Toxins and Children
Eight research centers throughout the country have ach been awarded $1
million grants by the federal government to help scientists with a significant study
focused on the effects of chemicals on early childhood development.
The use of chemicals over the past 30 years has doubled and yet very limited attention has
been given to determining the impact of these chemicals on the human reproduction process,
and the development of young children.
Studies performed in the past almost always focused on adults, and therefore chemical
exposure regulations often were based on the results seen when male adults are exposed to
chemical toxins.
In many ways, children are not little adults. Children consume more food per unit of body
weight and breath more air per unit of body weight than an adult does.
In our state, the University of Southern California has been funded to investigate how the
environment affects children’s respiratory disease.
The University of California at Berkeley will use their grant funds to analyze the
pesticide exposure of children in agriculture and determine the effect on their growth and
development.
Similar sized grants were provided as follows:
· University of Washington (child susceptibility to pesticides)
· University of Iowa (airway diseases in children from rural communities)
· University of Michigan (childhood asthma)
· Johns Hopkins University Hospital (environmental pollutants and allergens)
· Columbia University (environmental risks to African-Americans, and to Latino infants
and children)
· Mount Sinai Medical Center (neuro developmental toxins)
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November / December 1998
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