Chemicals in Everyday Products and Children’s Health: A Small Dose of the Facts | Healthy Child Healthy World
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
The US Finally Studies Toxins in our Society
The National Children’s Study Begins to Recruit Participates this month.
Lead by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the EPA: The National Children’s Study will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21.
We come into contact with hundred if not thousand of the 81,000 chemicals registered with the EPA of which only twenty percent have been tested by the EPA as reported by the Children's Environmental Health Center.
This has lead us into a “vast toxicological experiment in our society, in which our children and our children’s children are the experimental subject” - Dr. Herbert Needleman Pediatrician and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
At this time the EPA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have limited statistical data about the affects of chemicals and how the combination of chemicals can affect our health.
The EPA’s 1998 Chemical Hazard Data Availability Study found that no basic toxicity information, i.e., neither human health nor environmental toxicity, is publicly available for 43% of the high volume chemicals manufactured in the US and that a full set of basic toxicity information is available for only 7% of these chemicals.
The EPA’s 2009 website booklet The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality states “Air pollution is up to five times higher inside our homes than outside and that 90% of our time is spent indoors.”
“In addition, people who may be exposed to indoor air pollutants for the longest periods of time are often those most susceptible to the effects of indoor air pollution. Such groups include the young, the elderly, and the chronically ill.
Statistics compiled by the child advocacy group Healthy Child Healthy World for their health and education program Creating Healthy Environments for Children report that “the number of children in special education programs increased 191% from 1977 -1994, Asthma rates in children under age five have increased more than 160% from 1980-1994, childhood-cancer rates jumped 26% from 1975 – 1998 and that stay-at-home moms have a higher rate of cancer.”
These rates could be the result of the increase in true reporting of incidents or the results of improved detailed reports.
During the 1991 renovation of Charles Young Elementary School
in Washington, DC. the Carpet and Rug Institute sponsored Dr. Michael A Berry to conduct a 5 year study of the environmental effects of implementing green clearing and indoor air quality programs that addressed total Environmental quality.
The study concluded after the renovation: School attendance increased from 89% to 93%, Math scores at basic or above increased from 51% to 76% Reading scores at basic or above increased from 59% to 75%.
The National Children’s Study will take 21 years to complete. The goal is to provide researchers, health care providers, and public health officials with data to develop prevention strategies, health and safety guidelines, and possibly new treatments and cures for disease.
References
The National Children’s Study Begins to Recruit Participates.
The National Children’s Study
http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/research
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
www.hhs.gov/
Environmental Protection Agency
Chemical Hazard Data Availability Study
http://www.epa.gov/HPV/pubs/general/hazchem.htm
The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/insidest.html
Dr. Herbert Needleman Pediatrician and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Healthy Child Healthy World
http://healthychild.org/
Creating Healthy Environments for Children DVD
Charles Young Elementary School in Washington, DC
www.carpet-health.org%2Fpdf%2FCharlesYoungElementary.pdf
Lead by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the EPA: The National Children’s Study will examine the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of 100,000 children across the United States, following them from before birth until age 21.
We come into contact with hundred if not thousand of the 81,000 chemicals registered with the EPA of which only twenty percent have been tested by the EPA as reported by the Children's Environmental Health Center.
This has lead us into a “vast toxicological experiment in our society, in which our children and our children’s children are the experimental subject” - Dr. Herbert Needleman Pediatrician and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
At this time the EPA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have limited statistical data about the affects of chemicals and how the combination of chemicals can affect our health.
The EPA’s 1998 Chemical Hazard Data Availability Study found that no basic toxicity information, i.e., neither human health nor environmental toxicity, is publicly available for 43% of the high volume chemicals manufactured in the US and that a full set of basic toxicity information is available for only 7% of these chemicals.
The EPA’s 2009 website booklet The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality states “Air pollution is up to five times higher inside our homes than outside and that 90% of our time is spent indoors.”
“In addition, people who may be exposed to indoor air pollutants for the longest periods of time are often those most susceptible to the effects of indoor air pollution. Such groups include the young, the elderly, and the chronically ill.
Statistics compiled by the child advocacy group Healthy Child Healthy World for their health and education program Creating Healthy Environments for Children report that “the number of children in special education programs increased 191% from 1977 -1994, Asthma rates in children under age five have increased more than 160% from 1980-1994, childhood-cancer rates jumped 26% from 1975 – 1998 and that stay-at-home moms have a higher rate of cancer.”
These rates could be the result of the increase in true reporting of incidents or the results of improved detailed reports.
During the 1991 renovation of Charles Young Elementary School
in Washington, DC. the Carpet and Rug Institute sponsored Dr. Michael A Berry to conduct a 5 year study of the environmental effects of implementing green clearing and indoor air quality programs that addressed total Environmental quality.
The study concluded after the renovation: School attendance increased from 89% to 93%, Math scores at basic or above increased from 51% to 76% Reading scores at basic or above increased from 59% to 75%.
The National Children’s Study will take 21 years to complete. The goal is to provide researchers, health care providers, and public health officials with data to develop prevention strategies, health and safety guidelines, and possibly new treatments and cures for disease.
References
The National Children’s Study Begins to Recruit Participates.
The National Children’s Study
http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/research
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
www.hhs.gov/
Environmental Protection Agency
Chemical Hazard Data Availability Study
http://www.epa.gov/HPV/pubs/general/hazchem.htm
The Inside Story: A Guide to Indoor Air Quality
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/insidest.html
Dr. Herbert Needleman Pediatrician and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Healthy Child Healthy World
http://healthychild.org/
Creating Healthy Environments for Children DVD
Charles Young Elementary School in Washington, DC
www.carpet-health.org%2Fpdf%2FCharlesYoungElementary.pdf
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