Healthy Children Project Monthly e-News

Feel free to let your friends, family and colleagues know about this valuable new resource. Instructions to subscribe or unsubscribe are at the end of this e-newsletter. MI Healthy Children's e-newsletter is part of a collaborative effort with the Learning Disabilities Association of America's Healthy Children Project and the Institute for Children's Environmental Health with support from the Beldon Fund. 

Clean School Bus USA
http://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/
School buses are the safest way for children to get to school. However, pollution from diesel vehicles has health implications for everyone, especially children. By working together, we can reduce pollution from public school buses making sure that school buses are also a very clean way for children to get to school. Clean School Bus USA brings together partners from business, education, transportation, and public health organizations.

Michigan Students Share Chemical Waste Handling Lessons
http://www.miningjournal.net/stories/articles.asp?articleID=3067
Students at North Star Academy in Marquette have been learning about chemical waste, including the best way to store and dispose of it, and they are spreading their lessons to other area school districts. The students make an inventory of all the chemicals in the school, for instance those used in chemistry and science classes, and implement a plan to dispose of the chemicals when no longer needed.
 

Toxicity and Exposure Assessment for Children's Health (TEACH)

http://www.epa.gov/teach

Toxicity and Exposure Assessment for Children's Health (TEACH) is an EPA project that seeks to complement existing information on health risks to children from exposure to chemicals in the environment. The website has two main components - a searchable database and Chemical Summary Forms.

Information about Legislation Relating to Neurotoxicants
http://www.iceh.org/LDDIlegislation.html
Pending legislation, both state and federal, relating to known or suspected neurotoxicants is listed in a searchable database.
 

Pesticide Contamination Found in All Rivers and Streams

http://www.cleanwateramerica.org/news/dspnews.cfm?id=88
A ten year survey documenting the contamination in the nation's rivers and streams caused by pesticide use has been released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Although the amounts vary and often do not reach levels believed to be harmful to humans, the study reports that pesticides contaminate, to one degree or another, 100% of America's rivers, streams, and the fish that live in them.

New Edition of Hispanic Environmental Health Page Focuses on Pesticides
El medio ambiente y su salud: Pesticidas
http://www.epa.gov/espanol/pesticidas.htm
The Hispanic environmental health page, "El medio ambiente y su salud," focuses on the agency's overall efforts to educate Hispanics, researchers, and health care providers on how environmental health issues affect the different Hispanic communities. The page is updated regularly with new information on developments and policy. Since its launch last year, this popular page has covered issues such as asthma, mold and carbon monoxide. This segment of EPA's Spanish-language portal will feature other environmental issues such as green technology and drinking water in the near future.

Effect of Prenatal Exposure to Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) on Incidence of Acute Respiratory Infections in Preschool Inuit Children
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/8683/abstract.html
Children in the highest quartile of exposure were 25% and 40% more likely than children in the lowest quartile for ear and respiratory infections, respectively. The research team concluded that "prenatal exposure to PCBs could be responsible for a significant portion of respiratory infections in children of this population. Full article available in PDF format by following link above.

Perchlorate: Questions and Answers
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/clo4qa.html
Perchlorate is also used in a wide variety of industrial processes and pyrotechnics. In recent years there has been increasing interest in perchlorate levels in soil, groundwater, drinking water, and irrigation water around the country and what health effects it may have.

EPA: Committed to Putting Children First
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/e987e762f557727d852570bc0042cc90/

f42b7acf21b3b9a685257154005d6db5!OpenDocument
Developing a new generation of pediatricians with environmental health expertise. Studying the effect of on-road emissions in asthmatic children to prevent the health impacts of air pollution. Starting a "green cleaning" program to help reduce children's exposures to environmental hazards in school.

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Interim Mercury Test Results Indicate 1 in 5 Women Has Unsafe Levels

Read the entire report issued by EQI at http://www.sierraclub.org/mercury/downloads/2006-02_eqifullreport.pdf. Look at the report's participant results broken down by state at http://www.sierraclub.org/mercury/downloads/2006-02_eqistate.pdf.
On February 8, 2006, interim results of the nation's largest mercury hair sampling project were released by the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. The report found mercury levels exceeding the EPA's recommended limit in one in five women of childbearing age tested. More than 6,600 people from 50 states of all ages participated in the hair tests conducted by Sierra Club and Greenpeace. Mercury contamination is a particular concern for women of childbearing years (16 to 49 years old) and their small children (under the age of six) because mercury exposure in the womb can cause neurological damage and other health problems in children.

Which Fish are Safe to Eat?

Take a mercury I.Q. quiz at http://www.sierraclub.org/quiz/mercury/ to find out.

Children’s Necklaces Recalled for Lead Poisoning Hazard
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06150.html
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a voluntary recall of "In Style Children's Necklaces" which were sold at Dollar General stores throughout the U.S. The recalled necklaces contain high levels of lead, posing a serious risk of lead poisoning and adverse health effects to young children.

Children’s Jewelry Sold at American Girl Stores Recalled for Lead Poisoning Hazard
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06123.html
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a voluntary recall of the "American Girl Children's Jewelry". The recalled jewelry contains high levels of lead. Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health effects.

Battle Lines Drawn Over Mercury in Shots
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-vaccine10apr10,1,4982212.story?
States push for bans in children's vaccines. But leading medical groups are pushing back. Login required to read this article.

Marquette's 'Clean Sweep' Results in Tons of Electronic Waste
http://mail.wfn.org/2006/04/msg00266.html
Thousands of United Methodists in northern Michigan dug through their attics, basements and garages on Earth Day 2006 to find old and broken computers, televisions, cell phones and other electronics during the second annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep. As of April 25, the total weight for electronics collected had been tallied at more than 300 tons.
 

Granholm Orders 90 Percent Mercury Reduction for Power Plants
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/michigan/chi-ap-mi-granholm-mercury,1,55659.story?coll=chi-newsap_mi-hed
Michigan electric companies are being ordered to slash mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants by 90 percent within nine years, a step toward cleansing the state's waters of a poison that has prompted fish consumption warnings. Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday said the Department of Environmental Quality would develop a rule requiring utilities to achieve the reductions by 2015. The state policy goes beyond mercury reduction standards announced by the Bush administration last year.
 

Experiment Confirms Chloramine's Effect on Lead in Drinking Water
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/apr/science/rr_chloramines.html
Chloramines, which have been linked to elevated levels of toxic lead in drinking water in Washington, D.C., and Greenville, N.C., have again been implicated in high lead concentrations, but this time the evidence comes from real-time experiments. In research published today on ES&T's Research ASAP website, chemist Jay Switzer at the University of Missouri-Rolla describes real-time corrosion studies that show that lead scales on pipes are more likely to dissolve into drinking water when chloramines are used as a disinfectant.

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Effect of Prenatal Exposure to Airborne Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons on Neurodevelopment in the First Three Years of Life Among Inner-City Children
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/9084/abstract.html
At age 3, exposed children were more likely to have lower mental development scores and slower cognitive development, sufficient to raise concerns about future school performance. Full article available in PDF format by following link above.

Children's Health Panel Slams EPA's Perchlorate Goal
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/apr/policy/rr_childhealth.html
The current policy of assuming that all exposures come from drinking water doesn't account for perchlorate found in lettuce or breast milk, the advisors write. The U.S. EPA's new perchlorate cleanup goal isn't supported by science, fails to protect children's health, and needs to be lowered, according to an agency scientific advisory panel. The goal, revised in January by the EPA's Office of Solid Waste, is at least 4 times less stringent than similar goals recently proposed by 3 states. The new cleanup level "is not supported by the underlying science and can result in exposures that pose neurodevelopmental risks in early life." These risks include impaired brain development that can result in such problems as low IQ scores and attention deficits. In sufficient amounts, perchlorate inhibits the uptake of iodide, an essential component of hormones produced in the thyroid. These hormones help guide proper brain development in fetuses and infants.

 
Two Studies Vindicate Mercury Fillings: No Link Found to Impairments

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/267209_fillings19.html
Two new studies, one from the University of Washington involving orphans in Portugal, found no evidence of IQ or other neurological impairment caused by dental fillings made with mercury. But the studies have come under fire from some groups who say researchers unnecessarily exposed children to a known toxic substance, failed to get the proper consent from parents and guardians and overstated the results. The studies are the first to follow children from the time they received the fillings rather than trying to piece together evidence of health problems in retrospect.
 

America's Children and the Environment: Childhood Illnesses
http://www.epa.gov/envirohealth/children/
America’s Children and the Environment brings together, in one place, quantitative information from a variety of sources to show trends in levels of environmental contaminants in air, water, food, and soil; concentrations of contaminants measured in the bodies of mothers and children; and childhood diseases that may be influenced by environmental factors.

America's Children and the Environment: Data Trends
http://www.epa.gov/envirohealth/children/child_illness/index.htm
Data on trends in childhood diseases and disorders provide important information on successes and shortcomings in efforts to protect children’s health. Many important diseases and other health disorders affect children. The causes of many of these conditions are not well established. In some cases environmental contaminants are known to play a role. In other cases clues suggest that environmental factors are important, but definitive proof is lacking.

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Autism Epidemic Doubted, But Tally May Be Too Low
http://fresno.networkofcare.org/kids/news/detail.cfm?articleID=10589
Despite warnings of a national autism epidemic, there’s little data to substantiate such a claim, according to new research compiled a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist. Indeed, special education figures that are being used to suggest an autism explosion are faulty and confounded, said Paul Shattuck, a researcher at the university’s Waisman Center and author of the study, which appears in a recent issue of the journal Pediatrics.
 

The Contribution of Diagnostic Substitution to the Growing Administrative Prevalence of Autism in US Special Education
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/4/1028
Growing administrative prevalence of autism has stirred public controversy and concern. The extent to which increases in the administrative prevalence of autism have been associated with corresponding decreases in the use of other diagnostic categories is unknown. The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the rising administrative prevalence of autism in US special education and changes in the use of other classification categories.

ASA: Study Denouncing Autism Epidemic Off Mark
http://fresno.networkofcare.org/kids/news/detail.cfm?articleID=10628
The Autism Society of America (ASA), in response to a study by Dr. Paul Shattuck appearing in next week’s edition of Pediatrics titled "Diagnostic Substitution and Changing Autism Prevalence," says the study takes the focus away from the real issue: Autism is affecting millions of people and families who need help today.

Controversy over Autism Eats at Credibility of CDC
http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_44437aaa906db0c7003f.html
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rarely the subject of public controversy, is facing an emerging credibility crisis on the emotional issue of whether old-style vaccines containing a mercury preservative caused autism in thousands of children. The agency is being accused of cover-ups and scientific manipulations by vocal advocates of autism awareness. It also is facing questions from some high-profile members of Congress.
 

Who Receives a Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder in the United States Elementary School Population?
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/117/4/e601
ADHD diagnosis is likely to be influenced by a child's social and school environment as well as exogenous child characteristics. Concerns that increased pressures for school performance are associated with increased ADHD diagnoses may be justified.

American Lung Association State of the Air: 2006 Report Finds Too Many U.S. Cities Still Suffer from Air Pollution
http://www.lungusa.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=40407&ct=2315173
The State of the Air: 2006 report finds that more than 150 million Americans still live in counties where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution. The report ranks the cities and counties with the dirtiest air, and provides county-by-county report cards on the two most pervasive air pollutants: particle pollution (more commonly called “soot”) and ozone (more commonly called “smog”). While air pollution is unsafe for everyone, some people are at increased risk because of their age or health situation.

Pollution: Where Have all the Baby Boys Gone?
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article355200.ece

Something very strange is happening in a small but highly polluted Canadian community. And it may explain why every year thousands of British babies who should be boys are born as girls instead. Young boys are becoming hard to find on the Chippewa Indian reservation in the gritty town of Sarnia, in Ontario's "Chemical Valley". It boasts four children's softball teams, but three of them are made up entirely of girls. You must log in or purchase this article in order to read the remainder of the story.

Upcoming CHE Partnership Call: Electromagnetic Radiation, May 24, at 12:00 EST

This call which will focus on issues surrounding electromagnetic radiation and health. This call will be moderated by Michael Lerner, Ph.D. In order to join this call and receive dial-in information, please RSVP to Julia Varshavsky, CHE Program Associate, at Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.
 

Upcoming Conference: Taking Precautionary Action: Roadmap for Success - The First National Conference on Precaution, June 9-11, Baltimore, MD

http://www.healthandenvironment.org/articles/che-events/453
Join with groups to share successful precautionary strategies, tools, policies and programs. Help build the movement for precautionary action to prevent harm from environmental hazards.

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The Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan is pleased to offer grants to 501(C) 3 non-profit organizations located in Michigan for educational programs/events/materials which will help inform key stakeholders of the existing and emerging science linking certain chemical exposures to learning, behavioral, and developmental disabilities. Priority will be given projects which target families and disability groups and/or promote action towards creating a healthier environment for all children. Grantees will be responsible for submitting a final project report, documentation of all expenditures, and copies of materials produced. Maximum award $400. Click here to download an application (PDF).

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Call toll free at 888-597-7809 or 517-485-8160
 

Email us at info@ldaofmichigan.org
 

Write to us at 200 Museum Dr. Ste. 101, Lansing, Michigan 48933

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For more information on The Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan's Healthy Children Project visit http://www.ldaofmichigan.org/healthychild.htm.

 
For more information on The Healthy Children Project visit http://www.healthychildrenproject.org/index.html.

 
For more information on the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative, coordinated by the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health visit http://www.iceh.org/LDDI.html. To join the the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI), please complete the form at http://www.iceh.org/LDDImembers.html.

 
For more information on The Beldon Fund visit http://www.beldon.org/.

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