| Montreal, 18/10/2001 – The environment ministers of Canada, Mexico and the United States have named the members of the Expert Advisory Board on Children's Health and the Environment in North America. The three ministers work together through the Montreal-based North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in addressing environmental issues of common concern.
In a resolution they passed jointly during the June 2000 CEC Council meeting in Dallas, the ministers agreed "to establish for a period of two years, an Expert Advisory Board composed of environment and health experts selected by the Parties to advise the Council on issues concerning children's health and the environment."
"There is growing concern over the environmental hazards confronting the health and development of our children," says Janine Ferretti, Executive Director of the CEC. "Concerns relating to asthma, cancers, exposure to lead, mercury and other toxins-a whole host of hazards to which children are particularly vulnerable. Progress on these issues is going to take the combined efforts of our best and our brightest across North America. So I am very pleased with the appointments of these obviously very highly qualified experts. I think it reflects the great importance the ministers attach to this initiative," she said.
The Expert Advisory Board is composed of nine members, three appointed by each of the three ministers, as follows:
Canada
Dr. Irena Buka
Pediatrician at the Child Health Clinic at the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta.
Dr. T. Kue Young
Professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Medicine.
Dr. Claire Infante-Rivard
Professor at the Joint Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University's Faculty of Medicine.
Mexico
Dr. Irma Aurora Rosas Pérez
Researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México's (UNAM) Ecology and Environmental Science Program.
Dr. Miguel Angel Montoya
Emeritus Researcher at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology of the National Institute of Perinatology.
Dr. Silvestre Felix Frenk y Freund
Emeritus Researcher at Mexico's National Institute of Pediatrics (Instituto Nacional de Pediatría), where he previously served as Executive Director.
United States
Beatriz Barraza-Roppe
Director of Health Promotion for the San Diego Colaborativo SABER project.
Dr. Bruce Perrin Lanphear
Associate Director for Research in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dr. Michael Shannon
Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the clinical director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Center at Children's Hospital Boston.
The first meeting of the Experts Advisory Board is planned for late November.
Further information:
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