New WHO report tackles children's environmental health

27 JULY 2007 | GENEVA -- The World Health Organization (WHO) is today releasing the first ever report highlighting children's special susceptibility to harmful chemical exposures at different periods of their growth. This new volume of the Environmental Health Criteria series, Principles for Evaluating Health Risks in Children Associated with Exposure to Chemicals, is the most comprehensive work yet undertaken on the scientific principles to be considered in assessing health risks in children. It highlights the fact that in children, the stage in their development when exposure occurs may be just as important as the magnitude of the exposure.

The scientific principles proposed in the document for evaluating environmental health risks in children will help the health sector, researchers and policy makers to protect children of all ages through improved risk assessments, appropriate interventions and focused research to become healthy adults.

"Children are not just small adults" said Dr Terri Damstra, WHO’s team leader for the Interregional Research Unit. "Children are especially vulnerable and respond differently from adults when exposed to environmental factors, and this response may differ according to the different periods of development they are going through. For example, their lungs are not fully developed at birth, or even at the age of eight, and lung maturation may be altered by air pollutants that induce acute respiratory effects in childhood and may be the origin of chronic respiratory disease later in life."

Air and water contaminants, pesticides in food, lead in soil, as well many other environmental threats which alter the delicate organism of a growing child may cause or worsen disease and induce developmental problems. Over 30% of the global burden of disease in children can be attributed to environmental factors.

Many Mannatech associates actively support MannaRelief Ministries, a not-for-profit organization founded by Sam Caster in 1999. According to Mannatech, MannaRelief has aided children in more than 30 countries and has distributed glyconutritional enhancement products through more than 300 ministries worldwide.