科学家警告说，有毒化学物质夺走了美国儿童超过1.6亿个智商点

The chemicals we've long feared the most – heavy metals like lead and mercury – are less of a threat to kids' developing brains than they were two decades ago. But two new menaces may be taking their place: pesticides and flame retardants.

我们长期以来最担心的化学物质——铅和汞等重金属——对儿童大脑发育的威胁比20年前要小。但是两种新的威胁可能会取而代之:农药和阻燃剂。

According to new research from New York University, flame retardants resulted in a loss of 162 million IQ points among children in the US between 2001 and 2016.

根据纽约大学的最新研究，2001年至2016年间，阻燃剂导致美国儿童智商下降1.62亿分。

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, looked at the four chemicals known to impact the brain of a developing child most: lead, mercury, pesticides, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (otherwise known as flame retardants).

这项研究发表在周二的《分子与细胞内分泌学》(Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology)杂志上，研究了已知对发育中的儿童大脑影响最大的四种化学物质:铅、汞、杀虫剂和多溴联苯醚(也称阻燃剂)。

Leo Trasande, a paediatrician and public-health researcher at NYU who co-authored the study, described these pollutants as "hit-and-run" chemicals: Once a child is exposed to them, there's no reversing the damage.

这项研究的作者之一、纽约大学的儿科医生和公共卫生研究员里奥·特拉萨德(Leo Trasande)把这些污染物描述为“肇事逃逸”的化学物质:一旦儿童接触到它们，就无法逆转其危害。

Kids' brain development is exquisitely vulnerable, Trasande told Business Insider. "If you disrupt, even with subtle effects, the way a child's brain is wired, you can have permanent and lifelong consequences."

“儿童的大脑发育极其脆弱，”特拉森德告诉《商业内幕》。“如果你扰乱了孩子大脑的连接方式，即使是轻微的影响，也会造成永久性的终身后果。”

The study found that lead cost US kids 78 million IQ points during the 15-year period studied, while pesticides caused a loss of nearly 27 million IQ points during those years. Mercury, meanwhile, caused a loss of 2.5 million IQ points.

研究发现，在15年的研究期间，铅让美国儿童损失了7800万智商分，而农药导致这些儿童损失了近2700万智商分。与此同时，汞造成了250万智商点的损失。