Child Development  Lead Poisoning, Mercury in fish, pesticides and children, noise and reading, PCBs and endocrine disruptors in development

Children & Pollution

How do pollutants affect children's behavior and psychological functioning?
The book "Children and Pollution: Why Scientists Disagree" (2009, Oxford University Press) is the only book that reviews the scientific evidence about how pollution affects child development. This book is a battle manual for the green movement. After reading this book you will know how to see when a researcher's values and biases are seriously influencing conclusions. The author also explains how to protect your family and our planet from common pollutants, an how to argue for more effective environmental policies. Click here or scroll down for more info, including links to websites on children and pollution!
           
  

   book cover image  

(available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or your local bookseller)
               (click here for the independent bookseller's website)


   

Reviews


    Children and Pollution: Why Scientists Disagree         
(UW-Psychology page for Colleen F. Moore)

          COLLEEN F. MOORE (University of Wisconsin--Madison)   (University business email address : cfmoore@wisc.edu)

Reveals the scientific evidence about impact of common pollutants on children's psychological development

How does pollution impact our daily quality of life? What are the effects of pollution on children's development? Why do industry and environmental experts disagree about what levels of pollutants are safe? In this clearly written book, Moore traces the debates around five key pollutants---lead, mercury, noise, pesticides, and dioxins and PCBs---and provides an overview of the history of each pollutant, basic research findings, and the scientific and regulatory controversies surrounding it. Moore focuses, in particular, on the impact of these pollutants on children's psychological development --- their intellectual functioning, behavior, and emotional states. Only by understanding the impact of pollution can we prevent future negative effects on quality of life and even pollution disasters from occurring. This volume will be of great interest to parents, child health care experts, public health officials, regulators, and health and environmental advocates.

Offers insight into how industry and environmentalists have come up with sharply different claims about what level of pollution is safe.

  

     Below are just a few links to websites on children's environmental health issues. I have organized the websites around the topics in my book. There are also some other very useful websites listed in my book.
    My book covers the controversies around the pollutants in a way that helps the average citizen understand how environmental decisions can be swayed by biased decision criteria. We all have our own biases, and often our biases are based on our values. It is important in a democratic society that we express our views on "how much pollution is too much". For some people (or industry representatives) it takes a "smoking gun" or a "body count" in order to convince them that a pollutant affects children negatively. For others, the cutoff for saying "that's too much harm" is much lower. Where is your cutoff, and are you letting your elected representatives know what you think?

General Children's pollution issues
Collaborative on Health and the Environment
 http://www.cheforhealth.org/index.html
Institute for Children's Environmental Health
 http://www.iceh.org/Pages/basics.html
RiskWorld -- covering risk news and views

 http://www.riskworld.com/BOOKS/topics/children.htm
Lead poisoning
CDC lead screening guidelines
 http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/guide/guide97.htm
Lead screening questionnaire
 http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/lead/leadscreening.html
Lead in food containers

Lead Clean-up for Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement
 http://www.nncc.org/Health/dc25_child.lead.pois.html

  http://www.epa.gov/lead/pubs/leadinfo.htm#remodeling  
Mercury
EPA freshwater fish advice
 http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fishadvice/advice.html

FDA's 2001 mercury in fish advisory
Read the National Academy of Sciences        Methylmercury report on line
 http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/admehg.html
 http://books.nap.edu/catalog/9899.html
PCBs
ATSDR's fact sheet on PCBs
 http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts17.html
Resource guide to children's environmental health -- PCBs
 http://www.cehn.org/cehn/resourceguide/pcbs.html
On endocrine disruptors:generally
"Our Stolen Future"

 http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
Pesticides
EPA's pesticides and children page
 http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/children.htm
Canadians against pesticides

 http://www.caps.20m.com/facts.htm
Noise
League for the Hard of Hearing page on noise and children's learning
 http://www.lhh.org/noise/children/learning.htm


Noise pollution clearinghouse
 http://www.nonoise.org/
Classroom acoustical booklet from the Acoustical Society of America

 http://asa.aip.org/classroom/booklet.html
Community Pollution Disasters
American Academy of Pediatrics statement on children and radiation disasters
 http://www.aap.org/policy/radiation.htm
EPA's 'history of Love Canal" page
http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/lovecanal/
First 30 yrs of radiation protection at the EPA
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/history.pdf
EPA's 20th anniversary report for Superfund
 http://www.epa.gov/superfund/action/20years/index
Link to Marshall Islands, site of US nuclear bomb tests
  I highly recommend purchase of the video "Radio Bikini"
 http://www.yokwe.net/




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(page modified on 6-8-2009)

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