Childrens Health and the Environment
Links to articles in today's press about environmental health. Many more links available today at www.EnvironmentalHealthNews.org
Updated: 27 weeks 6 days ago
51 children suffer lead poisoning in Eastern China.
Fifty-one children have been found to have excessive levels of lead in their blood following health checks of 110 children in east China's Jiangsu province. The local government has closed a battery factory suspected of being the source of the pollution.
Categories: Environmental Health
School lunches: Push for healthier foods faces barriers.
Parents find the rules stacked against them as they try to remove entrees such as pancakes.
Categories: Environmental Health
Fresh review of school food safety.
Lax testing of food quality in schools is giving new meaning to the term "mystery meat." Congress is making a welcome push for higher food-testing standards after newspapers shone a light on gaps in safety standards.
Categories: Environmental Health
Fake pharmaceuticals.
Of the chemicals he uncovered in various counterfeit malaria pills, Facundo M. Fernandez did not expect to find sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. He also didn’t expect to find one of the building blocks for the street drug ecstasy, or metamizole, banned in the U.S. because it may cause serious bone marrow disorders.
Categories: Environmental Health
No proof of autism, diet link.
An expert panel says there's no rigorous evidence that digestive problems are more common in children with autism compared to other children, or that special diets work, contrary to claims by celebrities and vaccine naysayers.
Categories: Environmental Health
Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law.
Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States - from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners - nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the EPA, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.
Categories: Environmental Health
Flu season not over, but lessons emerging.
The 2009 flu pandemic was not the disaster public health authorities feared. But it's been pretty bad, with hundreds hospitalized in Minnesota and a tragic death toll among the state's children. It's also held enough surprises to keep experts guessing all the way.
Categories: Environmental Health
Another study finds no MMR-autism link.
A new study finds that children who had received the MMR vaccine actually had a lower risk of autism than their unvaccinated peers. Nor was there any evidence of an increased autism risk with the measles-only vaccine.
Categories: Environmental Health
Allergy epidemic may start in womb.
After years of seeing a dramatic rise in children coming to hospitals with severe allergies and asthma, researchers believe the environment of expectant mothers may be to blame for health problems.
Categories: Environmental Health
China closes down battery maker.
Authorities halted production at a battery company in southern China after dozens of children near a factory tested positive for elevated lead levels, including eight with serious poisoning.
Categories: Environmental Health
Unusual lead poisoning case.
Most US communities have low rates of childhood lead poisoning - averaging 1.2 percent of the total population. But with the new influx of Burmese immigrants, Fort Wayne's exposure rate rose to 12 percent.
Categories: Environmental Health
Early menstruation linked to heart disease risk.
British researchers found that among nearly 16,000 middle-aged and older women followed for more than a decade, those who'd started menstruating before age 12 were more likely to die early and more likely to develop cancer, heart diseases, and to suffer strokes.
Categories: Environmental Health
First results from air toxics monitoring at Idaho school released.
The first results from air toxics monitoring at Lapwai High School on the Nez Perce Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho are now available on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site.
Categories: Environmental Health
This just in: More research needed.
The question of whether prenatal environmental influences can affect patterns of disease throughout life - and whether the influence affects genes themselves or their epigenetics - continues to vex scientists, parents and regulators. And transgenerational possibilities make it even more complex.
Categories: Environmental Health
Longer time to conceive may increase risks for mom, baby.
Women who took more than two years to get pregnant were 51 percent to 64 percent more likely to have adverse pregnancy outcomes such as premature delivery and giving birth to an unhealthy baby.
Categories: Environmental Health
FDA to study safety of drugs taken during pregnancy.
U.S. health officials plan to study the safety of medications taken during pregnancy with an eye toward using the data in future regulations and medical practice, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday.
Categories: Environmental Health
Company’s record on beef treatment questioned.
Government and industry records show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims about the effectiveness of their novel ammonia treatment.
Categories: Environmental Health
Global warming blamed for rise in malaria on Mount Kenya.
Global warming has caused a seven-fold increase in cases of malaria on the slopes of Mount Kenya, a British-funded research team has found.
Categories: Environmental Health
Environmental crews clean up heating oil spill at Preston school.
Environmental cleanup crews continued excavation Wednesday at Preston Veterans Memorial School in search of contaminated water and soil from a leak that sent hundreds of gallons of heating oil into the ground.
Categories: Environmental Health
How McDonald's makes sure its burgers are safe.
The hamburger you buy at McDonald's may look just like the hamburger you cook at home. But, in terms of safety, the two burgers are not close.
Categories: Environmental Health