Invited Commentary
Scientific advances provide opportunities to improve pediatric environmental health

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2004.03.044Get rights and content

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Biomonitoring

The most extensive overview to date of the nation's exposure to environmental contaminants was recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (available online at: http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport).3 The CDC reported biomarkers of exposure (ie, concentrations of a chemical or its metabolite) for 116 chemicals in blood and/or urine samples, collected from people as young as aged 1 year, across the United States during the 2-year period of 1999 to 2000. Samples were

Environmental monitoring

Advances in instrumentation, methods of isolation, purification, and determination in contaminant analytical chemistry are providing scientists with increasing amounts of information on the number and levels of emerging contaminants that are present in our environment. Recently, the US Geological Survey (USGS), Water Resources Discipline, published the first nationwide study of the concentration and distribution of emerging contaminants in water resources (available online at //toxics.usgs.gov/pubs/ofr-02-94/index.html

New scientific initiatives

The issue of the effects of the environment on pediatric health is complex, but there have been many recent scientific advances on this topic. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) have jointly funded 12 Centers for Children's Environmental Health (for additional information, online see: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/translat/children/children.htm). The goals of this program are to conduct research to reduce

Resources for pediatricians

Typically, pediatricians do not have special training in environmental health, but they need to be informed when faced with a patient whose parents are concerned. The pediatrician can play a critical role in the prevention of environmentally induced disease by educating parents and patients, taking into consideration the fact that prevention must be approached differently for patients of varying ages.1 Often parents visit the doctor with concerns about their child's environmental exposures, but

Summary

The field of pediatric environmental health is changing and will continue to change rapidly as emerging chemical threats to children are identified, as further advances in biomonitoring and environmental monitoring are achieved, and as research programs of the NIEHS and the US EPA bear fruit. Besides the obvious responsibility of pediatric practitioners to stay abreast of recent developments, pediatricians can play an important role in guiding future areas of research. Through multidisciplinary

Acknowledgements

The authors thank R. Yang, S. Reynolds, and J. Burch for their suggestions for this commentary.

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Cited by (3)

  • The importance of calcium-binding proteins in childhood diseases

    2005, Journal of Pediatrics
    Citation Excerpt :

    AGEs were first recognized in the food industry,74 and their accumulation because of high temperature or storage constitutes a chronic risk for disease. The challenge for the food industry is therefore to control and to reduce AGEs in nutrients in protein diets for neonates and infants to minimize the burden of these adverse end-products to improve pediatric environmental health.75,76 Further experiments are needed to explain the homeostatic, as well as injurious, properties of RAGE and its ligands in health and pathology.

Submitted for publication Sept 8, 2003; last revision received Mar 3, 2004; accepted Mar 17, 2004.

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