FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 25, 2001 #01-23 25 Oct 2001: New Children's Environmental Health Centers to Study Causes of Autism and Other DisordersThe National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (http://www.niehs.nih.gov) and the Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov) today jointly announced four new children's environmental health research centers - centers that will focus research on childhood autism and such behavioral problems as attention deficit disorder. The centers will each be funded at $5 million, or approximately $1 million per year for five years beginning in August. Two of the centers - at the University of California at Davis and at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey -- will study environmental factors that may be related to autism. A center at the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana (http://www.uiuc.edu/) will assess the impact of exposure to mercury and PCBs among two groups of Asian-Americans in Wisconsin, whose diets are heavy in fish from the Great Lakes. The fourth center, at Children's Hospital of Cincinnati, Ohio (http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/default.htm) , will work with community participants to assess the impact of reducing pollutants in the home and neighborhood on children's hearing, behavior and test scores. "These centers will help us understand whether environmental factors play a role in the progress of autism and other childhood disorders and illnesses," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said. "Ultimately the research conducted at these centers will allow us to better target our health and prevention efforts in order to do the most to improve the lives of America's children." EPA and NIEHS, which is a part of the federal National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, already fund eight children's environmental health research centers. In jointly announcing the new center grants with EPA Administrator Christie Whitman at the Children's Hospital of Cincinnati today, NIEHS Director Kenneth Olden, Ph.D., said, "We all witness the miraculous development of newborns and young children as they undergo great physical and mental changes in just a few years. But sometimes a child tragically loses, or never attains, his or her ability to speak or interact socially. Other times, a child's development orconcentration is impaired. We know that in some cases, lead exposure has been the culprit, so we as a nation have removed lead from paint and gasoline - and taken other steps so that kids today are testing smarter than youngsters a generation ago. But lead is not the only potential developmental toxin. We want to see what other environmental substances might trigger developmental problems - so that we can reduce the exposures and prevent the damage." EPA Administrator Whitman said, "These new centers - and the eight already in existence across the country - will continue to perform and apply research that can help shed light on the links between the environment and the health of our children. They can help us take children's health protection to a new level, and I am proud to be working with NIEHS and everyone at UC-Davis, the University of Illinois, Robert Wood Johnson, and this wonderful Children's Hospital to make it happen." Here are the research programs planned at the four new centers:
The four new centers join eight already established (in 1998) at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Washington, the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Md., Columbia University, in New York City, and the Mount Sinai Medical Center, also in New York City, in partnership with community groups in East Harlem. |
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