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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Ice, for the first time in human history, could disappear from the North Pole this year, scientists say. With the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, it is making it possible to reach the North Pole sailing in a boat through open water, the Independent reported Friday. The newspaper reported that some scientists say they believe the ice at 90 degrees north could melt away by summer.

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Just a few more portions of broccoli each week may protect men from prostate cancer, British researchers reported on Wednesday. The researchers believe a chemical in the food sparks hundreds of genetic changes, activating some genes that fight cancer and switching off others that fuel tumors, said Richard Mithen, a biologist at Britain's Institute of Food Research.

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Adopting just a couple of elements of the Mediterranean diet could cut the risk of cancer by 12%, say scientists. A study of 26,000 Greek people found just using more olive oil alone cut the risk by 9%. The diet, reports the British Journal of Cancer, also includes higher amounts of fruits, vegetables, cereals, and less red meat.

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An environmental research and advocacy group claims that four out of five brand-name sunscreens either provide inadequate sun protection or contain chemicals that may be unsafe, but industry representatives strongly dispute the charge. In a report released Tuesday, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) calls on the FDA to implement promised changes in sunscreen labeling that would require manufacturers to provide more detailed information about the level of sun protection their products provide.

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The struggle of penguins to survive is a clear sign that the world's marine systems are in trouble. Of the 17 penguin species more than half are listed as endangered or vulnerable. A new study claims that penguins now run a gauntlet of environmental challenges, from climate change, commercial fishing, pollution and tourism.

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A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido.

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Eating a poor diet when pregnant or breastfeeding may cause long-lasting health damage to the child, animal studies suggest. The offspring of rats fed fatty, processed food had high levels of fat in their bloodstream and around major organs even after adolescence. The animals had a raised diabetes risk - even if they ate healthily.

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FLOODWATERS loaded with farm run-off are heading down the Mississippi River in the US and scientists fear the deluge will dramatically increase this year's "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico. The zone is a region of the Gulf off the southeastern United States that is starved of oxygen during much of the mid-year heat and cannot support fish or other marine life. Hundreds of dead zones occur around the world, wreaking havoc with the ecology and cutting off vast areas from commercial fishing. The Gulf of Mexico zone is the western hemisphere's largest.

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Vitamin E appears to help patients with Alzheimer's survive longer than those who don't take the vitamin, according to a study. Known to delay the progression of moderately severe Alzheimer's disease, now it has been shown to increase the survival time of these patients as well, said study's co-author Valory Pavlik, of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.

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With trace amounts of pharmaceuticals showing up in the drinking water of major cities, authorities are encouraging consumers around the Great Lakes to drop off leftover and expired medicine at collection centers. The Environmental Protection Agency has set a goal of collecting 1 million pills and 1 million pounds of electronics during an Earth Day initiative aimed at the more than 30 million people who live around the Great Lakes, which are by far the largest source of fresh drinking water on the planet.

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Two teams of researchers with access to thousands of documents gathered for lawsuits over the painkiller Vioxx allege that Merck waged a campaign of deception to promote its drug, moving slowly to warn of possible hazards while at the same time dressing up in-house studies as the work of independent academic researchers. The reports in today's Journal of the American Medical Association in effect accuse one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical makers of various forms of scientific fraud.

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A federal health panel Tuesday for the first time acknowledged concerns that a chemical found in thousands of everyday products such as baby bottles and compact discs may cause cancer and other serious disorders. The draft report by the National Toxicology Program, an office of the National Institutes of Health, signaled a turning point in the government's position on bisphenol-a, or BPA, so ubiquitous in American society that it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the population over 6 years of age.

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Acupuncture, as practiced in traditional Chinese medicine, may offer some relief from migraine pain, a new study suggests. Italian researchers found that regular treatments with "true" acupuncture helped improve symptoms in 32 patients whose migraines had been resistant to standard preventive medication. Moreover, the therapy worked better than two forms of "sham" acupuncture used for comparison, the researchers report in the medical journal Headache.

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Elderly women showed measurable improvements in their walking speed and balance after a nine-week yoga program -- and they gained a centimeter in height, on average, Philadelphia researchers report. "The only explanation may be that they are standing more upright, not so much crouching," study chief Dr. Jinsup Song of Temple University told Reuters Health. Song presented the findings April 4 at the Gait and Clinical Movement Analysis Society's Annual Meeting.

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Researchers at Emory University are learning how vitamins and minerals in the diet can stimulate or prevent the appearance of colon cancer. Emory investigators will present their findings on biological markers that could influence colon cancer risk in three abstracts at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in San Diego. In a clinical study of 92 patients, supplementing diet with calcium and vitamin D appeared to increase the levels of a protein called Bax that controls programmed cell death in the colon. More Bax might be pushing pre-cancerous cells into programmed cell death, says Emory researcher Veronika Fedirko, who will present her team's results.

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Alcohol, consumed even in small amounts, increases the risk of breast cancer and particularly estrogen-receptor and progesterone-receptor positive breast cancer, a new study shows.

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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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