CHILDREN from a Worcestershire family are among those found to have "worrying" levels of man-made chemicals in their bloodstreams.

Tests on seven families - including the Williams family of Stourport-on-Severn - found youngsters often had higher levels of the hazardous substances in their systems than their parents.

Mum-of-two Beth Williams now wants Euro MPs to take a tougher line on their use.

The substances include chemicals used in flame retardants, non-stick covers and stain-resistance agents - some of which were banned 30 years ago - which can absorbed through the skin, inhaled, or found in food.

"It's very difficult to predict where the high levels come from, particularly ones banned 20 or 30 years ago," said Ms Williams, an ecologist at University College Worcester.

"This goes far beyond changing our lifestyle, we should be looking at controls - with a lot of chemicals, there is no medical testing.

"The real issue is that there are so many chemicals. We don't know where they come from or how to avoid them."

Ms Williams' 13-year-old son, Seamus, was found to have three times the amount of PCBs - a group of chemicals used in electrical equipment in the 1970s but now outlawed in Britain - in his blood compared to his mother.

The World Wildlife Fund claims that high levels of PCBs in mothers have been associated with adverse behavioural and neurological effects in some babies.

Meanwhile, his nine-year-old sister Connie had the highest levels of PBDEs, used as a flame retardant on textiles and furniture, which are suspected "hormone disrupters".

"What's most worrying is that a lot of the children tested have higher chemical burdens than their parents. This family in particular supports that," added Viv Cole, regional manager at the WWF which co-sponsored the survey in which the family had volunteered to participate.

"If children have these chemical loads now, what's it going to be like for them when they are adults or for their grandchildren?"