coyote's corner

This is one of the newsletters I receive. I'll not say anything - you can
come to your own conclusions.
(It's so hard to keep my mouth shut!!!)
coyote
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rachel News" <rachel-replies@...>
To: <RACHEL-NEWS@...>
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 5:12 PM
Subject: Rachel #764: Children's Health Declining


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> =======================Electronic Edition================
> . .
> . RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS #764 .
> . ---March 6, 2003--- .
> . (Published April 18, 2003) .
> . HEADLINES: .
> . CHILDREN'S HEALTH IS DECLINING, .
> . SAYS AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY .
> . ========== .
> . AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL WILL SPEND $50 .
> . MILLION TO IMPROVE ITS IMAGE AMONG WOMEN .
> . ========== .
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>
> CHILDREN'S HEALTH IS DECLINING,
> SAYS AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
>
> by Bette Hileman*
>
> Over the past few decades, various disturbing trends have led
> researchers to believe that environmental exposures are
> contributing to children's declining health status in the U.S.
> Federal and private health programs are just beginning to
> realize the extent of the problem and to seek solutions.
>
> Scientists are concerned that environmental exposures cause a
> wide range of health threats to kids, including birth defects,
> cancer, and asthma. According to a recent study from the
> National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS),
> childhood cancer incidence has risen 1% a year since the early
> 1970s, the prevalence of asthma has gone up sharply, the
> incidence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
> may be increasing, a growing percentage of boys are born with
> defects in their reproductive tracts, and the prevalence of
> autism is rising dramatically....
>
> [In late February the National Institute of Environmental
> Health Sciences sponsored a meeting to examine a number of
> specific environmental health risks to children, address ways
> to translate science into action to protect children, and to
> identify research gaps.]
>
> ...Former U.S. Public Health Service director Philip R. Lee
> gave the keynote speech at the meeting. He described the types
> of exposures likely to affect the health of the fetus and
> children and some things that can be done to mitigate these
> exposures. Lee is professor emeritus of social medicine at the
> University of California School of Medicine.
>
> Children are especially vulnerable to environmental insults,
> Lee said. "At birth, their nervous, respiratory, reproductive,
> and immune systems are not yet fully developed. They are in a
> dynamic state of growth with cells multiplying and organ
> systems developing at a rapid rate," he explained. Also, pound
> for pound, children take in more air, food, and liquids than do
> adults.
>
> The impact of neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD on
> children and their families is immense, Lee said. Children with
> ADHD are at greater risk for dropping out of school early, drug
> abuse, and suicide. Environmental exposure to any of a number
> of known and suspected developmental neurotoxicants could
> contribute to ADHD, including lead, mercury, manganese, tobacco
> smoke, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), certain
> pesticides, and solvents, he said.
>
> One of the exposures society could easily reduce, Lee said, is
> to manganese. Its effects include inattention, impulsivity, and
> hyperaggression. Manganese -- an essential nutrient -- occurs
> at very low levels in breast milk, but it is added to infant
> formula made from cow's milk and occurs naturally at even
> higher levels in soy formula. It is dangerous for infants to
> consume more manganese than they would get from breast milk
> because infants have no capacity to excrete excess amounts
> until they are older, he said....
>
> David O. Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health & the
> Environment at the State University of New York, Albany,
> discussed the effects of exposures to lead, mercury, and PCBs.
> Children with higher lead exposures are more easily distracted,
> less organized, and apt to be hyperactive, impulsive,
> aggressive, and easily frustrated, he said. "Blood lead levels
> as low as one microgram per deciliter are associated with
> harmful effects on children's learning and behavior. There may
> be no lower threshold for some of the diverse effects of lead
> in children," he observed.
>
> Low-dose prenatal exposure to mercury, Carpenter said, also
> affects a broad range of skills -- motor, attention, and
> language for instance. It decreases IQ and increases
> impulsivity. "Children of women who consume large amounts of
> fish and seafood during pregnancy" are at highest risk of
> problems from mercury, he said. Immigrants, Native Americans,
> and others who obtain much of their protein from subsistence
> fishing are likely to be overexposed to mercury. Blood levels
> of mercury in one-tenth of U.S. women of childbearing age
> exceed the reference dose, the safe level, he noted.
>
> Early life exposure to PCBs has similar effects, Carpenter
> said. Infants with the highest exposure, as shown in cord blood
> and breast milk, have abnormal reflexes and less developed
> attentiveness to visual and auditory stimuli. Even 3.5 years
> after birth, they have multiple behavioral problems, as well as
> impaired thyroid and immune systems. What is totally unknown,
> he explained, are the adverse effects if a child is exposed to
> two or three of these substances--lead, mercury, and PCBs.
>
> Exposure to air pollution such as ozone or nitrogen oxides is
> associated with a wide array of health problems, said Jonathan
> Samet, epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg
> School of Public Health. Prenatal exposures can cause pregnancy
> loss and reduced birth weight. Postnatal exposures are
> associated with cancer, sudden infant death syndrome, and
> respiratory symptoms, he explained.
>
> It is important, Samet continued, to look at the air quality of
> the microenvironments where children spend a lot of time. For
> example, most children spend time at home, at school, on
> playgrounds, in school buses (an average of 40 minutes per day)
> and parents' vehicles, and outside in neighborhoods, he said.
> Inside the home, key exposures include tobacco smoke, nitrogen
> oxides, wood smoke, radon, biological agents, volatile organic
> compounds, and particles from outdoors, he said. Outdoor
> exposures are to particles (especially from diesel smoke),
> ozone, biological agents, and hazardous air pollutants.
>
> "We know that high levels of combustion-related pollution
> increase mortality and morbidity, including acute respiratory
> illness," Samet said. "But increases in the incidence of asthma
> cannot be explained solely by outdoor air pollution," he
> observed.
>
> "More research is needed, but we do know something," Samet
> concluded. One is that children who live within 90 meters of a
> main road have an increased risk of wheezing illness. Another
> is that children who play team sports outside in areas with
> high levels of ozone are much more likely to develop asthma
> than those who play in clean areas. This is from a cohort study
> of 3,522 children in Southern California with no history of
> asthma. Also, among asthmatic children, the number of acute
> events requiring emergency care goes down dramatically when air
> quality improves. Emergency care and hospitalizations for
> asthma declined 42% during the 1996 summer Olympic Games in
> Atlanta when driving was sharply curtailed.
>
> Peyton A. Eggleston, professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins
> Bloomberg School of Public Health, noted that acute asthma was
> more than twice as prevalent among black children (7.2%) as
> among white children (3.0%) and that the annual death rate from
> asthma among black children is more than twice as high (38.5
> per million) as it is for white children (15.1 per million).
>
> A study of hospitalizations for acute asthma in Baltimore from
> 1989 to 1999 shows that the number is lowest in summer and
> peaks during September and October. Ozone levels outdoors are
> highest in July and August, so this means "we need to look at
> air quality indoors," as a causal factor, Eggleston said. Also,
> he noted, "I think viral infections are important in causing
> asthma problems in the fall."
>
> In a National Cooperative Inner City Asthma Study, researchers
> went to the homes of 1,528 asthmatic children in eight urban
> centers, Eggleston said. They found that smoking occurs in 69%
> of these inner-city homes, elevated nitrogen dioxide in 24%,
> leaky roofs with water damage--which means mold is probably
> present--in 29%, and excess roach allergen in the dust in 77%.
> Children who were sensitized to mold, cockroaches, and dust
> mites had many more emergency visits to the hospital. As a
> group, the 1,528 children averaged 3.3 wheezing days every two
> weeks and one emergency room visit every six months.
>
> The 1% annual increase in the incidence of childhood cancer
> since 1974 is primarily due to increases in leukemia and
> central nervous system tumors, said Leslie L. Robison of the
> department of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. With
> leukemia, however, "it is less clear whether we are looking at
> an artifact or a true increase over time," he said. For central
> nervous system tumors, better diagnostic techniques may explain
> the increase, he said.
>
> In any event, Robison said, one individual in every 600 is
> diagnosed with cancer before the age of 15, about 8,500
> children are diagnosed annually with cancer, and about 2,500
> die each year. The highest incidence of cancer is in the first
> year of life. "It is quite obvious these cancers are caused by
> something that happened prior to birth," he explained.
>
> A second peak of tumors occurs during the latter part of
> adolescence. The most common cancers during this period are
> Hodgkin's disease, bone and thyroid cancer, and melanoma....
>
> There are known risk factors for some cancers, but they do not
> explain the extent of the increase, Robison said. For example,
> brain tumors and acute lymphoblastic leukemia can be caused by
> ionizing radiation in utero. Acute myeloid leukemia can be
> caused by ionizing radiation in utero or by chemotherapy, he
> said. But there are no known risk factors for many childhood
> cancers, such as neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, Wilm's tumor,
> hepatoblastoma, Ewing's sarcoma, and germ cell tumors.
>
> Some of the environmental risk factors that may play a role in
> childhood cancer include the pregnant mother's exposure to
> tobacco, alcohol, cured meats, topoisomerase II inhibitors (a
> class of cancer drugs), and improper doses of vitamins.
> Postnatal exposures to pesticides and electromagnetic fields,
> and parental occupations in agriculture, aircraft, pesticide,
> painting, and pulp and paper industries may also contribute,
> Robison said. It is likely that genes and environment are both
> important in most childhood cancers, he said. "It is very
> unlikely there are any cancers driven by genetics or
> environment alone," he explained. But, he added,
> gene-environment interactions have been investigated hardly at
> all....
>
> At this point, "studies should focus on what actually we can do
> to prevent childhood cancer," said Michael Thune of the
> American Cancer Society. Much progress has been made in
> treating cancer, but few advances have been made in identifying
> cancer causes, he said.
>
> Even though cancer clusters get a lot of media attention, few
> scientific discoveries have been made from studying them, said
> Tom Sinks of CDC's National Center for Environmental Health. A
> confirmed cancer cluster can be the result of chance or a
> miscalculation in the expected cancer rate.
>
> However, a cluster of leukemia in Fallon, Nev., is interesting,
> Sinks said. Fifteen cases of childhood acute lymphocytic
> leukemia were diagnosed there when less than one would be
> expected. "Fallon was warned for years about high levels of
> arsenic in its drinking water," which remain very high, he
> said. High tungsten levels have also been found in Fallon. When
> compared with mean levels in CDC's latest national survey, 85%
> of the people in Fallon have elevated tungsten levels, he said.
>
> Godfrey Oakley, visiting professor of epidemiology at Rollins
> School of Public Health at Emory University, pointed out there
> is more about the environment than just contaminants that can
> affect children's health, including vitamin deficiencies,
> drugs, and maternal diseases. He said, for example, that folate
> deficiency is known to cause birth defects, especially neural
> tube defects. Folate deficiency is cheap and easy to solve by
> fortifying flour and cereal with folate and taking vitamins. In
> the U.S. since 1998, flour and some cereals have been fortified
> with folate, but they are not fortified in Europe. "If you want
> to make a significant reduction in birth defects, pay attention
> to old problems," he said. Other known causes of birth defects
> are the pregnant mother's use of valproic acid, Accutane, and
> excess amounts of vitamin A; maternal diabetes; and rubella
> during pregnancy, he said.
>
> Terri Damstra of NIEHS discussed the World Health
> Organization's global assessment of endocrine-disrupting
> chemicals (EDCs)--substances that disrupt the endocrine
> system....
>
> Exposure of the fetus or the young child to EDCs may result in
> permanent changes in function, Damstra said, but exposure
> during adulthood may not result in detectable effects. Another
> feature of EDCs is that exposure to the same level during
> different life stages may produce different effects.
>
> One observed effect of EDCs is impaired neurobehavioral
> development in children caused by fetal exposure to PCBs,
> Damstra said. A weight-of-evidence approach looking at data
> from all the relevant research indicates that EDCs in the
> environment have potential for adverse outcomes on people.
> "Coordinated international research strategies are urgently
> needed to address numerous data gaps and uncertainties," she
> said. "Prevention of exposure is the single most effective
> means of protecting against environmental threats," she
> concluded.
>
> Environmental agents can disrupt many cellular events in the
> neurological development of the fetus, child, and early
> adolescent, according to Ted Schettler, a physician who is
> science director for the Science & Environmental Health
> Network, a think tank that is concerned with the wise
> application of science to the protection of the environment and
> public health. These include cell division, migration,
> differentiation, formation of synapses, pruning of synapses,
> myelinization, and apoptosis.
>
> For example, cell differentiation can be affected by exposure
> to ethanol, nicotine, mercury, lead, and decreased thyroid
> hormone, Schettler said. However, there are still many
> uncertainties when trying to assess the effects of toxicants on
> nervous system development. One is the "long latent periods
> between relevant environmental exposures and emergence of
> evidence of impairments. Therefore, waiting for proof of harm
> before acting can result in widespread damage," he said.
>
> "We are in the midst of a revolution in scientific
> understanding of links between exposures and health that
> promises to provide opportunities for new interventions to
> protect public health," said John Peterson (Pete) Myers, senior
> adviser to the United Nations Foundation. This revolution is
> driven by research funded by many governments.
>
> A result of these research efforts is a torrent of new papers
> coming out virtually every week showing that many environmental
> contaminants are biologically active. This research suggests
> that adult chronic diseases will need fresh examination,
> particularly with respect to the possibility that environmental
> contaminants are programming the fetus so that chronic disease
> develops later in life, he explained.
>
> Despite these research needs, EPA's program on children's
> environmental health may be scaled back. The agency's Office of
> Children's Health Protection has been without a director since
> April 2002, and the executive order creating the Presidential
> Task Force on Children's Environmental Health & Safety will
> expire on April 21. EPA has proposed to cut its annual funding
> for the Centers for Children's Environmental Health from $6
> million to $3 million. The centers are jointly funded by EPA
> and NIEHS. If Congress approves this funding cut, the total
> number of [children's environmental health] centers will
> decline from 12 to 10.
>
> =========
>
> * Bette Hileman is Senior Editor, Chemical & Engineering News,
> a publication of the American Chemical Society. This is
> excerpted from a longer article, "Children's Health," published
> in Chemical & Engineering News April 7, 2003, pgs. 23-26. The
> American Chemical Society is a professional association for
> chemists.
>
>
>
> AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL WILL SPEND $50
> MILLION TO IMPROVE ITS IMAGE AMONG WOMEN
>
> From Plastics News March 31, 2003
>
> HOUSTON (March 28, 2003) -- The American Chemistry Council
> (ACC) may be taking a page from the American Plastics Council's
> (APC) playbook in an attempt to improve its image. The ACC will
> make a decision this spring on a communications program that
> would be "similar in size and scope" [$50 million] to the one
> APC launched several years ago, said Nova Chemicals Corp.
> President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Lipton, who serves
> as an ACC board member.
>
> "APC spends most of its money on TV commercials that focus on
> young, married women," Lipton said.... " The commercials help
> young, married women feel that they and their families are
> safer because of plastic products.
>
> "The concept has worked extremely well for plastics and it can
> work the same way for chemicals."
>
> [On April 4, 2003, Ad Age reported that the American Chemistry
> Council had selected Ogilvy & Mather, New York, and its public
> relations unit Ogilvy PR for its $50 million advertising
> campaign. The American Chemistry Council is a trade association
> for chemical corporations. --Peter Montague]
>
>
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