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Environmental Causes Of Developmental Disorders Explored
NEW YORK - Developmental disorders such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and mental retardation may be more preventable once more research on the role of environmental toxin exposure in neurological disorders is conducted, speakers said at a Manhattan conference.
While lead, PCBs, mercury and certain pesticides are known to cause a percentage of developmental disorders, research on how other toxic chemicals may affect children's neurological development remains to be done, according to Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, Director of the Center for Children's Health and the Environment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, the conference sponsor.
"I am distressed over the fact that we know the causes of only a fraction of these developmental disorders, that 70% to 75% of them have no known cause. If we don't know the cause, we don't have hope of doing anything sensible," Dr. Landrigan said.
Fewer than 20% of the approximately 75,000 chemicals manufactured in the last 50 years have been evaluated for potential neurotoxicity, according to a press release issued by the Center for Children's Health and Environment.
One reason so many gaps exist in current knowledge about the impact of environmental toxin exposure on neurological function is the "...difficulty documenting the exposures," conference speaker Dr. Ruth A. Etzel of the American Academy of Pediatrics told Reuters Health.
"We live in sort of a chemical soup where each day, every one of us has hundreds of some high, some low exposures. The kinds of effects they can have on the nervous system are often quite subtle and therefore very difficult to study," Dr. Etzel said.
"We might recognize a child, for example, with severe mercury poisoning, but we might not recognize slight mercury poisoning because that might result in such subtle neurologic deficits that...it might look like it's in the normal range," Dr. Etzel added.
Until more evidence is available on the impact of environmental toxins, Dr. Etzel urges parents and pediatricians "...to be observers of the environment in which children live."
"Some of the most important discoveries about environmental hazards have come from pediatricians who notice something unusual in their practice," she noted, "...either a cluster of unusual diseases that occurs in a neighborhood, or perhaps an unusual exposure that alerts them to something that might be going on."
The conference is scheduled to end on Tuesday with the development of "...a national research agenda and recommendations for protecting children from pollutants that affect neurological development and behavior."
(c) Reuters Limited 1999.