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June 12, 2006
Background
As you know from earlier alerts, LDA strongly supports continued
funding for the National Children's Study. Advocates have been
told that the Report of the Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education
Appropriations Subcommittee does fund the study as requested.
This is an important first step in the process. The Children's
Health Environmental Coalition, a national non-profit organization
dedicated to educating the public, specifically parents and caregivers,
about environmental toxins that affect children's health, has
issued the following request:
JOIN US - Funding for the Largest Ever Study on Children's Health
is in Peril
We need your help in showing support for funding of the National
Children's Study. The House Appropriations committee can help by
placing in its appropriations bill a $69 million increase in the
NICHD allocation, and send a clear message that the National Children's
Study should move forward.
The National Children's Study is a large longitudinal study intended
to follow 100,000 births from pre-pregnancy and/or early pregnancy
to adulthood (21 years of age). The Study will evaluate the effects
of chemical, biological, physical and psychosocial factors on the
health of children and young adults, as well as gene-environment
interactions that may help identify individuals who are most susceptible
to disease. The major outcomes that will be focused on in the Study
include pregnancy outcomes, neurobehavioral development, psychiatric
conditions, asthma, injuries, diabetes, obesity and physical development.
The National Children's Study should be a national priority if
America wants to remain competitive fifty, or even fifteen years
from now. Last year, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine
predicted that obesity and diabetes would lead to reduced life
expectancy for the first time since the Great Depression. Obese
children become obese adults, suffer heart disease and stroke earlier,
and burden our health care system. Poor health undermines our economy.
Our nation already spends 17% of its gross domestic product on
health care. Spiraling health care costs hurt taxpayers, hurt productivity
and hurt competitiveness. In the 1940s, we faced a similar epidemic
in adults. Heart disease and stroke were killing forty year olds.
A study in Framingham, Massachusetts - the Study on which the National
Children's Study is modeled - paved the way for the prevention
of heart disease, stroke, breast and colon cancers. Life expectancy
has soared since then. Now we face a similar epidemic among our
children, and the need for another study like the Framingham Heart
Study.
By working with pregnant women and couples, the study will gather
an unprecedented amount of data about how environmental factors
alone, or interacting with genetic factors, affect childhood health.
Examining a wide range of environmental factors - from air, water,
and dust to what children eat and how often they see a doctor -
the study will help develop prevention strategies and cures for
a wide range of childhood diseases. By collecting data nationwide
- before diseases arise - the study can test unproven theories
and generate hypotheses that will inform spin-off studies for years
to come. Simply put, this seminal effort will provide the foundation
for children's healthcare in the 21st Century.
Fortunately, Congress recognized the need for a National Children's
Study five years ago, and has provided over fifty million dollars
in Congressional appropriations to support planning by seven federal
agencies. Thousands of researchers in every state of the nation
have worked on planning the Study so that the solution to a crisis
in our nation could be in our grasp. But the Bush administration
proposed ending the Study altogether, stating that the budget could
not support a study of children's health. The House Appropriations
committee can reverse this decision right now by placing in its
appropriations bill a $69 million increase in the NICHD allocation,
and send a clear message that the National Children's Study should
move forward.
The outcome of these efforts will provide the most complete data
to date on the effects of early life exposures to multiple environmental
factors, and will be key to understanding the toxicity of a number
of environmental agents, life stages of susceptibility, and genetic
factors that contribute to susceptibility.
The Study will provide a wealth of data to improve the health
of the nation's children for years to come. Thank you for your
support and taking action.
ACTION NEEDED
You can sign the petition (anonymously if you wish) by going to
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/220983256 |
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