The American Child Death Toll Is Mortifying

At some point or another, something will happen to you as a parent that will turn you — no doubt a once normal, fun-loving person — into an obsessive lunatic. In my case, it happened when my son was just six months old and I learned that the supposedly “organic” baby food pouches that he was addicted to were, in fact, chock full of carcinogenic heavy metals that have been linked to numerous neurological disorders, including autism. This would not be the last time I was confronted with the alarming prospect that the products sold to us at our grocery stores, pharmacies, and online retailers are possibly poisonous — even the ones labeled “organic.” Despite living in this country my entire life, the fact that US food safety hovers dangerously close to The Jungle levels of noxiousness somehow evaded me.

It was this little episode that turned my husband and me into complete neurotics. Apparently, we’re not alone in our neuroses: In 2024, the US surgeon general declared parental stress dangerous enough to warrant a public health advisory. And who wouldn’t be stressed? In a country where those who produce, market, and distribute our food operate under little government oversight, it’s up to parents themselves to become experts in food safety — not to mention experts in safe sleeping, car safety, and every single chemical that touches their skin. Should we use elemental chlorine–free diapers or totally chlorine-free ones? Do we need an organic mattress? Is that mineral sunscreen approved by the Environmental Working Group? It’s maddening!

All of this is to say that when I saw the headline “US children are much more likely to die than kids in similar countries,” you better believe I thought I was prepared. Inevitably, I assumed, American children were dying from one of the countless chemicals or particles I had already painstakingly driven from my home. What was it going to be? Sulfates? Microplastics? Heavy metals? Nitrates? Synthetic dyes?