Children & Environmental Chemicals: Are they more vulnerable?

Children are obviously our most beloved resource. Therefore protecting them from harm via public health policies should be of utmost importance to all health practitioners. Health policies should be based, however, on sound, peer reviewed science regardless whether they are for adults or children. However over the past decade or so, there seems to be a movement to use hypothetical risk to children for the formation of new policies, when the real risks to children seem to go unattended. Hypothetical risk would include trace levels of environmental chemicals such as pesticides, food additives, and environmental contaminants such as dioxin and PCBs. The basic tenet behind eliminating even trace elements of such chemicals is based on idea that children are more suseptable to trace levels than adults, so regulations must be more stringent. However, does science really support this principal? Are children more vulnerable to trace levels of environmental chemicals?