Air Pollution Can be Detrimental to Child’s IQ
February 5, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Exposure to air pollution in the womb can significantly reduce a child’s IQ, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Mailman School of Public Health in New York and published in the journal Pediatrics.
The researchers conducted the experiment on pregnant, non-smoking black and Dominican American women between the ages of 18 and 35 who were living in the New York City neighborhoods of Harlem, South Bronx or Washington Heights. The participants wore personal air monitors during pregnancy, providing the researchers accurate data on the women’s exposure to a class of air pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The participant’s children were then subjected to standardized IQ tests at age five.
“These results provide evidence that environmental PAHs at levels encountered in New York City air can affect children’s IQ adversely,” the researchers concluded.
PAHs are produced by the burning of fossil fuels and other organic materials, including tobacco. The major source of PAH pollution in urban areas is automobile exhaust.
The researchers found that after adjusting for other factors that might affect IQ, children of mothers who had high PAH exposure during pregnancy had IQ scores an average of 4.31 points lower than children of mothers with lower exposure. The difference in verbal IQ scores was even higher, with children of high-exposure mothers scoring an average of 4.61 points lower. This IQ difference is equivalent to that seen in children with low-level lead exposure.
“These findings are of concern because these decreases in IQ could be educationally meaningful in terms of school performance,” lead author Frederica Perera said.
High PAH exposure was defined as higher than the participants’ median exposure level, 2.26 nanograms per cubic meter. It was a comparative measure used for the purposes of the study only, and not linked to any health recommendations.
Previous research has already suggested that PAH exposure can cause cancer and damage the neurological and reproductive systems.
Click here for the full report
Toxins Affect Baby Still in Womb
November 17, 2009
Sphere.com
By Andrew Schneider
It is one of the worst nightmares for a mother-to-be: She’s poisoning the baby in her belly, and there is little she can do about it.
Now new research out Tuesday has put hard numbers to those fears, showing that chemicals from everyday products contaminate women’s bodies, and that their children enter the world already exposed to known toxics.
Nine women from California, Oregon and Washington participated in the first-of-its-kind study and had blood and urine samples taken during their second trimester of pregnancy.
The results showed that even in the womb, children aren’t safe from known toxins. The researchers found 13 toxic chemicals in the bio-fluids of the pregnant women. Their report showed that:
• Bisphenol A, used to make polycarbonate plastic and the lining for food cans, was found in the urine of each woman. An artificial estrogen, it has been shown to be harmful to fetal development. In adults, low-level exposure to BPA can cause decreased sperm production, early onset of puberty, chromosome damage in female ovaries, and a variety of behavioral changes.
• Every test subject had at least two and as many as four perfluorinated compounds in her blood. These “Teflon chemicals” are used to create stain-protection products and non-stick cookware and are classified as a likely human carcinogen; in tests on laboratory animals, they have been shown to cause liver, thyroid, pancreatic, testicular and mammary glad tumors.
• Mercury, known to harm brain development, was in the blood of every woman in the study.
• Breakdown products – phthalate monoesters – of at least four phthalates were in the urine of all nine women. Used as plasticizers and fragrance carriers in numerous consumer products, phthalates are linked to reproductive problems and asthma.
The report further noted that research has proven that toxic chemical exposure has been linked to serious health problems like asthma, childhood cancers, diabetes, infertility and learning disabilities. “Yet the degree to which children are exposed to toxic chemicals before they enter the world is still being discovered.”
The Environmental Protection Agency and scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have repeatedly shown that exposure to toxic chemicals before birth and during infancy have the most serious and irreversible consequences.
However, the report does not offer a correlation between the levels of the chemicals found in the mothers and any health problems their newborns were expected to encounter.
“We cannot say with certainty whether these particular babies were harmed by the toxic exposures in the womb,” Schreder said in an interview late Monday. But “we do know that they were exposed during the very most vulnerable time in their lives to chemicals associated with cancer, learning disabilities and infertility.”
Most of the mothers were stunned by the results of the testing.
“I was surprised. The levels were much higher than I expected them to be,” said Alex Rosenstein, a Realtor from Issaquah, Wash. “And this is just from living what I consider to be a normal life.”
Amy Ellings, a public health nutritionist from Olympia, said: “The government’s role is to protect the public from hazards like these. The FDA should be much more active in keeping these persistent chemicals out of our food and packaging.”
To that end, the groups that produced the report, echoing calls from other public health and environmental activists across the country, say that immediate steps must be taken to eliminate the use of persistent toxic chemicals — those that build up in our bodies or are passed on to the next generation. They also want manufacturers to create consumer products using only chemicals fully tested for safety.
Congress has called for a full revamping of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the law that attempts to control the manufacturing of hazardous chemicals in this country. At recent House and Senate hearings on the EPA law, lawmakers heard testimony stating that out of 80,000 chemicals believed to be in use today, only 200 (including most of the compounds found in the pregnant women) had ever been comprehensively tested for health hazards.
For the West Coast researchers, their findings only underscore how little information the public has on toxic contamination before birth.
“Our study cannot answer these very important questions,” Schreder said. “But it opens a window to view the serious threats faced before entering the world — threats that could affect health and well-being for a lifetime.”
Scientists Claim Cancer Can Pass from Mother to Infant
October 19, 2009
ExamHealth.com
By Deborah Mitchell
Researchers say they have determined without a doubt that in rare cases, cancer can be transmitted from a mother to her infant in the womb. The report comes after a team of scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research conducted a thorough investigation of a case in which a 28-year-old mother passed along cancer to her infant daughter.
Dr. Anthony Ford, of the Institute of Cancer Research and one of the authors of the study, noted in a recent interview on The World on Public Radio International that there have been only 20 to 30 reported cases of cancer passing from mother to infant in the last 200 years. This latest case is unlike the others, however, because scientists were able to determine how and why the cancer cells were able to pass to the fetus and develop into cancer.
According to Dr. Ford, the cells that normally would be prevented from passing to the fetus through the placental barrier changed their compatibility so that they resembled the infant’s own cells. Because the infant’s immune system did not recognize that the cells were foreign, it did not attempt to destroy them as it normally would do.
In this most recent case, the mother had undiagnosed leukemia during her pregnancy, died several months after giving birth, and then her infant daughter developed a tumor in her jaw that was detected at age 11 months. When the doctors conducted tests of the tumor, they found that it contained leukemia lymphoma cells, and that the cancer had spread to the child’s lungs.
The scientists also determined that the cancer cells of both mother and baby carried the identical mutated cancer gene, but that the girl had not inherited the gene. Using advanced genetic fingerprinting, the scientists were able to prove that the cancer cells were passed from the mother to her infant.
Professor Mel Greaves, who headed the study at the Institute of Cancer Research, noted in the release on the Institute’s website that “We are pleased to have resolved this longstanding puzzle. But we stress that such mother to offspring transfer of cancer is exceedingly rare and the chances of any pregnant woman with cancer passing it on to her child are remote.”
Click here for the full report.
