing our conversation on reversing Crohn's and colitis. Really all chronic digestive conditions. I'm your host, Sinclair Kennally, and today I am joined by the wonderful Dr. Michelle Perro. She is an MD. She's also a doctor of homeopathy, and she is a veteran clinician with over four decades of experience in pediatric as well as an integrative medicine, treating both children and their families. Her career began in pediatric emergency medicine, winding its way into integrative medicine over the past 25 years.

She's been a director of pediatric emergency department in NYC and spent over a decade at UCSF Benioff Oakland Children's Hospital. Doctor Paro has been a tireless advocate regarding the role of GM. GM food and their associated pesticides centered on their effect on children's health. And I know her as an activist and also a very loving mama bear. She's a phenomenal author. She's easy to read. It's not scary to read her book. She helps you look right at the problems and feel empowered instead of overwhelmed.

So I'm so excited to talk to her about this because she also produced the first children's Environmental Health Bill of rights, and she's coauthored the highly acclaimed book, What's Making Our Children Sick. Welcome, Dr. Michelle, it's so wonderful to have you here. Sinclair, a pleasure. I'm just delighted to be here and chat with you about some of my favorite topics. Yes. So let's dive right in. of course we want to hear your thoughts on, from a pediatric perspective, what's going on with our kiddos in these chronic digestive conditions.

What do you see? and how would you describe the problem in this generation today? There is no shortage of issues with, digestion in kids, I would say.

Why Digestive Issues Are Rising in Kids 1:56

Now I would I would estimate that approximately 90% of kids have either leaky gut intestinal permeability and or most likely dysbiosis, which is an abnormal microbiome. And we know because of this gut brain microbiome axis that what happens in the gut affects the brain. We also know that these patterns begin in utero even before mom gets pregnant, and then during pregnancy at birth, because babies acquire the microbiome from mom via a vaginal birth and or hopefully breastfeeding. And those patterns set up the immune system as well as the neural development of their brains.

When this goes awry from GMOs, pesticides, other toxicants, various, toxic metals, plastics, etc. the whole enchilada gets shifted and kids are set up a chronic diseases and disorders. It all begins with the gut. Hippocrates said it. It ain't no sexual. Okay, so talk to me more about these root causes for this high prevalence of digestive conditions in kiddos. What do you see as the biggest factors at play right now? I would say the biggest factor, what we call toxicants, toxicants are, inorganic chemical inputs that affect their gut.

The biggest one, our number one, a pesticides glyphosate. The main ingredient roundup is an a ubiquitous herbicide. Every kid is eating it every day in American school lunches, 95.3% of the lunches tested positive for glyphosate based herbicides. Hundreds are over 800 on the market right now. Types of glyphosate based herbicides. So and so. You don't need just roundup. You eat at least six other pesticides on an average food. So that's why because kids do not have the detoxification pathways that we adults do.

So when we give them these toxic foods, they are ill prepared to clear a lot of these substances. So that's number one, are pesticides, I would have to say two toxic metals. We just finished an infant formula study. My group with moms across America and the new MDS. Oh my gosh. Worse than I thought and I knew would be bad. And it was worse. So toxic metals like cadmium, arsenic, lead, mercury, aluminum. And then, you know, experimental therapeutics like experimental vaccines, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, air pollution, one of the big, big killer of kids.

And, whatever they're putting in our skies that we're inhaling in what we breathe in affects our entire physiology.

Toxic Exposures and Root Causes 4:46

So there are many sources. And not to mention there are, you know, fluoride in plastics and, you know, all these other, and, fats and other chemicals too. But it's this an overload, this toxic overload, which we are eating, breathing in skin absorption. Big way for children, to get toxic exposure. So kids are getting a lot of toxic exposures. Can't clear them, and they are overloaded. Yeah, I think that's a great summary. And it helps to explain why parents are so overwhelmed with this generation.

Like navigating. You basically need a PhD in food and lifestyle choices with this generation. You didn't need that before. I couldn't agree more. So don't worry parents, we're going to talk a lot about solutions today, but I want to help you assess the problem more like what are you looking at when you're assessing your child's health? What are some signs and symptoms that a child might be affected by this say, let's start with infancy and work our way up. Yeah. So infants, what's going on? While they may be just excessively irritable, they don't console easily.

They're kind of these cranky babies that it just easy not so easy to put down. They want to be held all the time. Digestive issues like constipation starting early. Constipation is a big one. I think approximately one third of kids are constipated once they're potty trained. Parents don't know what's going on behind that closed door. So let's stick to the infants. and they will have issues with eczema, which is, it's a part of a diagnostic grouping call atopic diseases asthma, allergies and eczema.

They're all in this similar family. And you say, oh, a little skin rash. Oh, I've seen babies covered head to toe with this rash. It's extremely itchy. And those babies are up all night scratching. Yeah. Total family disruption. so babies also may not be growing. Well. Babies grow growth in development. They may not be, reaching their milestones when they should be turning over, sitting, crawling, walking. First words. So there might be a milestone delay, both in, terms of linguistic motor milestones.

so there may be some type of delay. And then so those are the kind of things you might start to see in infancy. Then you also may see, more subtle neurologic signs where babies are not making good eye contact with you or they seem lost in their own world and early signs of autistic spectrum disorder. Parents think about it 1 in 20 kids here in California, 1 in 13 boys in new Jersey. That is the true pandemic. You thought Covid was a pandemic? We'll talk autism. So okay, so but as we move into toddlerhood, what you may see are, kids who are behavioral issues, emotional outbursts, picky eating, you might see just not sleeping.

Two thirds of kids under the age of ten have disharmony is where they're not sleeping well. So and toddlers. And if you look if you do their exam, sometimes they have these big bloated bellies. Also not normal little toddlers with these pregnant bellies. So those are some things you might see a toddlerhood. And then I'll just wrap it up with childhood for sure. Behavioral issues, not making friends easily. The social contact piece crying at school. You'll get calls from school. Pick them up, pick them up, pick them up.

So there's the behavioral challenges as well as the immunologic and physiologic challenges. Like my kid's sick all the time. He gets every virus that comes to school. so there is a smattering of signs. The subtler ones make it more difficult because they could point to a lot of different root causes. When something is overt, it becomes really clear a kid has a seizure. That's pretty clear. But when they're softer, subtler behavioral food issues, some new parents might say, well, I'm a new I'm a new mom.

I just don't know when it's subtler. It's more difficult. So those are kind of ideas to give folks when things are going sideways. Yeah, it's a great point. You're also looking at parents checking in with their peers, you know, who are also struggling in those infancy and toddler stages. And because this has happened so rapidly explode across our population, it's the new common. That doesn't mean it's normal or appropriate or healthy, but it's definitely common right now. So that can be confusing as well.

When you're trying to assess your child. Sick as in a normal. You nailed it, Sinclair. That is absolutely right. One little five year one's tell me who has severe environmental allergies. But Dr. Perro everyone has mental allergies. Everyone has allergies. When she told me because everyone did. And so her mind is like I'm normal with my constant runny nose like that.

Signs of Gut and Immune Dysfunction by Age 9:42

And I thought, oh gosh, okay, let's let's, let's talk about that. So that's right. So moving into later childhood, what can we expect to see in terms of symptoms and signs that your kiddo is being impacted by these root causes? Yeah. So, moving on to like, teenagers, what you may say in your teen for sure is, anxiety and depression starts to really creep in. And a significant number of teenagers now have both. And they're often linked to anxiety, depression, sleep disorders where kids have insomnia.

You may see, metabolic disruptions with weight changes up or down, more likely up, because anywhere from a third to, a fifth of all children now amid the, have weight challenges with obesity and the subsequent metabolic dysregulation, teens may also have low energy, frequent headaches, school issues, school avoidance issues, and then making bad choices and looking toward recreational drugs for self-medication, whether they're vaping, smoking marijuana, whatever may be going around school, there may be some choices and they're actually self-medicating.

And how could I not mention ADHD? I think it's affecting oh gosh, when I wrote the book, it might have been 13%, 1 in 13 kids. I think it may be 1 in 8 to 1 in 10 kids. Now, it has ADHD, and it can be mild, moderate to severe. and I don't believe in medicating kids with ADHD. I believe we treat the gut. Many of them have gut disorders, so they can't focus. and then some of these kids are so tired that they just don't have a robust life. Many of these kids are fatigued. They really are. It's astonishing to watch.

They're either crawling out of their skin and cannot settle, or they're absolutely exhausted. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the phone addictions and the device addictions, which caused a lovely outpouring of dopamine, which is the addiction, neurotransmitter and nothing like, you know, staying on your devices under your covers till, you know, one, two in the morning and then the kids can't get up for school the next day. So parents are often, you know, maybe not on top of their kids, phone, iPad, computer usage.

And you really have to be vigilant on where your kids are at with social media, what they're doing. I mean, you really have to police their devices and see what they're getting into. And we, of course effects from 5G, EMF. so and also, that's one of the factors we should have mentioned earlier. Our kids are on devices literally, I swear feels like 24 over seven. A teen party now looks like all their kids on their phones. That was driving the teen party. And I thought, okay, then, you know, maybe we should all leave the phones.

There are schools in France where the kids have to put the phones in the basket at the door. Wouldn't that be nice. The, the thing that I want to emphasize here is that it can feel stressful as a parent. Right. And we know that you're, you are the one that knows your child best. You probably listening to this and hearing lots of signs and thinking I should have cut that earlier. I saw that back then, and now I'm dealing with this now where does a parent start when it comes to prioritizing these issues?

Once their kiddos already have digestive issues and they're already seeing the behavioral signs of distress? So the first thing I would recommend for parents is you have to reclaim your kid's gut. And the best way you can do that is get them off the processed foods. Processed foods are toxic. They're not. They shouldn't even be called food. McDonald's, Taco Bell, wherever your kid is eating out. And remember, if you're eating out, if you're doing whatever kind of takeout they're not using organic food, not only are these foods high in GMOs and pesticides, but the nutritional density is abysmal.

And we saw that in the school lunch program. Some of the foods the kids were getting 30 million school lunches served a day were almost devoid of vitamins. So the kids might as well be cardboard. So sweet. So someone's got to be home cooking. And and I'm not saying you're having Alice Waters to dinner, but you get in the kitchen and kids do better when they eat together, and kids can chop, they can cook and they can clean up. They're not incompetent of doing these skills. They can navigate any website.

I can guarantee you they can get in your kitchen and help you and help you prepare meals that they want and what your feed your kid. And you must go to organic, regenerative food the best you can. And we can talk about how they do that. You also must consider a water filter because there are so many old pipes in homes, schools, sports events that you really need to send your kids to school with the water bottle, preferably glass or stainless steel, and get some type of filtration. Whatever you can afford within your budget, at least for your water.

And if you have one of those fridge ones, change the filter. People forget to change the fridge filter. Yeah, we've seen so many moldy fridge filters and the kiddos are acting like their brains are on fire. And that's because of the mold. You know? Doesn't take that much mold. And you're like, but I don't have any mold under the sink, or I don't have mold in my shower. Like, it doesn't have to be there. It can be out of sight, out of mind, but your water tastes a little funny. and it's. Yeah. Please, please, please think about your weird water filtration.

But if the parents, So parents have to commit with this to their kids, and everyone has to buy in, you can't have one special meal for one kid, and then everybody else is doing takeout pizza. That doesn't work. The whole family has to commit to this new way of eating. If you don't shift your food, it's unlikely that anything else is going to shift. I can give you the best herbal supplements homeopathic cranio sacral therapeutics, but the child will relapse if you don't shift the food and you have to maximize the nutrient density.

Because even organics over the past 40 years has plummeted the nutritional quality. So now I in addition to eating whole foods, get off the process. I do recommend multivitamins with minerals and probiotics for kids if they don't eat fermented foods. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good point. I've had so many parents talk to me about, well, my my kids relapsing with the food choices. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, she's seven. Where is she getting the stuff you're describing? The cookies, the bagels, the you know, all the stuff that she was reacting to before.

Oh, well, the rest of the family still eating. It's like really because we talked about whole family. You know, we don't want to create this dynamic where your child is the problem because nothing could be further from the truth. Right? I, I cannot say more than that. You nailed it, Sinclair. That is spot on. And, I spent so much time talking with families about this, and I asked them to send me photos. If we do a zoom call of the refrigerator in the freezer. And it's really people are not as organic as they think.

What Parents Can Do First 16:48

And the spice rack and alcoholic parents might be drinking beer or wine or some alcohol to, you know, love your kids. Certainly. beer. Gluten beer full of colorful pesticides. Wheat is one of the highest, foods that is. And that wheat is still not GMO, but they use roundup as a desiccant. So there are some places where the beer won't ferment because there's so much glyphosate in the wheat, which has been used as an off label spraying to dry down the crops. Wheat, oats and legumes have the highest amounts of, pesticides.

So I'd say when I see those photos, I think, okay, we have a little more work to do because we have different definitions of organic. So it sounds so basic, but I do say start there, get a multivitamin on board. I just saw that Costco was caring and not that I don't have any stock in Costco. smarty pants organic. I know what I sign in Costco, and if you don't want to buy probiotics, please give it to your kids. Fermented foods. It's so easy to make ferments, either sauerkraut or kombucha or kimchi or, kefir or yogurt and not those yogurt sticks, you know, go yellow or whatever those sticks are.

That's just pure sugar. Yeah, I'm not talking about that. So get it's again moving off the processed thing, the process yogurts moving to full foods when it looks like the food that's what we want. Hit those farmers markets. Meet the farmer. And if you enroll your kids in helping to make food for themselves or even making it for the family, like I love that you said that so early in this because, you know, we have colleagues like Lisa. Jen says she's great at this. She teaches kids as young as four years old and as old as 18 to make food for the family in the sense of pride I contributing and empowering them to know what flowers have additives and how to look for real organic and let them become the experts and teach them why, you know, in an age appropriate way.

It doesn't have to be you fighting this fight all by yourself. It's it can be a family wide culture. And if you can grow your own, there's nothing. Kids will eat more veggies if they grow it themselves. We have we have data on that. So if kids can pull it on the ground and chomp on it, you will have the likelihood of having success. Is even greater. And so, you know, I have a whole I wrote this, a new book coming out, but I have a whole section in there about picky eaters, because what will drive a family to the brink is the picky eater.

Yeah. Children with special needs, let's say autistic spectrum. children often are even pickier than your baseline picky eaters. And I have seen some parents running around the house all day trying to get their kids to eat. What a nightmare. Yeah. And those kids often are nutrient deficient, so there are ways we can begin to reshape their diets. And and even that is shift able. You can shift those kids diets. It's such a great point. Like what is one win that you can add in just one and build from there, build momentum.

So maybe there's a lot of work to do. That's okay. But just one win. I you know, it took us decades to figure out that I became a picky eater once I took out, a ton of immunizations all at once going into kindergarten. Before that, I would eat anything that was put in front of me. And I wish I thought about that earlier. You know, I was thinking about the antibiotics that I've been given a lot as a kid for ear infections, you know, all through toddler like. So my earliest memories are amoxicillin and the little pink.

You know, I can still taste that chalky taste. Yeah, yeah. And of course, that's. But these decisions set you up. All those kids who have like you or have chronic ear infections, I'd say most of them, even though I would be almost all. But you never want to say almost all of anything. Have dairy sensitivity. So likely you had leaky gut, didn't know it, exposed to GMOs and pesticides. We've been eating GMO since at least since 1996. and, I would say, gluten, dairy, occasionally soy are the three biggest groups that kids are intolerant of.

We can call food sensitivities intolerances, some with full blown allergies. Yeah, but when there is a dairy sensitivity, chronic ear infections, chronic fluid in the ears and then ear tubes, I literally could do that in my sleep. Yeah. So true. what's interesting is like you talk about 1996 and the GMOs coming online, you know, for those Roundup Ready crops. So that that wheat, the corn, the soy, like, you were talking about those big mass produced crops and I was 13 them and I also got my first amalgam fillings in, and I definitely saw my entire temperament change.

That was that was a rough year for kids getting their, you know, leaky gut from life is. Saying, well, you know, and that's the thing amalgams kids now don't get the silver amalgams, thank goodness. you know, having, the synthetic there, the some of them I have these plastic composites. I still think those are better than the silver, which are all mercury fillings. Mercury is one of the most toxic metals for children's brain. so all those mercury amalgams. Super bad. When we were kids, we used to paint our wounds with the Kirkham Mercury.

We were so mercury toxic. I know that was in the 60s. Yeah. So we're painting our skin. My mom talks about breaking her thermometers to play with them as a kid. You know, getting to her mom. We would love to do that. Roll the mercury on the floor. That was so fun. Oh my gosh, hours of fun with that. yeah, but the toxic load wasn't as high, right? Even though we were rolling little balls of mercury on the floor. People in my generation, as compared to your generation Sinclair, are less toxic. Right?

Well, you were still having food that was grown in real soil for the time. Even when, companies like McDonald's and, KFC first started,

Food Sensitivities, Family Habits, and Recovery 22:48

the food wasn't the the shyt that that it is now. It was actually real food. being produced in the 60s as moms went back to work. Kentucky Fried Chicken, I believe, was the first to come in to be the mom in the kitchen, and McDonald's was actually serving real meat back then, and not little rat burgers or whatever. And there I've seen videos of people behind the scenes making those various like, chicken nuggets and. Oh, I know the the patties from McDonald's being tested and there's over 100 different animals in one patty, you know, all held together with meat glue.

And it's like, that is not real food. And so I don't even like the word junk food. Just call it junk because it's enough food. It's just junk. And so we have to treat these bodies like temples and we just can't fulfill them in with, you know, food like substances that are synthetic and industrialized. We have been kind of co-opted by corporate, you know, big bag. And so I invite parents to take it back, take back your power from the corporate take over, and we still can. Growing your own farmers markets, you know, shopping, like, whether it's Trader Joe's has organic or sprouts or Costco or with any of these stores knows I didn't say wholefoods, but, that's.

I'm just saying. But go to these places, you know, and shop your local markets, get the organics. It really does make a difference. And then and as I mentioned to you and I talk to parents, I say give it four weeks. It takes about four weeks to shift the inflammation from having all that antibody response from eating all those foods that kid our kids are sensitive to. As you shift their diets, the and the chronic inflammation goes down, they start pooping more. The tummies flatten out, the the gut brain axis improves, their thoughts clear up, skin clears up.

And one mom that I had in three days, her asthma cleared when she shifted her diet three days and I said give it four weeks. She said. I didn't have to. I saw that change in three three days. So it's all over the board. But this these are real families talking to make the shift to, back to health. Because if we don't turn around this chronic inflammation and, you know, you know, in line with your summit, it leads to autoimmunity. It does. Yeah. And that's where we we know where this story goes, you know, of developmental, autoimmune immune conditions, eating the sad state in American diet as a kiddo.

And it wasn't that I grew up in a house without love. There was a lot of love, just a lot of chaos. Two full time working parents and tremendous amount of stress and only packaged food. And so love can't save you from that poison. And you know, our parents are doing the best. There's a lot of shame and blame game. I want to be clear that it's not like, you know, it's a journey and it's not about perfection. You do the best we can with what we have is we make steps and include everyone in the journey as we regain.

We've they've been inundating us with this stuff for decades. Yeah, we've been a prisoner of propaganda and media messaging of how to be a culturally or around food. And it's wrong and it's all wrong. They have vilified fats and keto and put us on high carb, low fat diets and made us eat margarine. You know, vilifying beef tallow. It's all been wrong. And so now we have to unlearn that. And people like us, you know, I've taken care of thousands of kids in my lifetime and saying, yes, thousands of anecdotes.

Okay, it's an internal medicine. It's not ten rats. In a scientific study, I've studied thousands of families helping kids to get back on track. Yeah, yeah. I'm so, so important to know. it's it. We're. This is not going to happen overnight, guys. And if you're here listening to this, we know how much you care. We know how much you love your children. We know how committed you are. We know how concerned you are because you wouldn't be taking the time to watch this as a busy parent if you weren't already worried about your child.

So I love the emphasis on solutions and also those small steps from Dr. Michelle. Any last words you want to share for parents who might feel overwhelmed, or clinicians that are trying to catch up to the complexity of this day and age. I would say, for parents is, you know, we've been trained to get into mainstream medicine for our assistance. But mainstream medicine, the physicians are trained on a pharmaceutical model, so they only have a limited number of options to help your kid with chronic issues.

Do you kid stuff the broken leg or the head trauma? Western medicine? Right on. But for the chronic stuff, the chronic constipation, the sleep disorders, the brain fog, the ADHD,

Healing Philosophy and Closing Resources 27:38

that is has to be shifted out. Mainstream physicians are not trained in natural holistic medicine. Since the Flexner Report of 1910 and we are in an 100, maybe 15 year, kind of shift from the natural medicine we once practiced in this country. That's how we used to do it. We don't do anything more because it's farmer driven. So what I say to folks is practice holistic health, move from farmer to the farm and regain the terrain. And so this is the shift that we need to practice to get back on track from what was taken from us by Rockefeller and Flexner, Abraham Flexner, and that whole shift in Maine and medical schools to kind of bombard us with petroleum based pharmaceuticals.

And I am not saying all pharmaceuticals are bad. Some of them can be absolute lifesaving car, certain cardiac drugs, antibiotics for sure, but that should not be the daily diet. Kids are not born with an absence of, drugs in their system, and they certainly don't need them. They are born as perfect little souls. Salute. You just need it on the truth. they're perfect little cells and we have to guide them through love, through, nutrition. Love in the nutrition of your of your babies, of your kids.

And that's how we gain it back. Beautifully said, my dear. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. And it will add an empowering message, too. Can you tell us a little bit about your book? Because by the time this comes out, your book is going to be very close to getting released. Your latest book, that is. Yes. So the working title is Making Our Children well, the first ones by their sick. This how having get them better and I just focused on homeopathy and nutrition. It's a how to book for parents I went through I literally did a download on my brain of so many years of what works, what I've seen work, sharing my stories, and how to get your kids back on track and how you can create, you know, a medicine cabinet between your kitchen, your herbal supply, your food supply and how you do that.

So it'll be out hopefully next year. I just got a publisher and I'm very excited about that. But also, where else can we go? There are so many good sources for parents, and I hope people will visit GMO science. dawg, that's my nonprofit. I'm proud of it. And we are doing, research. We just finished an infant formula, toxic metal study, looking infant formula. And we have a few, we're doing a podcast on gluten free and roundup. And what we found there, that was Moms across America. they ran that study, and then we have another big surprise coming up, which I won't even announce yet.

And some other stuff we found, but we're doing, independent research, to show people this ain't good. Let's make it better. So we are solution areas. This is not the doctor doom and gloom show. This is the solution. Every show. Yeah, that's really a beautiful way to say it. Solutions. I like that I'm going to credit you and say that everywhere. And I got it from a dear friend. I'd love to take credit for it, but I can't. Ruth West, right. She's a dear friend of mine, an artist and and an activist.

And I'll have to say, hats off to you. Root for sharing that word with me. That's beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for giving parents hope. Thanks for being an advocate for our kiddos. It's a complex day and age, but bodies still know how to heal, right? Our bodies are still brilliant, so let's figure out how to support our kiddos through this interesting time, right? Correct. That's right. Support our inner wisdom. We do know how to heal. It's beautiful.