Fwd: Bill Moyers - epidemic illness in our society

[Guest guest]

I just found out about this broadcast, it is now past. I am sorry

that I missed this.

 

Did anyone watch this program. If so how was it?

 

Frank

 

 

Friday, December 27, 2002 9PM(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, December 27 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 16 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 occurring

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' crew

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 form 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 has been 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 smokestacks 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 breastfeeds 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 <A HREF= " http://www.pbs.org/now " >www.PBS.org/now</A>.

 

Kids and Chemicals was produced by Gail Ablow and co-produced by

Gregory

Henry. Editor: Howard Sharp. Associate Producer: Karla Murthy.

Executive Producer: Felice Firestone.

 

NOW with Bill Moyers. Executive Producer: John Siceloff; Senior

Producer:

Peter Bull; Executives-in-charge: Judith Davidson Moyers and Judy

Doctoroff

O'Neill; Executive Editors: Bill Moyers and Judith Davidson Moyers;

Supervising Producer: Sally Roy.

 

NOW with Bill Moyers is funded by PBS, the Kohlberg Foundation, Inc.

and The

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding for

this

program is provided by The Herb Alpert Foundation and The Bernard and

Audre

Rapoport Foundation.

Corporate funding is provided by Mutual of America Life Insurance

Company.

 

The series is a production of Public Affairs Television, Inc. for

PBS, with

contributions from NPR News. NOW is a national presentation of

Thirteen/WNET New York.

__________

Press Contacts:

 

Rick Byrne of Communications