In the second reported case a boy aged 2 years and 10 months presented with “delayed speech and some autistic features.” Since weaning, the boy had eaten fish up to eight times a week. The child’s blood mercury level was 350 nmol/L. Two weeks after removing fish from the diet the child’s blood mercury level had fallen to 99 nmol/L. “However, his behavior did not improve, and he was subsequently diagnosed with classical autism.”

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Autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, mental retardation, lowered IQ and other learning and behavior disorders are very common in today’s American children. The occurrence of these learning and developmental disabilities (LDDs) appears to be rising with between 5 to 15 percent of all children under the age of 18 in the United States affected. In general, these disabilities have significantly increased over the past 40 years and now affect more than 12 million children in the United States. On February 20, 2008 The Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative published a Scientific Consensus Statement on Environmental Agents Associated with Neurodevelopmental Disorder. This statement signed by more than 50 national and international health professionals and scientists summarizes the most recent science about environmental contaminants associated with learning and developmental disabilities. The report that was drafted by this prestigious group contains over 200 scientific references. “We know enough now to move on with taking steps to protect our children. This document pulls that knowledge together to further this vital effort," said reviewer Martha Herbert, PhD, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a pediatric neurologist with subspecialty certification in neurodevelopmental disabilities at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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However, the carcinogenicity of pesticides isn’t the only cause for concern. Although it is well accepted that acute pesticide poisoning causes an array of health problems such as seizures, rashes, and gastrointestinal illness, the chronic effects are less well known. A study in Canadian Family Physician, examined all the scientific studies from 1992 to 2003 to examine the other consequences of pesticide use. In all, the study identified 124 quality studies to be included in their analysis. In their analysis the authors found 3 non-cancer effects of pesticides – neurologic, reproductive, and genotoxic (causing DNA damage).

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Wyeth paid a company to ghostwrite medical journal articles about its hormone therapy products and seek academic scientists to sign them as authors, a U.S. senator said. Documents from lawsuits suggest the drugmaker hired DesignWrite Inc. of Princeton, New Jersey, to draft manuscripts related to the Wyeth products and breast cancer risks, according to letters released today from Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa to the companies. Wyeth makes the hormone replacement drugs Prempro and Premarin.

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Mould toxins in buildings damaged by moisture are considerably more prevalent than was previously thought, according to new international research. Erica Bloom from the Division of Medical Microbiology at Lund University in Sweden has contributed to research in this field by analyzing dust and materials samples from buildings damaged by mould. Virtually all of the samples contained toxins from mould.

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If you need another reason to quit smoking, consider that it may diminish your chances of being a parent or grandparent. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found that women exposed to second hand smoke, either as adults or children, were significantly more likely to face fertility problems and suffer miscarriages.

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The FDA is concerned about asthma drugs known as LABAs, which already carry warnings. The long-acting medications relax tight muscles around stressed airways and free patients from the need to take a puff from their inhalers every few hours.

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Vitamin K slows the development of insulin resistance in older men, but not women, a new study found. Insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, occurs when the body cannot use insulin properly. As a result, glucose builds up in the blood. Overweight and obese people are prone to insulin resistance, because excess fat can interfere with insulin function.

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A new study suggests a link between your mental health and your respiratory health -- specifically asthma. People who rated their mental health as poor were more likely to have asthma than those who described their mental health as good, Brown University researchers report.

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Eating fast food could contribute to the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a new Swedish study that offers possible clues to preventing it.

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Chronic muscle inflammation may be lessened by taking vitamin E, a U.S. researcher suggests. Kimberly Huey of the University of Illinois in Champaign says vitamin E may be linked to a reduction in cytokines -- proteins that spur the immune response.

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Sixteen American soldiers who served in Iraq are suing the defence contractor KBR, accusing it of knowingly exposing them to a cancer-causing chemical. The soldiers say they were exposed to the chemical while working at a water pumping plant in southern Iraq.

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They cite noise pollution caused by increased commercial shipping, seismic surveys and military sonar -- which the U.S. Navy will soon use during training off Southern California, just in time for the gray whale migration -- as major threats to the survival of many species of marine mammals. All these sounds and painful pings make it increasingly difficult for whales and other mammals to communicate with song. They also lead to mammal strandings.

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One in three toys tested by a Michigan nonprofit group contained medium or high levels of toxic chemicals, according to a report released Wednesday. And U.S.-made children's toys didn't necessarily contain fewer toxins than their imported counterparts.

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A report released on Monday concluded that Gulf War syndrome is a legitimate illness suffered by more than 175,000 U.S. war veterans who were exposed to chemical toxins in the 1991 Gulf War.

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The benefits of keeping active may be growing. A new international study looks at whether exercise reduces the severity of strokes. Researchers discovered that people who exercised the most prior to their stroke were 2 1/2 times more likely to have a milder stroke when compared to those who exercised the least. And participants who put in the most active hours were also twice as likely to experience a better long-term outcome.

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Eating too much fructose can induce leptin resistance, a condition that can easily lead to becoming overweight when combined with a high-fat, high-calorie diet, according to a new study with rats.

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A harsh winter is in store for the people of Afghanistan where many are affected by poverty and drought, reports Damian Grammaticas from the Saighan Valley. Up here Afghans rely on the winter snows to recharge the ground water. But for six of the past seven years there has not been enough snow. This year was the worst of all.

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Use of the influenza vaccine was not associated with preventing hospitalizations or reducing physician visits for the flu in children age 5 and younger during two recent seasons, perhaps because the strains of virus in the vaccine did not match circulating strains, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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Our study provides evidence that chronic coffee consumption unfavorably affects arterial stiffness and wave reflections and suggests that studies that investigate arterial function should control for coffee intake. Given the widespread consumption of coffee throughout the world, together with the major influence of aortic stiffness and wave reflections on cardiovascular function and cardiovascular disease risk, our findings have important implications for human health.

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The direct medical costs associated with ADEs have been estimated to be in the range of $US30 billion to $US130 billion annually in the US alone. These estimates are even more meaningful when compared with other high cost conditions or diseases, such as diabetes mellitus ($US45.2 billion), obesity ($US70 billion), and cardiovascular disease ($US199.5 billion). Drug-related mortality has been estimated to claim 218,000 lives annually.

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There is no longer any doubt that GM crops are not needed to feed the world, and that hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, and not by inadequate production of food. According to estimates by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, there is enough food produced to feed everyone using only conventional crops, and that will remain the case for at least 25 years and probably far into the future. A recent report by ActionAid concludes that, "The widespread adoption of GM crops seems likely to exacerbate the underlying cause of food insecurity, leading to more hungry people, not fewer".

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For medical reasons, amalgam should be eliminated in dental care as soon as possible. This will confer gains in three respects. The prevalence of side-effects from patients' mercury exposure will decline; occupational exposure to mercury can cease in dental care; and one of our largest sources of mercury in the environment can be eliminated. With reference to the risk of inhibiting influence on the growing brain, it is not compatible with science and well-tried experience to use amalgam fillings in children and fertile women. Every doctor and dentist should, where patients are suffering from unclear pathological states and autoimmune diseases, consider whether side-effects from mercury released from amalgam may be one contributory cause of the symptoms.

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In comparison with the general population, this study, like previous investigations, found excess risks of cervical, vulvar, and lung cancers among women with previous augmentation mammoplasties. Although the internal analyses suggested similar risks for most cancer sites between implant and comparison patients, a few differences persisted, including higher risks for respiratory and brain cancers, and leukemia.

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About 1.2 billion people still have no access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion do not have adequate sanitation services. Some 2 million children die every year from water-related diseases. In the poorest countries, one in five children dies before the age of five mainly from water-related infectious diseases arising from insufficient water availability, in both quantity and quality. Thus provision of safe drinking water and sanitation services to more than 1 billion people over the next decade remains one of the most critical challenges humanity is facing today.

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Tamoxifen was not significantly protective against breast cancer in women at normal or slightly reduced risk of the disease. The principal investigators were concerned about the large numbers of women withdrawing from the study, the unexpected finding with hypertriglyceridaemia, the findings about vascular events, and the number of well women complaining about the side-effects of tamoxifen in addition to an increased occurrence of endometrial cancer.

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Over-the-counter (OTC) cough and cold medications are marketed widely for relief of common cold symptoms, and yet studies have failed to demonstrate a benefit of these medications for young children. In addition, OTC medications can be associated with significant morbidity and even mortality in both acute overdoses and when administered in correct doses for chronic periods of time.

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This study concluded television viewing time is positively associated with social problems, delinquent behavior, aggressive behavior, externalization, and total problem scores in children. Other studies have blamed television for causing conduct disorder, symptoms of psychological trauma, social skill difficulties, anorexia nervosa, nutritional changes, dieting and obesity, and substance use and abuse, and for negatively affecting sexuality and body concept and self-image.

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