by Elizabeth Hauge Sword,
Executive Director
Children’s Health Environmental Coalition
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Nancy and James Chuda with young friends from left Lizzie,
Avanti and Yonatan. Nancy in superfine cotton jean shirt. Jim
in John Smedley Sea Island cotton polo shirt in navy.
Joe Shalmoni Photography. |
It seems as though everywhere we
look these days, someone is telling us of
new, unseen dangers to our health. It’s
hard to know who or what to believe.
Information about toxic chemicals in our
environment and their links to chronic
diseases is emerging at a rapid rate. The
threat of toxic chemicals grows, as more
such chemicals are produced and
released into our environment.
Determining what to worry about and
how to protect your family is a challenge.
The Children’s Health Environmental
Coalition (CHEC) provides the most
accurate, comprehensive information for
parents and caregivers on how to prevent
and manage children’s exposures to
these toxic chemicals in air, food, water
and consumer products.
Children are more vulnerable than
adults to these environmental risks
because of their size, physiology and
behavior. Pound for pound, kids eat more
food, drink more water and breathe more
air than adults. They play on the ground
and put objects in their mouths. There
are also stages of development during
which children are especially vulnerable
to health problems linked to exposure to
toxins, especially in the womb.
Indoor hazards, such as polluted
ambient air, lead-based paint, mold and
pesticides, pose significant threats to an
unborn or new baby’s health. Even environmental
exposures that may not be
viewed as immediate risks have the
potential to trigger chronic disease in
adulthood. In other words, all these
seemingly small and harmless exposures
are not so harmless, and they add up. Identifying and eliminating
toxic substances in and
around the house should be
seen as a natural extension
of “childproo.ng” the
home, like covering the electric
outlets or placing baby
gates across the stairs.
Using CHEC’s tools, parents
can begin to make decisions
that will provide an
immediate and real
measure of protection. In fact, people of any age can benefit from
reducing their exposure to these hazards.
We can significantly improve the
health of our children now, and lower the
risk of disease throughout their adult life,
by making even small changes in our
home environment. For example, after
learning that second hand smoke can
cause sudden infant death syndrome or
asthma attacks, parents can decide to
ban smoking in the home or car. After
learning that breathing large amounts of
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can
cause headaches, fatigue, dizziness or
difficulty breathing and that long-term
exposure to some VOCs may cause
cancer and/or brain damage, parents can
switch to low- or no-VOC paints, or
water-based paints. Low- and no-VOC
paints are available from a range of
national brands, however, they need to be
specifically requested.
CHEC helps parents to identify other
similar changes they can make to significantly improve their child’s environment.
Buying an organic cotton mattress and
bedding for your baby or child can reduce their exposure to at least two toxic chemicals
that are used in the U.S. as flameretardants.
Organic also has the added
benefit of being pesticide free, reducing
your baby’s exposure to developmental
neurotoxins. Many organic mattresses
contain wool fill, which is naturally flameretardant.
You may say to yourself, “My mother
didn’t childproof against environmental
hazards and I turned out fine.” That may
be, but we are raising our children in an
increasingly different world than the one
our parents and grandparents knew. The
universe in which our children live today
is a chemical universe. For example,
roughly 85,000 new chemicals have been
invented since WWII. Of those, roughly
3,000 are produced in quantities of
greater than 1 million pounds per year
(HPVs). Of those HPV chemicals, those
that are most widely disseminated in
foods, cleaning solutions, pesticides,
and in the air and water, only 43 percent
have ever been tested to determine
whether they have the potential to cause
any form of toxicity. In other words, 57 percent have not been subjected to even
the most minimal degree of toxicological
testing. Only about 10 percent have ever
been tested with fetuses, infants and
young children in mind.
What about disease? Human health is
the result of a combination of genetics,
behavior and lifestyle. For some diseases
there is no microorganism to blame. An
individual may be genetically predisposed
to disease, but the predisposition
is just that—a potential for disease—
until everyday life experiences and environmental
exposures set the disease in
motion. Judith Stern at the University of
California at Davis described the situation
as “Genetics loads the gun, but environment
pulls the trigger.”
It is impossible to control our genetic
makeup. Current research addresses
how genetic factors in.uence human
susceptibility to environmental health
risks present in food, consumer products,
water and air. In recent years the
patterns of disease have changed a great
deal in America’s children. A century ago
the diseases that killed children in this
country were the same diseases that are
still killing children today in the developing
nations of the world: measles, TB,
malaria, pneumonia, dysentery. Today
the leading cause of death in U.S. children
is injuries, but the second leading
cause of death is cancer. The leading
cause of hospitalization for children is
asthma, which is also the leading cause
of school absenteeism (13 million school
days are missed each year). The incidence
of asthma has doubled and childhood
brain cancer has increased in
frequency. Certain birth defects of the
reproductive tract in baby boys have
more than doubled. Learning and developmental
disabilities are estimated to
affect one in six children in the U.S. and
appear to be increasing.
The potential dangers of many toxins,
acting alone or in combination, are so
complex and the information about these
toxins so extensive that even medical
professionals have difficulty in keeping
up with new developments. “The
problem becomes a huge detective
game, trying to figure out where chemicals
are used, how people are exposed
and how we can control exposure to a
level that is safe,” says John Wargo, professor
of environmental policy and risk
analysis at Yale University. He is coauthor
of “The State of Children’s Health and
Environment 2002.” This report, released
by CHEC in early 2002, offered recommendations
for both parents and policy
makers on reducing environmental
threats. The report highlighted several
chronic illnesses to address concerns
regarding the failure of law to adequately
protect children from these threats.
In the meantime, with the health of
our families at stake, we cannot wait
years for laws to change and products to
be removed from the shelves. We must
become well-informed consumers.
CHEC’s Web-based HealtheHouse can
help by providing the results of research
and reviews of how toxic chemicals
threaten the health and lives of children.
The site (checnet.org) receives almost
30, 000 visitors every month—parents,
teachers, health care professionals—all
seeking information on a wide range of
environmental health topics. The site is
constantly updated with the very latest in
scientific information summarized in a
manner that is understandable, accessible
and useable.
To address the growing concern of prenatal
exposures to environmental toxins
CHEC launched First Steps. This free email
program is a road map to guide parents
through the maze of chemical and
environmental dangers facing their baby.
This is especially important since the
developing fetus is extremely vulnerable
to the potential of toxic chemicals to
derail normal development.
Each First Steps e-mail is sent on the
monthly anniversary of the baby’s due
date throughout pregnancy and the first
24 months and is specific to that stage of
the baby’s development. They offer realistic,
practical, common sense steps that
focus on the highest priority risks.
Examples of topics covered include:
avoiding the most dangerous pesticides;
choosing safer cleaning products;
healthy home renovations and remodeling;
and why taking these steps are so
important to your baby’s health. The consequences
of harmful prenatal events are
often permanent. Alerting pregnant
women to these issues as early as possible
in their pregnancy can make a
meaningful difference to their baby’s lifetime
health and well-being.
In 1991, Nancy and James Chuda, who
lost their only child, Colette, at the age of
five to a rare, non-hereditary form of
cancer linked to hazards in the environment,
formed the Colette Chuda
Environmental Fund (CCEF) with the
help of their dear friend, Olivia Newton-John. The CCEF was created to bridge the
gap between environmental and scientific research and the medical communities
and to focus attention on the
increase in childhood cancer and the significance of childhood exposures to carcinogens.
CHEC was launched in 1992
with funding from CCEF.
Two members of CHEC’s current
board of directors are celebrity mothers.
Child health advocates Erin Brockovich
(subject of the Julia Roberts film) and
Olivia Newton-John use their celebrity
status to help draw media attention to
these important issues. Through the
wonderful volunteer efforts of Olivia and
former national spokesperson, Kelly
Preston, CHEC produced a 17-minute
video, Not Under My Roof: Protecting Your
Baby from Toxins at Home, reviewing
simple steps parents can take to protect
children from chemical exposures at
home. Whether viewed during childbirth
classes, as part of a health educator’s
workshop or home visit, on a maternity
floor’s closed circuit educational channel
or at home in the privacy of the living room,
this video raises awareness of the common
hazards easily eliminated from the home.
CHEC envisions a future of healthy
children and livable communities. How
we preserve and protect our environment
will affect how we live our lives. CHEC
visualizes a world where the air we
breathe, the water we drink, the consumer
products we purchase and the
food we eat are clean and safe, especially
for our children. The health of children
depends on the vigilance of the adults
that manage the environments in which
they live, play and learn. We can all
choose to have a healthier, less toxic,
less-allergenic household. As Sandra
Steingraber says in her book, Having
Faith, An Ecologist’s Journey to
Motherhood, “If the world’s environment
is contaminated, so too is the ecosystem
of a mother’s body. If a mother’s body is
contaminated, so too is the child who
inhabits it. These truths should inspire us
all—mothers, fathers, grandparents,
doctors, midwives and everyone concerned
about future generations—to
action.”
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