EPA Report Finds Mercury a Growing Threat to Children's Health
by Guest Blogger, 3/10/2003
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its long-awaited report on children’s health and the environment, ("America’s Children and the Environment: Measures of Contaminants, Body Burdens, and Illnesses"), finding that mercury emissions pose an increasing threat to children.
EPA found that 8 percent of women of childbearing age (16 to 49) have at least 5.8 parts per billion of mercury in their blood -- the level at which EPA says there is an increased risk of adverse health effects to a fetus. “Like lead, mercury is a developmental neurotoxin that causes most damage as the brain and central nervous system develop in the fetus and young child. Exposures have been linked to lowering of IQ and gross motor skills as well as other neurological diseases,”
according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. The report also acknowledges that states have been issuing more and more warnings about dangerous mercury levels in fish.
The report clearly indicates that mercury emissions, mainly from coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources, need much stricter controls, yet the Bush administration continues to promote its feeble "Clear Skies Initiative," which would actually slow down the reduction of mercury emissions scheduled under the Clean Air Act, giving industry more than 15 years to cut emissions by 70 percent.
EPA also found:
- Childhood asthma rates doubled over two decades, climbing from 3.6 percent in 1980 to 8.7 percent in 2001;
- The number of children with elevated levels of lead in their blood has decreased dramatically -- from 4.7 million in 1978 to 300,000 in 2000 -- mostly due to the phase-out of lead in gasoline as well as a reduction in the number of homes with lead-based paint; and
- Levels of cotinine in children’s blood, an indicator of exposure to secondhand smoke, were 56 percent lower than they were in 1988 -- the result of a decrease in adult smokers.
