Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Pew Charitable Trusts Announce New Center for Children's Health and the Environment

PRNewswire
08-APR-99

NEW YORK, April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mount Sinai School of Medicine and The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced the formation of the Center for Children's Health and the Environment, the nation's first academic research and policy center established to examine the links between childhood illness and exposure to toxic pollutants.

The Center, to be based at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is funded by a $2.5 million grant from the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the country's leading foundations. According to Maureen Byrnes, Director of the Trusts' Health and Human Services Program, the Center will be a valuable resource for research and information as Pew develops its new large-scale initiative focusing on environmental health issues. It is anticipated that grantmaking in this new initiative will begin in the fall of 1999.

As chronic diseases of known or possible environmental origin replace the infectious diseases of the past as major contributors to childhood illness, the Center will analyze the links between pollutants and a variety of childhood diseases, including asthma, cancer, and neurodevelopmental disorders. The Center will also make policy recommendations for protecting children where scientifically warranted.

"Childhood asthma rates have doubled in the past decade; cancer has become the second most common cause of death after injuries in American children; and neurodevelopmental dysfunction appears to be on the rise," said noted pediatrician Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, who will head the new Center.  "There is a pressing need to develop a research agenda to examine the potential environmental links to these diseases, and develop strategies to prevent illness where possible."

The Center will be guided by a distinguished National Advisory Council, including Lynn Goldman, M.D., Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and former Assistant Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency; Judith Palfrey, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; Ruth A. Etzel, M.D. of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Teresa Heinz, Chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation. The Center’s staff will include experts in pediatrics, epidemiology, and toxicology.

"A specialized team of experts within the health community will bring good science to bear on the issue of children's environmental health," said Dr. Palfrey. "It is critical that we recognize that pediatric disease of suspected environmental origin is preventable, but only if we conduct thorough scientific research that elucidates the causes of that disease."

Some 75,000 new chemicals have been developed and dispersed in the environment since World War II. The toxicity of the majority of these chemicals has never been tested, and even less is known about their specific effects on children. Moreover, little is known about how these chemicals may act in combination to affect human health.

Concern is growing among policymakers and pediatricians who want to protect children from known environmental hazards and to increase research into suspected risks. Recent federal policies on pesticides and air pollution, for example, specifically consider children's special vulnerability to pollutants. The American Academy of Pediatrics will soon release its Handbook of Environmental Health for Children, the "Green Book," a comprehensive guide to children's environmental health for pediatricians.

"Children may be more susceptible than adults to the effects of many pollutants," said Ruth Etzel, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health and Editor of the forthcoming AAP Handbook of Environmental Health. "Pediatricians welcome the efforts of the Center to better understand those effects, and to train physicians in diagnosing and treating diseases of environmental origin."

Dr. Landrigan, Professor of Pediatrics and Chair of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, has gained national recognition as a leader in the research and prevention of childhood lead poisoning, asthma, and other diseases linked to environmental exposures. He chaired a committee at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that in 1993 issued the landmark report, Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children.

Research by Dr. Landrigan and others has shown that children differ from adults physiologically and in their degree of exposure to pollutants.  Pound for pound, children eat more food, drink more water and breathe more air than adults. In addition, because children's bodies are still developing, they have less ability to metabolize, detoxify, and excrete toxins than adults.

In recent years, government agencies have begun to factor children's special vulnerability into federal health and environmental protection measures. The NAS report concluded that federal pesticide laws do not adequately protect children. Based on the NAS findings, Congress in 1996 passed new legislation that requires children's health to be considered in setting pesticide standards. In addition, recognition of the vulnerability of children's lungs to air pollutants led to new standards for ozone and fine particulates.

One of the Center's first initiatives will be a conference to be held at the New York Academy of Medicine on May 24-25 entitled "Environmental Influences on Children: Brain, Development, and Behavior." The conference will establish a prevention-oriented framework for risk assessment and a research agenda on children's exposure to environmental neurotoxins.

A press packet is available upon request. More information about Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Center can be found at http://www.mssm.edu/cpm/cche.html. Information about The Pew Charitable Trusts can be found at www.pewtrusts.com. A white paper discussing the Trusts' new HHS program is available on the HHS program page,  however, specific information about new strategy and guidelines for grants will not be available until June, 1999.