Chronic childhood diseases linked to exposure to toxic chemicals in the
environment have been surging upward, costing the U.S. almost $55 billion a
year.
That was the opening message 150 scientists and doctors heard Wednesday at a
daylong symposium on children's environmental health at the Milwaukee Art
Museum.
Philip J. Landrigan, professor and chairman of preventive medicine at Mount
Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, outlined the challenges facing those
working to combat the rise of birth defects, asthma, neuro-developmental
disorders and other major diseases of children in the United States and other
industrial nations.
"The environment is a powerful determinant of human health, and there's no
group more vulnerable or susceptible to adverse influences in the environment
than kids," Landrigan said, explaining that children experience greater exposure
to chemicals pound-for-pound than adults.
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Warning: Chemicals in the packaging, surfaces or
contents of many products may cause long-term health effects, including cancers
of the breast, brain and testicles; lowered sperm counts, early puberty and
other reproductive system defects; diabetes; attention deficit disorder, asthma
and autism. A decade ago, the government promised to test these chemicals. It
still hasn't. |
He said there are 3,000 high-volume chemicals used today; for roughly half,
there is no basic toxicity information publicly available.
For the past six to eight years, national surveys have found these chemicals
present in our blood and urine, he said.
"They're routinely finding a whole suite of chemicals in everybody. Some
smaller surveys done by Environmental Working Group and others have documented
pretty much the same chemicals quite routinely in maternal breast milk and in
the cord blood of newborns."
Asthma, he said, results from a range of environmental factors, including
tobacco smoke, pesticides, mold and cockroach droppings. Cancer in children has
been linked to exposure to radiation, solvents, paints and pesticides.
Landrigan proposed a number of possible solutions to address these illnesses,
including better testing of chemicals for toxicity, better tracking of diseases
in children, more research and better training of health care providers.
Landrigan was in Milwaukee for a three-day conference sponsored by the
Children's Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, which is based at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.
Other talks during the symposium highlighted research into the neurological
effects of methylmercury in the fish consumed by Native Americans, links between
exposure to solvents and congenital heart disease in Wisconsin, and the impact
of exposure to trichloroethylene on the hearts of birds.
The Journal Sentinel