What’s Making Our Children Sick?

Today's Valuable Free Resources/Links:

·        FREE resource to help you get healthier school lunches - https://gmoscience.org/4941-2/

Summary

In this episode, I introduce you to Dr. Michelle Perro.

Michelle Perro, MD, DHom is a veteran pediatrician with over four decades of experience in acute and integrative medicine. More than fifteen years ago, Dr. Perro transformed her clinical practice to include the health effects from GMOs and their associated pesticides. She co-founded and is the CEO of the non-profit website, www.gmoscience.org, created to examine the effects of genetic engineering with a lens on health. 

Dr. Perro has managed her own business, Down to Earth Pediatrics, creating a new field of integrative urgent care medicine. Dr. Perro has co-authored the highly acclaimed book, What’s Making our Children Sick (https:// www.chelseagreen.com/product/whats-making-our-children-sick/). She is a nationally and internationally known speaker, and has authored many publications, which can be found on the parental education section of her website.  Making our Children Well is her second book, to be released spring, 2024.

Today she speaks about:

GMOs and their effects on children's health with Dr. Michelle Perro. (0:04)

GMOs, glyphosate, and its effects on gut health and the microbiome. (5:50)

Pesticides, and their impact on children's health. (12:35)

Organic and regenerative farming practices. (18:22)

Food as medicine and sustainable farming practices. (23:58)

Join me for this episode of Mommy Heal Thyself to learn about what is making our children sick.

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Intro  0:00 

Welcome to Mommy Heal Thyself.  We featured guests that provide you with the tools, resources and strategies you need to say no to a life of pain and suffering all forms of preventable disease, toxic drugs and unnecessary surgeries. We hope to inspire you to boldly reclaim your ability to heal, and to serve ones to love.

Dr Gamble  0:09 

Welcome everyone to another episode of mommy myself today I have a fantastic guest with me. Her name is Dr. Michelle Perro and she's a veteran pediatrician with over four decades of experience in alternative and integrative medicine for more than 15 years ago, she transformed her clinical practice to include health effects from GMO and their associate pesticides. She co-founded and the CEO of the nonprofit website GMO science.org She created to examine the effects of genetic engineering with a lens on health. Dr. Pedal is managed sorry has managed her own business down to earth pediatrics, creating a new field of integrative Urgent Care Medicine. She has co authored the highly acclaimed book What's making our children sick, and she is nationally and internationally known speaker who has authored many publications, which had been found on the parental education section of her website. Making our children well is her second book due to be released the spring of this year which is right around the corner. We are in the spring. Yeah.

Dr Perro  1:31 

Right. She's on. Yay. Well,

Dr Gamble  1:35 

I am so blessed to have you with us here today Dr. Paddle because there is so much that we do not really understand about our food and the effects that GMO has on our health and the health of our children. I would love for you to begin with how did you get into this entire craziness?

Dr Perro  1:58 

Thank you, thank you, please, probably Michelle Michelle, that makes it easy. You know, so it was serendipity that brought me here I was I was a conventional, you know, Western trained pediatrician specialized in pediatric emergency medicine. And it was at the birth of my own kid 30 years ago, that he had some challenges. And again, serendipity was my friend and I met a wonderful MD homeopath named Dr. E pharma II Kenzi. And she explained to me what I needed to do using homeopathy, which I had never heard of to help my own son. It was miraculous, and it worked. And I was so taken with homeopathy. I went back to school at night and got my degree in homeopathy when my kids were little. And then what happened a mom in my practice while I was working with Dr. Kinsey, actually, I kind of signed up with her later left the emergency department and these moms, we stopped the spray of a pesticide that was to occur along the entire coast of California, only one county got sprayed and we stopped it. It turns out 2520 years later that that pesticide did not need to be sprayed and the end the MA that we they were spraying was not a problem. It just so happens we know what we know now know that? So this woman mom said, Michelle, have you read Jeffrey Smith's book? I just had lunch with him yesterday, my friend and colleague called seeds of deception. And I of course had and and when mom speak. I listen. I read this book. And I put the pieces together of what I was seeing clinically, which was this massive uptick in neurocognitive challenges and children such as autism spectrum disorder, got disturbances profound and other health issues escalating. Across the board. And what Jeffrey through his book, and then I began my own research, my own nonprofit, my own work, but I learned about GMOs and their associated pesticides and I've been studying genetic engineered foods and the effects on health ever since.

Dr Gamble  4:08 

So now what is it that you were seeing in your practice? That gave you that red flag that something is really going on here?

Dr Perro  4:15 

So you know, while you're in, you know, the early 2000s I was running my own own integrative urgent care. I was still doing Acute Care Medicine, which was my passion at that time. And I was seeing kids treating them both homeopathically and you know, with regular pharmaceuticals when indicated, I don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. But homeopathy is my preferred choice of treatment. And so the usual homeopathic remedies that I had been using since you know, the 90s were not working. The kids seemed a bit sicker and I thought well, this is interesting. And then people started bringing their kids in not just for their kid things like ear infections, asthma, diarrhea, constipation, injuries, headaches, trauma, but they started bringing them in for a complex chronically ill kids. Hey, doctor pero my pediatrician doesn't know what to do with my kid and he now has a behavioral changes. He's not sleeping, he's all of a sudden Bedwetting, he's starting to have some motor changes. He's having some neurologic tics. He's having regression, and I started seeing it around 2000 is when I started seeing the uptick and then I started seeing an uptick in autistic spectrum disorder and rapidly within a small timeframe. I knew it was escalating based on my own clinic, based on the research and based on how I was trained and what I was reading, and I was extremely alarmed of this uptick in assets Autistic Spectrum Disorder. And those kids or children, about 90% of them at least have got disorders. So it was all pieced together. And then I started understanding this gut brain access. And I expanded to really include the gut, brain microbiome access, and it's way more complicated than that. But simplistically, that's how I explained it to parents of what we have to reregulate and kids became completely dysregulated. And the way we brought families back was to begin changing their diets away from GMOs, and they're associated herbicides, glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, you don't need a GMO. And as I shift the family's diet, it's my first line of therapy to organic and now I say organic regenerative foods. I've changed my own language over the decades. I saw a change not just the kids but in their families. Mom better dad got better the family dog got better. Every one was better. And I'm and I wrote about it in my book 2017 book about some of my patients I you know, my my co author at a time a medical anthropologist, my colleague, Dr. Adams didn't believe anything I was saying initially, until she sat in a clinic with me. And by the 20th patient, she went, Whoa. It was her sitting in and permission from parents. This was all legitimate I was working at a you know, major medical center at the time here in Northern California. So that's how it all began. And I just feel like I was blessed. That luck, timing and my own curiosity and allowed me to help others. Let's

Dr Gamble  7:30 

go back a little bit and helped us to understand what was going on around 2000 that you believe created that shift and significant spike in chronic illness in the children you were seeing.

Dr Perro  7:44 

So a couple of things were happening. Specifically GMOs and pesticides when GMOs specifically were released between 1996 and 1998.

Unknown Speaker  7:52 

And what are sorry for those

Dr Perro  7:56 

who wait, you know, I often assume everyone knows what a GMO is because it's been around so long was like hold on. I have a genetically modified organism and then made from microbes off it in footnotes. There's more technical changes is an organism that has been genetically altered to manifest a certain desired trait. In the case of GMO foods, they are altered to have the trait that when you split, a sprayed herbicide glyphosate based herbicide Roundup, that the plant itself, but just the weeds around it. So that's how soy farmers were given a pass that they could grow these crops, soy, corn canola cottonseed certain papayas are in squash and zucchini. Oh, it's grown since they're about now. 10 major ideas genetically modified crops. When they sprayed the crops they didn't die, and that they said it was totally benign and didn't hurt the plant. Then farmers began using these glyphosate based herbicides, Roundup and now more toxic formulations because we have become resistant to glyphosate, so they're more toxic. They've started using it as a crop desiccant and they spray the crops right at harvest to dry them down, literally kill the crops. So that they would die faster. And soy foods harvested. With this desiccant have very high levels of glyphosate based herbicides. And those foods the highest are oats, wheat and lagoons. A lot of kids eat a lot of vegetarians eat especially oats and wheat. So super high levels, and now we know that glyphosate has at least I've counted at least 21 toxic effects. There may be more on health.

Dr Gamble  9:52 

Oh my gosh, so many. Okay, so now, school list again with the basics. How do the GMO foods and how does the glyphosate affect us? You were saying something about the microbiome and, and all that kind of stuff. So if you can break it down for us

Dr Perro  10:15 

I'm just gonna give you the highlights and not you know, the stuff I have to say. So what it's like to say it's so toxic. It's the chemical structure is very similar to certain building blocks of proteins in our body called amino acids. It's emphasis phenyl. Methyl glycine is the chemical name for anyone who remembers high school chemistry. And if you hear that glycine in there, so glycine is an amino acid. We can make lysine it's ubiquitous. It's what's in collagen and then you know, body structure is mostly collagen is mostly glycine. So this glycine is very similar to glyphosate. So, so glyphosate is very simple, almost amino acid like compound small molecule. It has several toxic effects one, it was patented by Monsanto bear Monsanto and that purchased by bear in 2018. As an antibiotic, Monsanto's patented patent, so it kills off beneficial microbes like lactobacilli, which we need for health and Bifidobacteria, which we need for health, and it promotes the growth of toxic pathogens, like salmonella, and clostridia. As a sidebar, Dr. Michelle, we know that children on the spectrum have high rates of Clostridium species. They're not all toxic, some are. That's one thing. The second big thing it does, I'm gonna give you like three or four. It's a middle key later. What does that mean? It binds metals. And metals or minerals, like which ones like magnesium, zinc brain function, there are over 200 reactions in your brain that require those essential minerals. Zinc is needed for immune function. magnesium, zinc, manganese glyphosate, loves manganese and your brain needs manganese, copper, calcium bound development. So it binds these minerals making them unavailable in the plant and unavailable in us. That's number two, and I'll give you one more this may be the most serious is glyphosate was shown by the World Health Organization and IRF institutional Association for Research on Cancer is in 2015, though it's a class to a carcinogen. It would be a class one carcinogen, but they didn't study it in humans, just animals. That's why it's a class two, and not a class one. It causes cancer. And we know that because many people have want been granted, like Mr. Dwayne Johnson here in Northern California, massive grants for their lymphomas and other blood cancers caused by life saving rounds. And there have been huge payouts. There are hundreds of 1000s of lawsuits against Monsanto bear because of cancer and the biggest cancer, there's all kinds of cancers. The biggest ones are blood cancers like lymphoma, non Hodgkins lymphoma. So it turns out, it's endocrine disruptor, it blocks your ability to detoxify. It's so there's so many things and in a paper in 2020. This was the nail in the coffin that I thought would stop glyphosate forever, and it didn't. There was a paper that came out in 2020 in July seared in my memory, which showed how glyphosate causes autism. Wow. Now when I saw that paper, I said, Oh, okay, people hear me now we'll stop it because we have one in 20 Kids in California now has autism, one at 13 in New Jersey. So now we're going to stop it because when I was a resident, it was one in 10,000 people now I you know, I'm all for decades of practice, but old enough to know that I saw when it was one in town 10,000 And when an autistic kid came into clinic, we all gathered around because it was so unusual. And now classrooms are filled with kids on the spectrum everyone knows what autism now which is shocking. Okay, so when that paper came out, no fanfare, no nothing. And so we've been there are other things that cause autism as well, which we can get into or not. But I'll leave it there for now because I think I've given you enough on just glyphosate based herbicides. Now,

Dr Gamble  14:28 

what is the most common mistake that you find parents are making when they're dealing with this whole issue of GMO glyphosate, all that kind of stuff, because it's so much and it can be so overwhelming, so

Dr Perro  14:44 

overwhelmed. I feel prepared to a PhD to hit the market now. I mean, it's impossible to feed your kids. So, industry saw that people did not want to eat GMOs, because genetically modified organisms are not benign either. Aside from their effects from Roundup, they're associated pesticides. GMOs, are study on GMOs. There were only three in humans only two in humans, showing where we just study GMO humans, one in rats, others a few more in rats. Now GMOs caused harm in the first study show and it caused immunologic gastrointestinal reproductive harm. The gentleman His name is Dr. Arturo Pusi, who showed that a plant researcher published this research and the UK in a Tuesday night. Two days later, he was banned from his lab and shut down. He wrote he was in a movie he wrote papers on this scientist under attack. If you haven't seen that movie, look it up. Take a look. And what happened when he reported out that GMOs caused harm. So industry knows that we don't want to eat GMOs and I understand Americans didn't want to eat a GMO we tried to get it labeled we were out out funded by industry yet again. So they changed the labeling. They now call it by metered bio genetically engineered they're mostly they're using these green washing labels because people don't want GMOs. It's so commonplace and when you Google, I don't use Google as my search engine but when you look it up GMOs, the first few 100 hits, showing safety. You cannot find easily where it shows harm. They've totally take out internet search for GMO harm, but we have it it's there and I can give people links later in the references if you'd like about where to find that information. Okay. So do you most harm round upon so what is parent just Shep organic, they will avoid GMOs, they will avoid pesticides. That's why we push please, parents, please do the best you can. It's not perfection. It's a journey of buying organic when you can't at least buy non GMO labeled or the clean, clean 15 Not the Dirty Dozen although I have problems with that which is from an environmental working group.org Hats off to them for making that list. Some foods are worse than others in terms of pesticide content. But in general, please feed your children organic and when you can grow things yourself. We have to learn to become farmers, gardeners, you can grow herbs in any apartment in New York City in your window. Herbs are easy to grow right in the window so there's no sunlight, little water little love and children love gardening. Children love taking it and eating it. Even if it's just herbs in your window box in your New York City apartment. It can be done. So if parents did that, they will see a huge difference in their children's health. That'd be one. Number two is we have to stop the takeout the drive thru and takeout Americans love taken out 46% of our income is spent eating out and as a Zen Honeycutt from moms across America and did her study on fast foods. People eating out fast it's not just us who's by the way most restaurants use, say most. They're not using organic. So it's not just the fast food places. They're a toxic nightmare. And that's what a lot of families will do is a drive thru, you know, affordable takeout it's affordable, toxic poison.

Dr Gamble  18:33 

I don't even know if it's affordable Michelle because yesterday, my son we scored a 91 on his aviation mechanic exam and it's a national exam and we wanted to celebrate. So you know, I did something that I rarely ever, ever, ever, ever do you know and it was because I went to visit a friend and she's like, Oh, come on, Michelle. Let's go over to Dairy Queen. I was like, um, but you know, I hadn't seen her in a while. And you know, you try to meet people halfway. So we went to Dairy Queen, Michelle, this little Ed Biddy fish sandwich and a little container of fries was 899. So I don't know if it's affordable. I don't know how people buy fast food at this point in time because it it just blows my mind.

Dr Perro  19:25 

Thank you for saying that because I noticed that too. That the fast food prices have gone up. All food prices have gone up. So and I know that people like me are way expensive. I say but pay for your food or pay for me. I say I recommend your food because I'm expensive. So I'm missing work. When your kids are expensive. I agree with you. And so restaurants they're very few even here in crunchy California. We don't have a lot of organic restaurants. So when I want to eat out I go to my local organic market. Good Earth here my town and I am friends and colleagues with the owners. They are wonderful. I get their takeout if I don't really want to if I want to break off from cooking, I really try not to eat out, is it? I mean, I love going out to restaurants too. But when I do go to restaurants or certain foods, I avoid corn and soy. So what do people like to eat? up around here in California and so often Mexican restaurants tacos, burritos, kids favorites. If it's not organic, it's all GMO unless they bring it from Mexico. Mexico right now is fighting with the US to not import genetically modified corn from the King in Mexico. So but the boy that's a lot of knowledge you need to know whether that you know restaurant is serving GMO coin. And if you ask them they may say oh no, no, we serve organic here. Sure.

Dr Gamble  20:51 

Doubt it highly doubtful, because

Dr Perro  20:55 

it's more expensive because it's not subsidized. by the government, not conventional crops or subsidize organics or not.

Dr Gamble  21:04 

Now you said that you have also modified some of your verbiage recently to not be just organic but also something else. I think it was permaculture or something regenerative. What is the difference for our for our ladies?

Dr Perro  21:21 

Yes, so organic simply means that no chemical inputs were used in the growing of the crops, which is great. But what it doesn't tell you is a degree of soil health because you can go crops without chemical inputs and the soil is not healthy. The plant is only as healthy as the soil that it was grown in. So a lot of even the organics and there are some companies that have come into question that are carried by Costco, which is a huge the number one US buyer organics is Costco and some of the brands they were carrying were organic, but not highly nutritious. Now, nutrient density is what we're looking for. And because kids are little their tummies are small you want to give them a power punch. Yeah, you not going to eat this huge amount of foods of the small amount of food they eat, you need to condense calories and condensed nutrients there's macro and micronutrients. Okay? So regenerative soil is soil that is robust that the microbes that the soil that create the products that the plants use, that make the plants healthy, which are phytochemicals, like phenols, and flavonoids, and all those healthy chemicals which give us our health and which gives plants those beautiful colors eat the rainbow is all detail families are diminished. So not only do we want no chemical inputs, but we want also want increased nutrient density by robust soil. And that's why I even in the book I'm writing I just wrote the chapter on the regenerative. There's Roc we did have organic labeling now. So people there's the basic green and white label, you're gonna be reading it in my book and then there's another label for Regenerative organic. And if you see that label super right on, but go to your farmers markets and Know Your Farmer, farmers markets everywhere now. Yeah. And even in the winter in New York, there was a farmers market in Union Square. We have all year here in California different we're pretty fortunate. Yeah. Talk to farmers see how their farming techniques. And in the book I'm writing I have a list of questions you can ask your farmer about whether they're what kind of techniques they're using for those who are not farmers like me. I did go back to college and take a course during COVID a community college course on farming, because I'm like, I'm from New York City. What do I know? So, this is so important that our soil microbes are very synonymous to our own gut in our own gut microbes Michelle and

Dr Gamble  23:57 

I also encourage parents in general, to consider asking the farmers if you can visit the farm, it's a wonderful field trip for yourself and your kids. And that way you can actually see what is being done. And that gives you a better relationship even with the farmer because you know people can say anything at the end of the day, but it's another thing to actually see it in practice to know for yourself. This is legit, you know to have that peace of mind. I don't know maybe I'm just

Dr Perro  24:31 

wondering and I like to see fun said include livestock in their race. Yeah, you know, those grazing animals also are part of the farming system of the loop. The poop loop? Yeah. What you need to create really robust soil, you know, manure, I had chickens and I put that chicken manure in my compost. Exactly. But and I remember my grandma as like she's my like, 97 year old grandma, in the Lower East Side in New York City going on the bucket and picking up still horse poop and putting it on her fire escape. Garden. A simple walk up where she I was really little I don't remember all of it. But I remember with that bucket again the horse.

Dr Gamble  25:20 

Hey, man, I tell you so much that we can do you know a lot of times we get overwhelmed with what we can't do what we don't have control over. I want you to focus ladies, focus on the things that you can do even if it's something little, even if it's just as Michelle said, a little potted plant of herbs on your windowsill. That is something not only because of the nutritional value, but because of the connection you're going to have to it and the way that it's going to feed your spirit knowing that you are part of that cycle of life knowing that you are creating life and something beneficial for your family. So, Michelle, any parting words of wisdom what's the one most important thing that you think that our ladies should take away from this conversation?

Dr Perro  26:11 

I would say the for for moms, if I can impart any wisdom it would be getting the kids and yourselves in the kitchen together making cooking, prepping meal prep shopping shopping, meal prep cooking, a family endeavor teaching kids early, how to do basics, how to ferment. If I could import anything, I'll have some preventing recipes, sauerkraut, or my favorite go twos for families. Get kids accustomed to those tastes of fermented foods. And honestly, if you include ferments in your diet, whether it's sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, herbicidal, vinegar, yogurt into kids diets and your own diet, it's such a health boon, but this shouldn't be a mom chore. It's a family and moving weapons idea chore and get get kids comfortable with chopping kid friendly knives, kitchen safety, how to turn the stove on without burning themselves. Little kids can do it. toddlers can set tables they can load dishwashers, they can learn how to do the dishes. So get them in there and mom's let go of something I had a hard time of letting go. This is full disclosure. I didn't like a messy kitchen. Let it go. That's a messy kitchen.

Dr Gamble  27:35 

Let them make a mess. I mean, I remember my kids growing up and I had them in the kitchen from they were little they would have little step stools that they would stand on to be able to get to the stove or to be able to get to the sink and everything. So by the time they were 12 they knew how to cook and prepare meals for themselves. And it's and then the nice part about that ladies and gents, is that on Mother's Day and Father's Day they can actually make breakfast and dinner. Of course that's further down the line. But anyway, it is fun. You know and and keep in mind ladies that we also every Friday remember we have fun food Fridays. So remember to tune into our YouTube channel for fun food Fridays with Dr. Naresh or chef or chef Karen fantastic recipes that you can cook up in less than 1015 minutes. Well, you have blessed us with so much information and I thank you for breaking it down into really simple bits and taking the time to share this with us because I truly believe that we can't repeat this information too many times. Every time I hear it explained to me I get something little bit more and I understand it a little bit deeper. And I can I can definitely sympathize with many of our families that are like, look, Michelle, I don't have a degree in chemistry. I don't have a degree and all that stuff. So I thank you for breaking it down for us and sharing all of this valuable information. Michelle,

Dr Perro  29:05 

it's my pleasure. And if I could say anything that I am, you know, laser focused on now is really targeting of food as medicine. Yes. And I the expression I use is less of a coziness to medicine as the kitchen is your medicine and I am trying to promote this relationship. I've moved away from a lot of other platforms and environmental targets. There are many things make our kids safe, but that is my laser focus now is helping parents get back to understanding our relationship with our food and our soil. And reconnecting with our hands.

Dr Gamble  29:41 

Beautiful. Until next time, my lady's Peace and blessings.

Closing: Thank you for tuning in for this episode of Mommy Heal Thyself, if you liked what we're doing here, please share subscribe, like us and leave a comment. Your feedback is very much appreciated.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai