In this episode, we are joined by the renowned Dr. Michelle Perro, a pediatrician with over 40 years of experience and a dedicated advocate for children's health. Together, Dr. Jill Carnahan and Dr. Michelle Perro dive deep into the critical issues affecting the wellness and health of the next generation. This conversation covers a wide array of topics essential for parents, educators, and health practitioners alike.

Key Points

✅ How the massive exposure to Roundup and glyphosate is affecting our children's health and microbiome
✅ The surprising sources of Toxic metals in children’s diet, especially school lunches
✅ What you can do that is accessible and affordable as a parent to help your children detox

Our Guest – 👨‍⚕️ Dr. Michelle Perro

Michelle Perro, MD, DHom, is a veteran clinician with over four decades of experience in Pediatrics, treating children and their families. Her career began in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, winding its way into Integrative Medicine/Environmental Health over the past 25 years. She has been director of a Pediatric Emergency Department in NYC and spent over a decade at UCSF Benioff Oakland Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Perro has been a tireless advocate regarding the role of GM food and their associated pesticides focused on their affect on children’s health. She has lectured nationally and internationally on the state of our children’s health and produced the first Children’s Environmental Health Bill of Rights. She is co-author of the highly acclaimed book, “What’s Making our Children Sick?” She is the CEO/co-founder of the website www.gmoscience.org, focused on food as medicine and the regeneration education movement.
https://gmoscience.org/2021/11/01/its-time-a-childrens-environmental-health-bill-of-rights/

Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD

Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.

As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs. 

A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.

Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names. 

The Podcast

The Video

The Transcript

232: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Create Wellness & Health in the Next Gen w/ Dr. Michelle Perro

Dr. Jill  00:01
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Resiliency Radio, your go-to podcast for the most cutting-edge insights in integrative and functional medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Jill, and with each episode, we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation. Join us as we connect with renowned experts, thought leaders, and innovators who are at the forefront of medical research and practice, empowering you with knowledge and inspiration and aiding you on your journey. 

Dr. Jill  00:27

Just a quick note: If you have not seen the documentary yet, don't delay. Check it out. DoctorPatientMovie.com. Prepare to be inspired, impacted, and transformed. And if it impacts you and there's someone in your life—especially maybe a doctor or a medical student or just someone you love that's suffering—there's a way to gift and share that as well. So head on over to DoctorPatientMovie.com and check it out.

Dr. Jill  00:51

Okay, so today's guest, I am so excited to introduce. And we were just saying before we got recording here that we could talk for hours. Dr. Michelle Perro has a veteran clinic with over four decades of experience in pediatrics, treating children and their families. Her career began as a pediatric emergency medicine physician winding its way into integrative medicine and environmental health—so we have a lot of the same passions—over the past 25 years. She's been director of the pediatric emergency department in New York City and spent over a decade at UCSF Benioff Oakland Children's Hospital. She's been a tireless advocate regarding the role of GM—genetically modified foods—and their associated pesticides, focusing on children's health.

Dr. Jill  01:37

So today we're going to dive in. If you have a child, a grandchild, or anyone in your life who could be impacted by this, we are going to not only give you the statistics and information about what's happening, but we're going to give you solutions. That's what I love about Dr. Perro. 

Dr. Jill  01:51

She also produced the first Children's Environmental Health Bill of Rights. We'll talk about that today. And she co-authored the highly acclaimed book, What's Making Our Children Sick? She's CEO/co-founder of the website, www.gmoscience.org. So check that out. We'll be sure to link that in the notes to the podcast.

Michelle, Dr. Perro, welcome to the show.

Dr. Michelle Perro  02:14
Jill, it's a delight. I follow your work and love what you do. So thank you for having me.

Dr. Jill  02:19
You're so welcome. 

As I always start the podcast, we want to know where you started, where you grew up, and how you got into medicine, pediatrics, and emergency pediatrics of all things in the beginning. And then take us on the journey of how you got into the work you're doing now.

Dr. Michelle Perro  02:34
This is a story that maybe some folks don't know about me, but my original love was theater. I was a child actress. I went to a theater high school, the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City. But what happened was I was hospitalized for something when I was 12, and some candy stripers came by with their little pink and white uniforms. And I just had to have that uniform. I was 12 years old. I was very into uniforms, I guess, at that age. So I got the uniform, became a candy striper, and I started falling in love with hospitals. At that time, Jill, they let us go into central supply. I was bringing the candy cart around. I was folding sheets. I was in the OR. It was amazing what this small little hospital let us do at that age. I was 12 years old. So then what happened? I did some shows for children on wards at Bellevue Hospital, where I later did my residency, in something called Project Sunshine. We acted for the children on the wards, and I was hooked. It transitioned into medicine. That's how that happened. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  03:42

So I was going into OBGYN. I was going to help women. I was all about women's health, and I knew I wanted to be an OBGYN. And then what happened? I'd do my rotations—this was at Mount Sinai in New York. And I'm going to be fully honest here because I'm a New Yorker—transparency is my middle name—I didn't find the OBGYN doctors to be very nice. So I was like, “I have to work with these people who aren't very nice for the rest of my life?” My last rotation was pediatrics. I never even thought of working with children, even though I had experience working with kids. I did my pediatric rotation, and I fell in love. I fell in love with the kids, the program, my residence. And before you knew it, I switched to peds, another pivot. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  04:31

And then the same thing happened with peds emergency medicine. I fell in love. I was working. I worked at Metropolitan Hospital in New York City. I went down to their ER and created their first pediatric emergency room. And then I created one of the first life support courses for kids in New York. I became thoroughly obsessed with it for the first part of my career.

Dr. Jill  04:52
Wow, I love that because, you know what? I really feel like the creative side that you brought from your history with theater and all of that is one of the most profound qualities of a great physician because that creativity and curiosity are what lead us to ask the questions like: “Why? What is going on from the observed thing?” So you got into pediatrics—the emergency room—which is probably the most traumatic, difficult place to see kids in crisis and trauma and everything. What question happened for you where you said, “What else is going on with our kids?”

Dr. Michelle Perro  05:28
Again, serendipity was on my back door. I had my own son 31 years ago, and he had some health challenges, which only a pediatrician's kid would ever have. And I had a serendipitous encounter with an MD homeopath, Dr. Ikenze, who's still practicing. She told me to give my son a remedy, a homeopathic remedy. He was a baby. I never heard of the word. I didn't know what she was talking about. It was all in Latin. I was so out of my element. I gave my son these little sugar pills. I'm like, “Oh, my God, I'm going to kill my son.” And he got better in five minutes. So, it happened again. Illness again. My son's given me permission to talk about this, by the way. It was recurrent croup—severe, life-threatening croup—where kids can't breathe because they have constriction here at the airway. So again, it happens. He had recurrent croup. Little sugar pills, five minutes. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  06:19

I was filled with a mixture of anger and awe. The anger stemmed from the fact that there could be this system, which had been around for hundreds of years, kind of squelched by the Flexner Report and Rockefeller in 1910—but that would be a side conversation—and it was affordable, tasty. My son loved the little sugar pills. And effective. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  06:40

My kids were little. I was in the ER. I started going back and studying at night on a school in London online. This was just when online was starting. This was 1994, just at the beginning of online school. And I received my diploma in homeopathy. I became a trained homeopath. By 1999, a few things happened where I knew the universe was telling me again to pivot. It was hard to leave [my] peds ER career because I loved it. But my time was done, and I pivoted into integrative health. 

Dr. Jill  07:17
Wow. What a story. And isn't it interesting because, of course, I have the same training as you? And what I've seen in myself, yourself, and so many of our colleagues is when the crisis comes with a child, a parent, a loved one, themselves, or ourselves and we say, “Oh, conventional medicine isn't cutting it in this situation; what else is out there?” then we start to see, “Why is it that we weren't taught about that?” It's interesting because that same process I went through too. It's amazing. And usually, it's a crisis of our own health or someone we love that allows us to question the system. And there are some wonderful things in conventional medicine. I know you and I both still use so much of the stuff we learned, but our toolboxes are now larger, which is so exciting. 

Dr. Jill  08:00

Then you became a homeopathic integrative physician [in] pediatrics. How exciting! And when was that? And then, how did the first few years go? What did you learn? What did you see with the kids that you were treating?

Dr. Michelle Perro  08:11
It was shocking because I had to train myself to become a homeopath, naturopathic doctor, and this was sort of out there. I got so much deridement from my colleagues regarding homeopathy and integrative health. There was really very little support. My husband, fortunately, was very supportive at the time, and I was getting successes. So I started my own little practice here in my hometown. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  08:35

But then what happened was one of the moms of the practice said, “You have to help us stop the spray of this pesticide.” It was an insecticide against a light brown apple moth that was going to decimate the apple crops of Northern California. And I said: “Oh, whoa, whoa—I have no time!” Two small kids. Busy practice. I was doing my own practice, pulling weeds, doing the book, seeing patients. I think I lost my mind. So I said, “Sure, I'll do it.” And I said: “I really need to see somebody here because I can't believe that I can't say no. I just keep saying yes.” 

Dr. Michelle Perro  09:12

I got involved with these gals. We stopped the spray. Only one county got sprayed out of the entire coast of Northern California. The moth thing turned into a bust. It never manifested. The county that got sprayed was Monterey County and people reported being sick from the aerial spraying. One of the moms said: “Michelle, what do you think about this book by Jeffrey Smith, Seeds of Deception?“

Dr. Jill  09:35

Yes, I remember that well. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  09:37

I said, “Uh, GMOs? Uh…” She said, “Read the book.” So when moms talk to me, I listen. Gosh, I read the book, and then my whole world flipped. I was doing integrative urgent care in my clinic for kids, and I was seeing kids with chronic gut and autism ticking up. And I thought: “Hey! Hey, guys, anybody else seeing this?” It was around 2000. And I thought: “Oh, wait a minute. What am I seeing?” Autism was 1 in 10,000 when I was in training. And all of a sudden I had a bunch of autistic kids in my clinic. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  10:15

Putting it all together, I looked at the effects of GMOs and their associated herbicides—glyphosate-based herbicides, the main ingredient [is] Roundup. And now we have data showing how glyphosate causes autism—several papers—fast forward 20 years later. And then again, yet another pivot into food is medicine, regenerative agriculture, which is what we call it now. We didn't call it [that] then. We called it just organics. And I pivoted again to include this nutrition. And I had to go back and learn nutrition. I was woefully unprepared.

Dr. Jill  10:53
Wow. 

I remember when we first met, and it was around this issue with our colleague, Cheryl Gray, who put on a conference here in Colorado with… Gosh, I'm trying to think of the names of all the amazing… Jeff was there. It was on GMOs. It was really the first of its kind, and it brought together PhDs in the soil sciences. You were there. I was there speaking. I'm guessing it was about a decade ago, maybe 2014 or '13, somewhere in that range. Maybe '12 even. And I remember meeting you and being so connected because we were on the same page.

Dr. Jill  11:22

I grew up on a farm in Central Illinois. Of course, glyphosate was a big deal. I want you to tell us about what it does to the gut and how it's affecting kids and adults. But I remember that so well because we were really on the cutting edge. Thanks to Cheryl Gray and the EHS conference and everything else and then really starting to talk about this because no one at that time was really bringing it to light. It was like, “Oh, that's harmless.” Do you remember the Monsanto people at that time, which was the owner originally before Bayer bought it out? They were like, “Oh, I could drink this.” There was gaslighting about the safety that was not true. So let's dive into glyphosate and the microbiome and what you saw because you became an expert on this topic.

Dr. Michelle Perro  12:04
I did. I can't believe I became an expert because I'm from Manhattan, Jill. I knew you grew up on a farm because I read your wonderful book, so I knew your history. And I grew up in a concrete jungle—you know, apartment buildings. I never thought I would be talking about organic agriculture and how to do cover cropping. I said, “Boy, what a concept!” 

Dr. Michelle Perro  12:22

Anyway, glyphosate is one nasty herbicide. It's been around since 1950. But I'll just share a couple of the highlights of what it does because in the last talk I did, which was just recently in Canada, I counted 23 toxic effects of glyphosate-based herbicides. And there are over 800 global preparations now of this herbicide. And remember, Jill, the only reason why we spray glyphosate is so then we put it on a GMO crop like corn, soy, canola, alfalfa. The crop doesn't die when you spray the herbicide. The only reason why we're spraying these glyphosate-based herbicides is to kill the weeds, and most of the weeds now in the US, 75%, are resistant. As a matter of fact, Monsanto, now Bayer, just released a brand new non-glyphosate herbicide 45 times more toxic than glyphosate. So the idea was not to remove glyphosate and replace it with more toxic herbicides and more complicated genetically engineered crops. But I digress. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  13:27

The main toxicity for glyphosate is severalfold. One, it's an antibiotic, and we know that from Monsanto. They created the patent in 2003 and then in 2010. And it was an amazing antibiotic. It killed off all the beneficial bugs too, by the way—strep and staph—but it propagated the growth of salmonella and clostridial species. And what we see in kids on the spectrum [is that] they are loaded with clostridia. Not all clostridia is bad, but you don't want to be loaded with it. So that was one thing. It's wiping out the microbiome on every daily dose. And you and I both know that the microbiome drives good health. We can get into that. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  14:09

I'll just do three main things. Two, it's a chelator. Chelator simply means it grabs minerals, toxic minerals. It grabs aluminum, but it also grabs magnesium, calcium, copper, manganese—all those metals that you need to run brain function. So kids can't think. Our kids are in a sea of ADHD, of inattentivity. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  14:36

And lastly, but not least, it was shown in animals but not in humans to be a carcinogen. That was based on the 2015 World Health decision by IARC—the International Association [Sic] of Research on Cancer—I think that's right—in 2015. Published there. A classic paper [on] how glyphosate is a class 2A carcinogen. No doubt in my mind. And then there's a million other things it does as well, including [how it] impairs your ability to detoxify. So no microbiome, no detoxification; our children are sunk.

Dr. Jill  15:14
Yeah, gosh, thanks for framing that, because people don't realize they can go to the local Home Depot or Lowe's and it's there. And I always try to avoid those aisles. It's unbelievable. Just literally this last week, I saw the feed on the new product, and the toxicity is so scary. So this new version without glyphosate is even worse. It's so, so sad. 

Dr. Jill  15:37

[An] interesting little story of my own is around the time you and I spoke at least a decade ago. Nowadays, we can get urine tests for glyphosate, and there are a couple of companies that do that. Back then, it was almost all experimental. But I did an experimental test. You might have heard me talk about this before. I, at that time, had been completely organic after my breast cancer, so my diet was 100%. And everything that I did in my life was to prevent toxicity. When I got that result—again, it was an experimental company that was showing urates of urine glyphosate relative to farmers on application day; that was the data they had—I was three times the limits of farmers on the day of application. And I remember literally falling off my stool with shock because here I had been living as clean as I could possibly live and realizing how pervasive this is. 

Dr. Jill  16:25

Maybe talk just a little about the pervasiveness. I ended up saying, ‘Why?' And I thought: “Well, I have dogs.” I have a lawn that's condo-owned and sprayed by the HSA. So I'm like, “I bet the dogs sleep in my bed, on their feet… ” I don't know for sure, but that was my suspicion. Talk about this pervasiveness now in our environment of glyphosate.

Dr. Michelle Perro  16:45
Thank you for sharing that story because those of us who lead a very organic life are rather surprised when we still have glyphosate. Number one is that organic crops are cross-contaminated [by] 5%–9%, at least, according to the USDA. We know that that exists because there's an organic field right next to a sprayed field. The birds, the winds—these crops are cross-contaminating. That's one. And I'm sure it's even higher than 9% now. That data is a couple of years old. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  17:11

Two, it's in the air. It's aerosolized—a lot of them—the spraying. It's in our water. When we irrigate crops, we're not using filtered water, so it seeps underground. And depending on the pH of the soil, it can last in soil for—one paper I saw was 22 years. It's supposed to be broken down and it's not often broken down, depending on the pH.

Dr. Michelle Perro  17:38

And you're absolutely right. Our animals bring it in on their little paws, sleep on our beds, lick their paws. We kiss them. So on our animals because they spray meridians. They spray parks. They spray condos. I was involved with a lawsuit case of a young kid who got sprayed and developed ulcerative colitis because they were spraying outside his window. He won that case. He won that case. So anyway, awful. It's in the air; it's in the spray. And where else do we get glyphosate? Those are the main ways: Air, water, our animal companions, and organics that are contaminated. In the Midwest, 90% of the women are positive for glyphosate.

Dr. Jill  18:21
Ugh. No surprise. Again, that's where I grew up. And I guess mine was probably from decades of exposure because I grew up on a farm. Talk just a little for that mom out there who's like, “Okay, how do I avoid this with my kids?” What are the best lifestyle tips with food to try to avoid exposure? And then we'll talk about how to detox glyphosate. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  18:42
Yes. I speak now about organic, regenerative food. And I tell parents: “I'm so sorry, it's like you need a PhD to go food shopping.” I ask people to stay away from processed foods. Processed foods are major sources of glyphosate-based herbicides. The average food has at least six pesticides, not to mention all the other toxicants in those ultra-processed foods. That's one.

Dr. Michelle Perro  19:08

Buy organic. Buy at your local farmer. Get to know your farmer at the farmer's market, at the CSA—whatever you can do to get in community. Of course, if you can grow your own, even if you just grow your own herbs, it will still be better. And where you get your soil. If you're getting your soil and/or your compost from your local community, they may not be doing organic. You have to be really mindful and ask a lot of questions. Make sure you're using a water filter that filters out glyphosate, whether it's a carbon-based filter, a home system like reverse osmosis, or a Berkey filter. There are many kinds, and we could talk about where to get those. So you have to be super vigilant. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  19:49

And I couldn't say this enough: Whole Foods. Folks have to get back in the kitchen. And I'm not asking people to become Alice Waters here. And I'm not asking for women to go back to the 1950s, Mom, with an apron and Donna Reed. I'm not saying that. Get the kids in the kitchen: Dad, Mom, whatever parent is in the kitchen, Grandma—everyone in the kitchen—prepping food. And keep it simple. Fresh food, whole food as best you can. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  20:16

I like to rinse those foods off with either filtered water or use some kind of vegetable spray. In my next book coming out, I have all the formulas [for] how you can make your own veggie wash to get rid of glyphosate. I'll say two things about that. There are things that will break down glyphosate, and one of them is apple cider vinegar. It has a microbe in there called acetobacter. We use them in phytoremediation and bioremediation to get rid of various herbicides. So, acetobacter. And there are others that will break down glyphosate because they take the phosphorus and the nitrogen out of this N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine, and they use it. So, a little apple cider vinegar in the salad dressing. Or, drink it in a bit of water because it will take the enamel off your teeth. And not the gummies, folks, not the apple cider gummies. They taste good, but there's really not enough apple cider vinegar and acetobacter in there. That's one way to detox it.

Dr. Michelle Perro  21:11

Stick to organic, regenerative food [and] that water filter we talked about. Look out for your animal companions, where they're walking. Take your shoes off at the door because shoes are in dust. House dust is one of the most toxic things in people's homes. And be that mom or dad—for the soccer games, the sleepovers, the graduation parties—who brings healthy snacks. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  21:38

I can't tell you how many conferences or sleepovers or whatever my kids were into—parents would buy those colored/dyed cupcakes. I would bring orange slices. As a matter of fact, when my daughter graduated high school, a bunch of moms brought cookies with all the different color frosting. I'm like, “Ugh!” I had organic strawberries dipped in organic dark chocolate that I froze—a big tray of those—and that was the first thing to go. The kids all ate. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  22:09

It's not difficult, but we have to retrain ourselves to live an organic lifestyle. There is a reeducation process here. And I'm not saying it's easy. We don't look for perfection, and we get everyone in the family involved. My husband used to hide the junk food in his bedroom closet. My kids sourced it out by the time they were two. They were like these little sleuths. They'd know where Daddy hid the cupcakes and all that. It was like familial sabotage in my own house. I too had some challenges with my own kids and trying to do stuff. And if parents could go look in their cupboards, if they could dump one thing, it's get rid of those cereals. What's this carby cereal for breakfast? Give your children last night's dinner for breakfast.

Dr. Jill  23:02
Gosh, I've seen the studies on cold cereals and even conventional oatmeal: Very, very high levels of glyphosate.

Dr. Michelle Perro  23:10
Quaker Oats is off the charts. I just did a talk about that. Quaker Oats is awful. And remember that glyphosate is also used as a crop desiccant, so they spray it right at harvest. So crops like wheat, oats, and legumes—bad for vegetarians—have super high levels of glyphosate. And Moms Across America just did a study, and this one type of pasta—Banza pasta—had like 2,300 parts per billion. The highest this lab has ever seen for glyphosate in a serving of pasta. And Michael Antonio, a geneticist from the UK, showed that as low as 0.1 parts per billion of glyphosate caused—not correlated with—non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, also known as metabolic-associated liver disease, which is now affecting one in three Americans as well as children. One in four obese children now has a fatty liver, which can progress to more serious things. As if fatty liver is not bad enough. So we've got a problem. And parents are in control.

Dr. Jill  24:17
Oh, I love that empowering advice. It's so interesting because the other thing I want to ask you about is formulas. Let's talk about that because I think a lot of moms don't know what to do about that and because of the surface of a small baby, it's much more toxic. Talk a little about baby formulas, what to do, and how they might be contaminated if you get the wrong ones.

Dr. Michelle Perro  24:40
This is the one that gives me gut pain when I talk about it—infant baby formula. The New MDs and GMOScience—we did a study in May. We published it. We looked at 40 infant formulas for toxic metals. And it's a long story, how we got into it. But I just knew because of the high fructose corn syrup—which is the first ingredient in many baby formulas—I was looking for mercury based on the work of a scientist named Dr. René Joy Dufault. Long story short, we tested for aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury—five toxic metals. What we found is 20 formulas, two of each from different samples, 100% positive for aluminum, 4,000 to 40,000 times higher than the other metals in the parts per million range, and all 100% positive for lead. There is no safe level of lead for babies. Even organic. I was shocked. Even organic. Organic formulas were not free of the toxic metals. This was a shock to me. I was really floored because I didn't expect them all to test so badly.

Dr. Michelle Perro  25:49

And we tested local, foreign, goat, cow, processed formulas—they're called elemental formulas—for babies with digestive issues. I was surprised. I was so surprised. That was a problem. So that's how I started studying bioremediation. I learned about it because of “How do we get the metals out of the infant formula?” And only organic dairy should be used to make baby formula. It's in ultra-processed foods. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  26:18

I have received so many emails now from moms saying, “What formula do I use?” And I'm like, “I don't like any of them.” I cannot give a product with known lead to a newborn. Of course, breast is best, but clearly, some moms cannot nurse. So there's no breast shaming here. I encourage breastfeeding as long as moms can. But [for] those that can't—my own kids did have formula. Not ideally. I breastfed as long as I could. I have pulled out my Weston A. Price books on nourishing traditions and re-looked at something I learned a long time ago: How to make baby formula. 

Dr. Jill  27:01

Good for you. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  27:02

And I think parents have to make their own. I found a brand that looked better than most. I think it was called iHeart [Sic] or something like that. And we didn't test that one. But I wasn't in love with any brand. And maybe some of your listeners may have some recommendations. There are four major producers of baby formula: Abbott, Mead Johnson, Perrigo, and Gerber (Nestlé). It's almost like an oligarchy. It's not almost like; it is an oligarchy. When one of them goes down, the formula supply goes way down. But that aside, I am asking people to make their own and whether we should bring back things like wet nurses.

Dr. Jill  27:44
Yeah. Gosh, you're right. Some of these solutions are not easy, but they're so critical. 

I want to talk about bioremediation because that is so close to my heart. And soils—we used to think autoimmunity and disease began in the immune system and the gut, and now I would like to say it begins in the soils. We can talk about how the soils reflect our own microbiomes. As we kill off this diversity in the soil, we kill off diversity in our microbiome. We're seeing that. And things like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, fatty liver are all related to our gut microbiome. So it makes perfect sense. 

Creating your own formula—is this in your new book as well?

Dr. Michelle Perro  28:27
It will be in my new book. I have the links. I base it on the work of… I didn't create the formula. I don't have the skills to figure out, “What are the best ingredients?” It was based on the work of the Home Economist. Her name is Sarah Pope. And there's a great video on the Weston A. Price website. I put those links in the book. It takes about 20 minutes. I'm not saying it's easy. Oh gosh, no. But if every parent went out there and told their legislators, their representatives, that we need clean baby formula… It is happening. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  29:01

There is a baby food safety act that's right now being introduced, I believe—I want to say Cory Booker, I believe, I could be wrong—right now as we speak. So change is happening. We are bringing organic milk as of yesterday to children's schools. And we are changing school lunches, which are also a toxic nightmare, by the way. But we'll stick to baby formula for now. So change is afoot. And let your legislators know that you are not happy that we are not protecting our most vulnerable because babies are born with a physiologic leaky gut. And that gut doesn't heal. It seals up with colostrum. But they could have leaky gut from one to six months. So everything they're putting in their gut is crossing right across that leaky gut right into their bloodstream, right across the blood-brain barrier. Glyphosate can shuttle aluminum in six different ways across the blood-brain barrier. There's also glyphosate in baby formula if it's not organic.

Dr. Jill  30:03
Yes, that's where I started, but I love this information. It's so important. Gosh, with you, Michelle, there are so many places I want to go. So forgive me, audience, if I'm jumping around because I get so excited to hear more and what we can do. So I want to talk detox. Say kids have been exposed to metals. How do we do that? But before we do: School lunches. I think it's worth talking a little bit about school lunches and Girl Scout cookies. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  30:26
Yes. School lunches. My friend and colleague, Zen Honeycutt from Moms Across America—God bless her—pioneered the study and published it. I think it was in October 2022. And we did go to DC on this one. She looked at 43 school lunches across the US. She evaluated them for pesticides, metals, pharmaceuticals, and nutrients. Talk about being thrown out of my chair. A hundred percent of them were positive for toxic metals. And that's what inspired me to do the infant formula study, by the way—the results of the school lunch study. Over 95% had glyphosate-based herbicides. A significant percentage—I want to say in the 70s—had pharmacologic drugs, veterinarian drugs like chicken hormones, birth control hormones. The nutrient levels in the school lunches were abysmal. The kids might as well have been eating cardboard. There were no B vitamins at all in these lunches. And they're wrapped in plastic, they're popped in a microwave, and all the plastic product gets stripped in their chicken nuggets and their food. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  31:35

Compared to other countries, we are probably one of the worst-fed school lunches globally. And I just did a talk in Canada—that looks a lot like the US—and even their lunches were better. Brazil, a very poor country compared to the US, [is] superlative compared to our school lunches. That is happening. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  31:56

Our US government just gave a grant to Kraft Lunchables, as well as the Impossible Burger, to provide lunches—they're not supposed to do that—for some schools across the US. Big money here. Impossible Burger is a nasty little GMO burger, which I talk about if you want. So right now, with the introduction of this school lunch safety act, it's an opportunity. Let your legislators know that we have to give our kids the best lunches we can. It's a social justice issue because some kids and teens are eating anywhere from one to three meals at school. That is their food source. And then we want to know why kids have ADHD—that they can't learn, that their autism spectrum symptoms are out of control, that they have autoimmunity, obesity. These kids are hungry all the time because they're not receiving nutrients. Overfed, undernourished.

Dr. Jill  32:53
Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you talked about that because it really is something that we need to be aware of. It's funny because I am so not political, but as you, in some of these areas of environmental toxic load and all the things that we're seeing, we must be advocates because there's no other way to change our medicine. This is how we start being great physicians—changing the inputs—the clean air, the clean water, and the clean food. So I could not agree more. 

Dr. Jill  33:21

Let's shift to detox. You had a huge autistic population. It's only growing because of exposures. So that's one area. The autoimmune, the fatty liver. But say you have tested kiddos. What's the most common kind of toxic load? Do you test it? Do you just assume toxic load? And how do we detox?

Dr. Michelle Perro  33:37

If parents have some funds, I like to check because these tests are all out of network for many providers. There are some tests you can get in network. For the most part, they're out of network. There are different labs like Mosaic or US Biotech… There are a few. Vibrant labs—that tests for environmental toxicants. You can do a panel and see which toxicants are in your child. You can look for pesticides, glyphosate-based herbicides, and there are other things we can look at as well. You can do a hair analysis as well for heavy metals. I like looking at that. And there are things we can give kids to help them excrete the heavy metals and even check their urine for, I like to say ‘toxic metals,' because aluminum by weight is not heavy. It's not a heavy metal, but it's a toxic metal. So I say toxic metals. So you can even look at their urine. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  34:27

But if a parent can't afford it, I can get a lead level, which only looks at what they're exposed to presently. It doesn't look at the historical load because once you take in those toxic metals, your body tries very hard to deposit them, and they go into fatty tissue and into your bone. They redistribute, so you'll clear them from your blood pretty quickly. So blood levels only really show what's happening right now. Hair is better. And hair is actually affordable. It's about 129 bucks, I think, for a hair test. So, I like to test. Assume they're present because I haven't found any children… Now, I have a skewed population. Kids coming for help. But it's so prevalent—the toxicity. It's just about in all the kids.

Dr. Jill  35:17
Yeah. I've seen that too. And of course, I see more adults than children, but it is universal. I like to test as well. The same labs you mentioned. But if I can't test, I assume the toxic load is part of the picture. So for kiddos, what would you do?—maybe above eight and below eight. Sometimes there are differentials or you pick an age for the basic safe things. And maybe [you can mention]—maybe without dosing or anything—the kinds of things that these parents could ask from their functional integrative doctor or things that they could do on their own at home safely.

Dr. Michelle Perro  35:47
Thank you, Jill, for that, because what we're trying to do is empower families to take care of their own and create resiliency. And people need to know these basic principles. We all need to know to detox. So if we focus on diet, I include some herbs like cilantro. I am a cilantro fan. Coriander is the seed, cilantro is the leaf. Grow it. I don't do a good job growing it. I have to buy it. But do the best you can with cilantro. Parsley is very nice. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  36:11

You've got to be careful with chlorella—some kids will take chlorella—because you don't want things that are contaminated with metals. You want a quality product. That's why I stick to organic cilantro. So you do that for your kids. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  36:24

Now, I am a big fan of the detox bath. Kids love baths, and you can put so many good things in the bath to help them detox, like Epsom salts. I like real salts. Sea salt is getting iffy with microplastics. Salt, non-aluminum-containing baking soda. And I like a little bit of boron. You can either get 20 Mule Team Borax—that's not been adulterated with dyes—or actually get some boron. You can even get it on Amazon. And then there are different doses. I'll have it in the book, by the way, the dosing. And you can give your kid a bath. As hot as they can tolerate, about 15 minutes, and then rinse off. Don't let them sit in there when the water starts to cool because they'll reabsorb the toxic materials that they excreted. And then rinse them off. And then, if you want them in the bath longer, okay, then refill the bath. Rinse out the bath and refill it. That's one. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  37:19

Detox. Number two is if your kid is toxic, I am a fan of binders. The most affordable binder I know is made from coconut charcoal. Buy one that's organic. You can get 180 capsules of organic charcoal on Amazon—I'm not trying to promote Amazon here—or from Fullscript or whatever your practitioner uses for about 20 bucks. And charcoal will clean your teeth. We use it in medicine, as you know, for people who have overdoses. But if there's a toxic exposure, whether it's from a toxicant like glyphosate or toxic mold—I know it's your area of expertise—kids tolerate it very well. Take it away from food and other supplements—a half hour before, two hours after. It's not meant for the long term because it binds everything. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  38:08

And we just did a show called the New MDs that we run. And every family in Mexico—I pulled this out—has these little carbon tabs in their houses. Every family in Mexico. They are familiar because they're also good for infectious contamination. If you get ‘turista,' you could take some charcoal, and that will help with an infectious load also. So these binders are your friends. Other than charcoal, some of you people use bentonite clay. Pectin can be good. Anything with soluble fiber. It's not insoluble fiber. I didn't say Metamucil. Soluble fiber will also help bind stuff for detoxification. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  38:52

Now, it is key to keep up certain nutrients, like magnesium and iron, which will help offset those toxic metals, like mercury and lead. Kids who are iron deficient have more problems with lead, so you want to give them as nutrient-dense a diet that you can while you're detoxing them with these simple methods—bath, charcoal. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  39:17

Kids also detox from their skin. They have more skin for surface area, especially the little ones, as per their weight. So sweating, exercise, running. What a concept—rinse off. And even kids can do infrared saunas. We don't put them in very hot or very long, but some kids really like being in the heat. Not all children. So you can start with these infrared saunas. Sit in there with your kid for a few minutes in the heat and then rinse off. Sweat together. I have a little infrared sauna upstairs. I have my own. And in some countries, the sauna is part of the culture, like in Sweden. It's just part of the culture. So I'm not saying anything so crazy here. I love infrared. These are some ideas for parents to start utilizing in their homes.

Dr. Jill  40:04
I love what you've shared, Michelle, because every single thing you mentioned is—maybe except for having a sauna in your home, but even then, sweating, exercise—so accessible, so easy. Kids in bath—that's something you're already doing, most parents. So powerful. For me, that's one of my go-tos every single night, even if I'm traveling. As long as there's a bathtub, I am in an Epsom salt bath. It has been such a game-changer. It's one of those things where sometimes, at least in my adult patients, they can't all tolerate charcoal. Sometimes they're constipated. They can't all tolerate infrared saunas. But I would say 99% of them can tolerate Epsom salt baths. So it's a really, really nice, easy way too. And I love your mixture of things that you can add to the bath. That's so powerful. And, like I said, it's so affordable.

Dr. Michelle Perro  40:50
The two things where you could really riff on are the bath—because you can put essential oils in there if your child needs some calming—and the blender. If you can have a Bullet, a Vitamix, a blender, because you can put a lot of different things there. Because so many kids have acquired pickiness, especially kids with various neurologic sensitivities. So you can add things and start hiding things until they acquire the taste, particularly veggies. Some of these tastes are strong for children. So blended drinks with coconut milk and pineapple can hide a lot of the strong flavors.

Dr. Jill  41:26
Gosh, I do that for adults too who can't swallow pills. And it's just like throwing everything in. And most of those caps can be opened, and/or there are powders. Do you want to just briefly maybe think about glycine and glyphosate?—because glycine is especially helpful and can be bound. Do you want to talk a little bit about that connection and why glycine may be important in our diets because of that?

Dr. Michelle Perro  41:44
I started with glycine many, many decades ago when I first started treating autism because I found it really calmed an inflamed brain. I was using glycine. And I learned that from a friend who's a toxicologist. Eric Schlosser, I believe his name is. Anyway, so I've used glycine for a long time. Glycine is a ubiquitous amino acid. It's not essential, which means we can make it, although there's some debate about that. And it is one of the key amino acids—and amino acids build proteins—in our collagen. So it's part of our musculoskeletal system. Super important. And it is one of the main ingredients in bone broth. Bone broth, bone broth, more bone broth if you are not a vegetarian or vegan. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  42:24

So what is the thing about glycine? Before, I kind of slipped out that glyphosate—the chemical structure was N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine. And glycine, that little amino acid, is the same glycine that we find as the non-essential amino acid that we have, let's say, in our collagen, that calms our brains. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  42:45

My dear friend, Dr. Seneff, proposed many years ago, like a long time ago, that these two amino acids—and some people consider glyphosate an amino acid—are swapping. And I know this is true. I always suspected it to be true because kids, when you feel them, are doughy. Feel your own kid, not somebody else's child, please. And they feel sort of not muscular, and they're tired. There can be other reasons, Jill, as you and I both know, from mitochondrial dysfunction and all sorts of stuff. But they just don't feel the same. And I think it's so important to examine children—every practitioner. So glycine, give bone broth. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  43:26

You can also take collagen supplements. But honestly, making bone broth is one of the best things you can do. I have a recipe in the book coming out. I use chicken bones. And remember, those bones have to be organic because if the animal was not fed organically and regeneratively raised, the animal would have concentrated the toxic metals in their bones. So you're eating a high dose of more toxic metals. Wherever you live, ask the butcher for organic bones. Don't even get the meat. Beef, veal, chicken, turkey, whatever you use. Cook it up with your favorite veggies, and put that in your child's everything. You can freeze them in little metal ice cube trays, not plastic, and then pop them in rice soup or whatever you're making. Those are my go-tos. I personally put some collagen in my coffee every day. 

Dr. Jill  44:20

Me too.

Dr. Michelle Perro  44:20

I have a lot of glycine. I'm a big fan. And I use a lot of it—maybe 5 to 10 grams—when I need to calm a child, let's say, who's having a flare of autism or PANS/PANDAS. I'll use just glycine to calm things down. It's really well tolerated, and it heals the gut.

Dr. Jill  44:41
Ooh, I love that we talked about this because for years—probably 20 years ago when I found the glyphosate—I've been on it. I take it. I do the collagen. I do the bone broths. 

Dr. Jill  44:48

I love that you mentioned chicken bones because we do have a lot of patients with histamine intolerance, and those marrow bones are a little bit higher histamine. So I love that—that you mentioned that specifically—because those smaller bones with less marrow are a little bit lower histamine. Is that correct?

Dr. Michelle Perro  45:04
You're so right. And I swear, does everybody have MCAS now and histamine reactions? I also do live blood analysis, and I see a lot of people with cells called basophils that release histamine. Lots of basophils on their live blood analyses. Like, what is going on? So people are really releasing histamine. And you don't feel well when you have histamine release like that. 

Dr. Jill  45:28
Exactly. Gosh, just Sunday, I got back from a conference giving a lecture on mast activation and TILT—toxic and induced loss of tolerance—which is also chemical sensitivity, and all these things are massively increasing in incidence. 

Dr. Perro, like I said in the beginning, we could talk so long on this topic. It's so fun to talk to you, and there's so much alignment. The first thing is just thank you from the bottom of my heart for the work that you've done in the world. Truly, truly, I am so grateful for your work. I'm so grateful for your time here on the podcast and for sharing. And I love the practicality of what you bring. It's so accessible.

Dr. Jill  46:07

Where can people find more about you? Where can they get the book? When is it coming out? Tell us more about your websites and your book, when it's going to be released, and the one right behind you, What's Making Our Children Sick? That's been out a while. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  46:20
First of all, thank you for your kindness. I appreciate it, and it is my life's passion. It's not my career, it's my calling, and I just love working with families and children and animals and plants. But also, before I begin, thank you for your work, Jill, and not only the work you do but [also for] sharing your personal journey to be so vulnerable that we are experiencing the same thing our patients are experiencing. We are not immune from the same toxic exposures and everything else. So thank you for your honesty, courage, and, of course, brilliance. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  46:58

Gmoscience.org is my website, and that's my baby. I put all the work that I do for better or worse there. The book is What's Making Our Children Sick? behind me. That was published in 2017. I just reread part of it, and it's still relevant. The new book will be out this summer. The working title is Making Our Children Well, and it's Inner Traditions Publishing. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  47:21

We'll see. I am editing it literally as we speak. It takes a long time. I never thought I'd write a second book. I was like, “Oh my God.” Okay, there it is. I'm writing it. I've written it. I'm working on it. And Zen Honeycutt, Stephanie Seneff, and I have a podcast called The New MDs once a month on Facebook, Rumble, YouTube. 

We just covered the health manifestations of Hurricane Helene on today's podcast, and Stephanie spoke on how glyphosate can be triggering climate change and storm activation. It's her theory, and it was brilliant.

Dr. Jill  47:58
Oh, I can't wait. Will that be live in a few weeks? Or when will that be live?

Dr. Michelle Perro  48:00
It's published now on Rumble, YouTube, and Facebook.

Dr. Jill  48:07
If you're watching this, we will link that up in the show notes because I want to share that with everyone. I think that's so powerful. Once again, thank you. Thank you. If you guys are driving or anywhere, you can get the show notes for the websites, and we'll share all of that there. Thanks again for joining us for another episode. As you know, we have a new release every week. And if you want transcripts or other details, you can always go to JillCarnahan.com for more information. 

Thanks again, Dr. Perro, for coming on the show. 

Dr. Michelle Perro  48:33

Jill, my pleasure. Thank you.