ScienceCache
Vol. 202
Sept. 19, 2005
TEENS BECOME FOCUS OF MERCURY-FISH STUDY
Rochester scientists and doctors are heading to a beautiful tropical
island to examine a group of islanders in a study that has implications
for anyone in the world who enjoys the taste of seafood. The team is
beginning the latest phase of one of the longest-running studies ever
to follow the health of a group of people over many years. The 16-year
study of more than 700 children in the Seychelles Islands is looking
at whether small amounts of mercury in ocean fish such as tuna and swordfish
are harmful to people. The issue has been hotly debated, with environmentalists
claiming that hundreds of thousands of U.S. children are at risk of serious
neurological impairment because their mothers ate fish containing mercury
during pregnancy. So far, though, scientists have not observed any adverse
effects among children whose mothers ate, on average, 12 meals of fish
each week during pregnancy. That is about 10 times as much fish as most
Americans eat. “The body of evidence so far indicates that there
are not detectable effects in young children,” says Philip Davidson,
professor of Pediatrics and chief of the Strong Center for Developmental
Disabilities at Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong, who is
leading the study. “But we don’t know about older children
until we study them. There is no question that many chemicals and contaminants
are neurotoxic. The real question is whether the actual exposure has
enough of an effect to be relevant.” The study is continuing for
five more years, thanks to another round of funding from the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which recently awarded the
group $3.4 million to evaluate the children as teenagers.
Full story
THE DOCTOR SAID: NO MORE CHILDREN JUMPING ON THE BED
Typically, parents worry about their children bumping their heads or
wearing out mattresses when they catch them jumping on the bed. But parents
should also be wary of injuries from broken wires inside worn-out mattresses.
Dante Pappano, an attending physician in the Children’s Emergency
Department at Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong, recently
published a paper in Pediatric Emergency Care about a case of a Rochester
boy who was injured when a wire snapped inside the mattress and imbedded
itself in his foot. Pappano said the 2002 injury surprised him, so he
did more research. Pappano visited a local mattress manufacturer and
two retail mattress stores. He gutted an old mattress from his own home
and another his mother-in-law planned to toss out. Eventually, he hypothesized
that the wire was a piece from a long, straight wire that held the boy’s
mattress coils upright and hooked onto a frame at either end. Pappano
said that type of construction is not common, and he believes it is generally
found only in older, inexpensive mattresses. The wire injury does not
seem to be common, but Pappano still warned against allowing children
to jump on mattresses. “If you have an older, cheap mattress, you’d
be better off not jumping on it,” he said.
Full story
CHEMICALS’ EFFECTS ON REPRODUCTION IS FOCUS OF NEW CENTER
Growing evidence suggests that ubiquitous chemicals soaked up by pregnant
women around the time of conception or late in pregnancy may be harming
the fetus, ultimately having an impact on the child’s future health.
To explore this question, the Medical Center has established a Center
for Reproductive Epidemiology. Shanna H. Swan, professor of obstetrics
and gynecology, will serve as director of the center. She is internationally
recognized for her work on links between male and female reproduction
and environmental toxins. Since 1998 she has served as principal investigator
for a federally funded, multi-center Study for Future Families, an investigation
into the environmental causes of geographic variations in reproductive
health. Her most recently published research showed that phthalates – hormone-disrupting
chemicals used to soften plastics and found in many cosmetics, lotions
and shampoos – in a mother’s body during pregnancy had subtle
effects on the development of the genitals of infant boys. Swan and colleagues
are planning a long-term study of families living in the Rochester area
to better understand how phthalates and other environmental exposures
can impact infant development.
Full story
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