Medical information about our children health

[Guest guest]

Jai Guru Datta

 

FOr those in the US this is a very important program

because you would not hear about these problems in the

media.

 

ARE WE MAKING OUR CHILDREN SICK - MAY 10

 

KIDS AND CHEMICALS, A SPECIAL REPORT

 

NOW WITH BILL MOYERS TRACKS THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR

ANSWERS ABOUT

HOW ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS AFFECT AMERICA'S CHILDREN

 

Premieres Friday, May 10 at 9:00 (ET) on PBS (check

local listings)

 

It is a medical mystery marked "urgent." Across America

growing

numbers of children are suffering from asthma, childhood

cancers like

leukemia, as well as learning and behavioral

disabilities. Scientists

are searching for clues to the causes of these

illnesses, and a

growing body of research suggests that everyday

environmental

toxins-what kids eat, drink, and breathe-may put them at

risk.

Equipped with new technology and more sophisticated

analysis, these

scientists are asking compelling questions about the

health risks to

children growing up exposed to an ever-increasing number

of untested

chemicals in our environment.

 

Kids and Chemicals, a special edition of NOW with Bill

Moyers to be

broadcast on PBS, Friday, May 10 at 9 p.m. (ET),

features medical

investigators and health officials engaged in the latest

research on

links between childhood illness and environmental

contamination. The

program looks at families around the country who are

coping with the

consequences to their children of potentially toxic

exposures.

 

"The disturbing increases in childhood illness in

America cannot be

ignored," says Bill Moyers. "How does the exposure

affect children's

health? The new research is studying how chemicals enter

the human

body, and posing questions that they could never ask

before: Do

chemicals affect children, babies and unborn fetuses

more than adults?

What factors increase toxicity, and how can we protect

children from

harm?" Kids and Chemicals' producers Gail Ablow and Greg

Henry go to

Fallon, Nevada, a small desert town that has had 15

recorded cases of

childhood leukemia in just five years. Alarmed, Dr. Mary

Guinan, who

was one of Nevada's top health officials, called in the

Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the

potential links

between this childhood cancer and the environment. Could

toxic

substances in water, food, air, schools, homes or the

ground in Fallon

be responsible for this "cancer cluster"? If so, which

chemicals?

Without clear evidence of a specific cause, everything-

from jet fuel

emissions to pesticides to naturally occuring arsenic in

the water-is

suspect.

 

As Moyers and his team learn in Fallon, research on

cancer clusters

once focused mainly on gathering environmental samples

because

investigators simply didn't have tools sensitive enough

to measure

which toxins had been absorbed into people. Dr. Richard

Jackson, the

director of the National Center for Environmental Health

at the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, explains how

his

laboratories are using the latest instruments. His

research scientists

are using sophisticated blood and urine analysis to test

for minute

traces of toxins in the bodies of the sick children and

their families

in Fallon.

 

This work is part of a larger movement in children's

environmental

health unfolding nationwide. Dr. Phillip Landrigan of

the Mount Sinai

School of Medicine in New York City works with

scientists around the

country to understand how kids are affected by exposure

to chemicals.

"Of the 3000 high production volume chemicals in use in

this country

today, only 43% have been even minimally tested," he

tells Moyers.

"Only about 10% have been thoroughly tested to examine

their potential

effects on children's health and development."

 

Speaking with Landrigan, Moyers learns that children are

potentially

more vulnerable to chemicals than adults. "First of all

they're more

heavily exposed pound for pound," says Landrigan. "They

eat more food,

they drink more water, they breathe more air. Then, of

course, kids

play on the ground. They live low, they put their hands

in their mouth

and so they transfer more toxic chemicals into their

body than we do."

 

Traveling to Research Triangle Park, North Carolina,

Moyers meets Dr.

Linda Sheldon of the Environmental Protection Agency's

National

Exposure Research Lab. Sheldon demonstrates how her team

of scientists

is gathering evidence of exposure to everyday chemicals

in nursery

schools, homes and daycare centers.

 

In New York City, a groundbreaking study led by Dr.

Frederica Perera

at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public

Health, follows more

than 500 expectant mothers. These women are wearing air

quality

monitors in backpacks to trap the environmental toxins

they breathe.

As their children are born and as they grow, Dr. Perera

and her team

will look for links between the chemicals that the

mothers were

exposed to while their babies were developing in the

womb and asthma,

cancer risk, and learning disabilities.

 

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a biologist at Cornell

University, joins Dr.

Landrigan in asserting that exposure during pregnancy

doesn't, by

itself, mean a child will get ill. What matters is the

intensity of

the exposure and when it occurs during fetal

development. A chemical

exposure occurring early in pregnancy might cause a

miscarriage, argue

the researchers. If it occurs later on, it might cause

physical birth

defects. Later still, it might damage brain cells.

Scientists are

trying to precisely identify these "windows of

vulnerability." Says

Dr. Steingraber: "Maybe certain problems that we

understand . . . as

attention deficit disorders, hyperactivity, the

inability to pay

attention, aggressive and violent behaviors, might have

their origins

during those windows of vulnerability during pregnancy

and these

questions are just being asked. Data is just beginning

to come in."

Dr. Perera's team at Columbia is also studying the way

that chemicals

can actually bind to human DNA in the womb and cause a

mutation called

an "adduct." Work by Dr. Perera has shown that the

greater the number

of adducts, the greater the risk for cancer. "And that's

the missing

link in all of this," says Dr. Steingraber. "That's the

link we're

beginning to fill in."

 

To place the current studies in a public health policy

context,

Moyers revisits the firestorm over lead research;

recalling the

revolutionary work of Dr. Herbert Needleman, who

correlated low-level

lead exposure to lower IQ's in children in 1979. Twelve

years later,

Needleman's work was attacked by the lead industry as it

tried to

protect its economic stake in lead products. Ultimately,

the validity

of Dr. Needleman's work was fully vindicated, and new

public policy

required unleaded gasoline and restrictions on lead

paint. And many

scientists believe that, as a result, children's IQ

scores have risen,

on average, three points. Yet, as Moyers points out,

lead remains the

number one environmental threat to children's health;

many old houses

and even many school buildings are still testing

positive for lead

today.

 

In Herculaneum, Missouri, lead contamination is a very

current issue.

The community is up in arms about the astonishingly high

levels of

lead to which their families have been exposed because

the town's

primary industry, the Doe Run lead smelter, failed to

comply with EPA

standards. "Doe Run played a really good game," Robyn

Warden, a

mother, tells Moyers. "They told people everything was

under control

and we were safe. And people weren't educated enough to

know any

different. It took people actually investigating lead to

figure out

that we were being lied to."

 

Dr. Steingraber knows the importance of informed

parenting. Even in a

seemingly pristine environment in rural New York, she

knows there are

possibilities of risk. "Just because there are no smoke

stacks visible

around us, just because you live a long way from the

source of these

chemicals, doesn't mean that nature won't bring them to

you in some

way," she says. A mother who breast feeds her infant

son, Dr.

Steingraber also realizes that she passes toxins

directly to her baby

every time she nurses. "No woman has uncontaminated

breast milk on

this planet," she states. Dr. Steingraber tries to

reduce her

children's exposure at home by using non-toxic

products. "But we can't

shop our way out of our current situation," she

warns. "We still need

to take action. It's time that our public policy takes

action to get

our kids out of harm's way."

 

There are unknown answers to many questions. Moyers

reports on a

proposed new project called "The National Children's

Study," which

will track 100,000 children from the womb to age 18 if

it receives

full funding from Congress. This long-term study may

provide the

definitive answers necessary for new regulations and

laws protecting

children from exposure to toxins. "Without conclusive

science," Moyers

says, "it is a constant fight to protect children's

health."

 

Find out more about how scientists are studying

environmental toxins

and join the ongoing discussion about the critical

issues covered in

NOW online at http://www.PBS.org/now.