Inches

UPDATE no. 35 - December 2002 INCHES

The International Network on Children's Health,
Environment and Safety

In this update:
New members
Reports
News items
Upcoming Conferences
INCHES funding
____________________________________________________________

First of all we would like to wish you a very good and healthy 2003 (if you are using this counting of the years). It seems that many activities will be happening in the coming year in the field of children’s health and the environment. I hope that INCHES as network will be able to help you all in the important work you are doing. If you have information to share with us just get in touch with the secretariat or the email address of INCHES.
Peter van den Hazel, Marie Bistrup, Kinga Polanska

New members:
Environment Youth 2K (EY2K)
EY2K is registered with Zimbabwe Youth Council under the aegis of the Ministry of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation strives to promote sustainable development of the environment through the active participation of the young men and women in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. EY2K seeks to establish a situation where the people in Southern Africa have been capacitated with the necessary skills to effectively manage and protect their environment.
Contact person: Tanyaradzwa Furusa: ey2k@junglemate.com

Youth Challenge
Youth Challenge, a charitable body, works to provide stimulating programmes for young people.
As they strive to achieve a better quality of life for all humanity, they also aim to foster a closer relationship and greater understanding with our members and global partners.
Contact person: Jasmine Lee: asmine@youthchallenge.org.sg
61 Killiney Road, Singapore 239522; (T) +65 6336 3434; (F) +65 6734 1008
Web site: www.youthchallenge.org.sg

Youth Development Organization (YODO)
Somalia has been without a central government for 12 years, followed by violent human right abuses & destruction. Most of Somali children don't get their basic rights such as: Health care, Education, Clean environment and safety. In every Somali town you can see orphan children who sleep on streets, and there are no orphanage places to care these fatherless children. This inspired us to start campaign to help the children.
Contact person : Ibrahin A/lahi Mohamad
Address organisation : Airport Street 2; Bosaso-Somalia.
Tel. Organisation : 00-25252-35708. Fax : 00-25252-36701.
Email : yodopl@hotmail.com. kulmiye66@hotmail.com

Reports
On 28 November 2002, in Gothenburg, Sweden, Marie Louise Bistrup, network coordinator of INCHES, made a presentation about INCHES and of the Policy Interpretation Network on Children's Health and Environment, PINCHE, at the annual meeting of the Swedish chapter of ISDE, Swedish Physicians for the Environment (SLFM). SLFM are interested in the activities of INCHES and in potential collaborative projects within ISDE and INCHES. A project of special concern is the influx of chemicals and hormone like substances from human and veterinary medicine that comes as waste into the environment and pollutes lakes, rives and the groundwater.
The president of SLFM is Johan Hallberg (johan.hallberg@gamma.telenordia.se); vice-president is Jehns Christian Martineus (j.c.martineus@excite.com)."

News items:

MSNBC: new grounds for eating organic

Even before the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "organic" seal went into effect last October, which certifies foods grown free of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, growth hormones and genetically-engineered substances, Alexandra Ramdin decided to give organic foods a try. "Nothing had been conclusively proven showing organic food to be healthier or more nutritious," says Ramdin, a Seattle mother of two daughters, ages 2 and 5. "But I decided to give organic the benefit of the doubt." Now, having enrolled in a study that tested children to determine whether eating organic food reduced their exposure to pesticides, Ramdin is even more certain about her choice. She and a neighbor, whose family eats a conventional diet, were among 40 households who kept food diaries of their children for three days, then collected their kids' urine for analysis. The study by researchers at the University of Washington concluded that children fed a diet of organic foods were exposed to far fewer toxic pesticides than children fed a conventional diet. Link to the Washington Study:

Cynthia L. Curl, Richard A. Fenske, Kai Elgethun. Organophosphorus Pesticide Exposure of Urban and Suburban Pre-School Children with Organic and Conventional Diets.

Environ Health Perspectives http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2003/5754/abstract.html

Air Pollution Linked to School Absenteeism

Scientists in Korea are reporting that air pollution in the country's capital city, Seoul, may increase the amount of illness-related absenteeism among children attending elementary school. "It has been known that air pollution leads to respiratory illness among children. A few studies have shown that air pollution is related to school absence, but they have produced inconsistent results," the authors write in the December issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

To investigate, Dr. Hyesook Park of Ewha Woman's University evaluated school absenteeism records for 1996 to 1999 for students attending one elementary school in Seoul. The researchers also analysed air pollution data for the same time period in the city.

Park's team found that as concentrations of ozone, particulate matter and sulphur dioxide rose, children were more likely to be absent from school due to illness. "This study suggests that air pollution increases illness-related school absences," the authors write. "This result provides an important basis for the establishing policy for ambient environment," they conclude. Ozone is produced by a chemical reaction that occurs when sunlight hits air pollutants emitted in automobile exhaust. Particulate matter consists of tiny particles that are largely a by-product of combustion, and sulphur dioxide is released by coal-fired power plants. Breathing these pollutants can cause coughing and respiratory irritation in people of all ages, but children and the elderly are especially vulnerable.

SOURCE: Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 2002;156:1235-1239.

Debate Rages Over Safe Levels Of Toxin for Adults and Infants
By PETER WALDMAN ; Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Perchlorate is one of a newly recognized group of toxins called endocrine disrupters -- chemicals such as dioxin and PCBs that can alter hormonal balances and thus impede human reproduction and development. The debate is over how much perchlorate causes harm, and whether fetuses and infants are more susceptible than adults to perchlorate's effects at very low doses.

The EPA, citing experiments on rats and epidemiological studies in Arizona and California, says perchlorate is dangerous in drinking water at levels above one part per billion. The Pentagon and defense industry, citing human experiments and epidemiological studies in Chile, say perchlorate is safe in drinking water below 200 ppb. Billions of dollars in cleanup and liability costs may hang in the balance, since most perchlorate plumes in the U.S., including the Colorado River, range between four and 100 ppb. In 1993, several defense contractors, backed by the Pentagon, created the Perchlorate Study Group to research toxicity. The group's "goal," according to an internal document written in 1996 by GenCorp's Aerojet subsidiary, was "to provide EPA with a scientific-based argument to justify a higher [reference dose] and thus a more reasonable remediation standard." The industry group has spent roughly $7 million on toxicity studies.

Perchlorate has been found in local drinking wells across the country in amounts that could be causing the slow spread of serious disease. Yet, as with other contentious toxins such as arsenic and lead, the more information EPA scientists learned about perchlorate, the more they worried about its effects. Their main concern focuses on changes found in the brain size of laboratory rat pups exposed to low doses of perchlorate in utero. Such changes in so-called brain morphometry indicate perchlorate's thyroid effects may cause permanent neurological damage -- in rats as well as people, the EPA says, because the thyroid system works similarly in both species. The Pentagon and its allies say the rat studies, which the industry's study group directed and sponsored, used poor autopsy techniques on the rats. And why trust rat data, they argue, when human data are available? The Pentagon and its allies cite an Oregon study that found small doses of perchlorate, given orally to adult volunteers, had little effect on thyroid-hormone levels. The EPA says the human study didn't examine the most-sensitive subgroups -- pregnant mothers and infants -- and was much too brief to measure the effects of long-term exposure. To counter, the defense establishment cites an epidemiological study of three Chilean villages with varying levels of naturally occurring perchlorate in their drinking water. The study's conclusion: Perchlorate had little effect on the thyroid-hormone levels of newborns and children in the three villages studied. The EPA prefers a different epidemiological study that it claims shows "strong evidence" of perchlorate's danger to infants. That study found California babies born to mothers exposed to trace amounts of perchlorate in drinking water had lower thyroid-hormone levels at birth than did infants of nonexposed moms. California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment recently used that study, and other human data, to derive its own "health goal" for perchlorate in drinking water of two ppb.
Discussion to be continued.

Upcoming Conferences
Global Health Council's 30th Annual Conference, Our Future on Common Ground:
Health and the Environment, May 27-30, 2003, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C, USA
Register via our website. The link to the registration process is:
http://www.globalhealth.org/forms/conf2003/registration/index.php

The ISMF will arrange a conference on "An Environment for Better Health" with focus on children's health and environment 8-10 May 2003 in Århus, Denmark, as part of preparations for Budapest.

INCHES funding
We are preparing a cooperation project with Russian and former Soviet states members. To enable this project on information dissemination, translation of material on CEH, supporting working groups to work efficiently we have a group of four experienced workers in place. We are seeking financial support to continue their work for this network. If you have a connection to a potential funding source let us know and we will provide you with the details of this project.

Did you locate a possible sponsor? Do you know a private sponsor? Can we mail some information on INCHES to one of your friends? Any donations (or suggestions of possible donors) are welcome at bank account nr.: 526292490 ABN AMRO (swiftcode ABNANL 2A), Dieren, Netherlands

Last updated January 16, 2003

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