Snapshots of 21st-century children's health issues
By David Landry
Just over 22,000 babies were born in Europe on January 1, 2007. When putting environmental concerns into perspective, it should help to try and imagine the kind lives that these children will live, and the kind of future that they will inherit
The New Year, for example, brought the arrival of Espera, a bright-eyed girl born in a West European farming region; Zoe came along on the same day, and he will grow up in a village in Central Europe; baby Daniel, already with something of a serious demeanour, first greeted the light of day in a small city South-Eastern Europe.
All three children might be considered typical of their generation, and have been born into what might be considered typical families. All three are held to be full of promise, and it's very possible that they could one day shape the future by becoming tomorrow's leaders. But one thing is certain: All three inherit today's Europe — that is, "our" Europe.
Climate change is a more or less universally accepted phenomenon, and further change is likely inevitable. Though it is impossible to predict which changes will take place in five, 10 or 15 years, one increasingly convincing argument is that extreme weather events and new threats to human health will accompany changes in climate.
Flooding in 2002 and a heat wave in August 2003 caused untold billions of euros in total damages and cost perhaps thousands of European lives. Both occurrences were cited in a World Health Organization (WHO) policy action guide titled "Health and Climate Change: the Now and How" as part of redoubled efforts to raise awareness of the severity of climate change and its consequences.
The action guide was the result of a three-year project, ending in 2004, and was coordinated by the WHO with support from the Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development Programme within the Fifth European Union Framework Programme for Research and Development.
Karin Zaunberger stated in the guide's foreword that the dramatic meteorological events of 2002 and 2003, though the correlation to climate change was undetermined, "revealed in a rather drastic way our vulnerability and unpreparedness."
The results published in the guide were the product of "Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies for Human Health in Europe" (cCASHh), a research project that "started with the assumption that, irrespective of actions that have been taken to reduce or halt climate change, human populations in Europe will be exposed to some degree of climate change over the coming decades."
The research-heavy cCASHh project resulted in a 450-page summary of findings, and the general conclusion that "relatively little has been done in public health to incorporate projections of climate variability and change in policy planning."
When asked whether mitigation might be taken in time vis-à-vis damage due to climate change, summary co-editor Bettina Menne stated: "We're already much too late, [and we] should have started 30 years ago. The more urgent [the problem], the more that extreme mitigation is needed. Mere adaptation will not be enough."
Menne is the Global Change and Health medical officer at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. She and the department are also overseeing the Climate Change and Impact Research (CIRCE) project, the aim of which is to develop an assessment of climate change impacts in the Mediterranean region.
The Global Change and Health programme began in 1999 after the Third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health declared that "human-induced changes in the global climate system and in stratospheric ozone pose a range of severe health risks."
In Menne's view, changes to climate are complex, pervasive and "cannot be addressed by any single ministry." Instead, a "multi-dimensional multi-focus" is needed. The health officer said that she believes there must be a combination of efforts of health ministries, other governmental ministries and other interests to create manageable living conditions for future generations.
Unless rapid progress is made, the world that Espera inherits just five years from now could be far more dangerous.
The REC in Szentendre, Hungary played host to the 22nd Meeting of the European Environment and Health Committee (EEHC) in November 2006. One particularly arresting presentation at the conference was given by Margriet Samwel from Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), a network of organisations dedicated to health, environmental and sustainable development issues in the EECCA (Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia) region.
Samwel explained how pathogens and nitrates in human waste contribute to groundwater pollution when there is no source of running water. She added that the simple installation of a dry-urine-diverting toilet in place of pit latrines in Hayanist, Armenia in August 2006 brought immediate improvements in terms of health and quality of life.
The failure to take such basic steps often results in tragedy. Samwel warned that there is a "dire" lack of clean water as far west as Romania, resulting in extremely high mortality rates in children due to diseases caused by faecal streptococci bacteria.
The lack of a water supply in Hayanist posed a unique challenge, but the WECF and partner NGOs took on a similar situation in Garla Mare, Romania in late October 2006. Located in southwest Romania, Garla Mare (pop. 3,500), has no central water supply, sewerage or gasification system.
The EEHC meeting in Szentendre was kicked off with an announcement of recent statistics published by the WHO, which stated that the number of persons in Europe with access to clean water supplies has barely improved in the last 15 years. Even more damning was the judgment handed down in the European Environment Agency's 'Belgrade Report,' which stated that water-quality management and monitoring within the EECCA region has actually been in decline over the same period of time.
Roberto Bertollini, director of the WHO's Regional Office for Europe, stated at the Szentendre meeting that "the number of Europeans with access to clean water has stayed the same" for the past 10 years.
Bertollini also introduced a draft agenda for the "Intergovernmental Mid-Term Review," a report on issue implementation addressed in the Budapest Declaration, which was issued at the Fourth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in June 2004. The finalised version of the mid-term review will be presented to the EU ministerial conference in Vienna this coming June.
Samwel went on to say that "only through extreme intervention can we properly alleviate this situation in the region."
At present, the reported millions of village inhabitants drinking water polluted with nitrates, bacteria and pesticides in virtually every country from Romania eastward are being assisted one action at a time. The efforts of the WECF show that bringing a cleaner, safer and healthier world to Zoe's friends, family and community is certainly possible through fairly simple means. This is, after all, the 21st century.
Among the many anticipated consequences of climate change is a rise in microbial pathogens and bacterial disease, due to conditions more favourable for microbe breeding.
Notably addressing the matter, the European Commission funded the European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies project (also known as EUROCAT) project. The far-reaching program involves 20 European countries and is designed, in part, to provide essential epidemiological information, coordinate detection and response to outbreaks of disease, and assess developments in prenatal screening.
At the aforementioned 21st EEHC meeting, Steve Pedley of the Robens Centre for Public and Environmental Health spoke of how surveillance and response systems have been successful in the UK in dealing with parasitic diseases and bacterial infections such as cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis and campylobacteriosis. The Robens Centre research group has produced its own water-testing kit, in addition to data management and analysis software, while collaborating on projects in the UK, Europe and Africa.
This encouraging progress notwithstanding, another big battle is being fought worldwide against the use of mercury, one of today's most dangerous legacies for future generations.
In what is widely now called 'brain drain,' mercury poisoning can cause developmental disabilities and brain damage. Studies from highly industrialised nations indicate practically without exception that mercury poisoning is rife in the Northern Hemisphere, and that children in these areas are particularly at risk.
An EU impact assessment on mercury suggested that up to 5 percent of the general population has absorbed mercury levels above the reference limit. Some European populations (noted in the report are Mediterranean and Arctic fishing communities) have people carrying levels 10 times the recommended norm, levels at which damage can occur to the developing brain.
As is now required by law in many countries, food products made from predatory fish such as swordfish and tuna must contain warnings for pregnant women, as mercury ingested by expectant mothers will be passed on to the developing foetus.
The EU assessment also found that 44 percent of three- to six-year-old children in France have mercury levels exceeding recommended limits, while a 2005 television documentary from the US made the claim that "one in six children born every year has been exposed to mercury levels so high that they are potentially at risk for learning disabilities, motor-skill impairment and short-term memory loss."
Currently, the 'Stay Healthy, Stop Mercury' campaign is publicising its 'Halting the Child Brain Drain' report. As campaign members see things, nothing short of a total ban will stop the seepage of mercury (an element that the human body does not in the least require) into water supplies through industrial activity and discarded consumer products, such as batteries.
Released on January 10, 2007, the report is the result of a joint effort between the Health & Environment Alliance (HEAL) and alliance group Health Care without Harm. These groups also form part of the 'Zero Mercury' movement, an international information network also involving the European Environmental Bureau, Ban Mercury Working Group and Mercury Policy Project.
In hopes of drawing attention and awareness to one of today's most serious threats to our children's health, 'Halting the Child Brain Drain' was presented to the Governing Council meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme/Global Ministerial Environmental Forum in Nairobi in February, and also this June at the 4th International Conference on Children's Health and the Environment: 'Reducing Environmental Risks for Our Children.'
It is sadly ironic that a ban on most products containing trace mercury appears likely at a time when worldwide fishing stocks (the major biological repository for mercury and heavy metals) are dwindling to zero.
Mercury stays in the body once ingested. Its molecules are small enough to damage at the cellular level, and the chemical has been linked to premature brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Even if a total ban on mercury products were to be introduced tomorrow, tens of millions of Europeans — children and adults alike — will be carrying dangerous levels of mercury for the remainder of their lives.
Many of Daniel's generation will be charged with caring for a growing number of sufferers from mercury infestation, just one of many environmental issues that requires immediate attention.
