UPDATE no. 52   Dear member of INCHES, In this update:   News: INCHES members participated at EU conference Workplan with WHO Call for factsheets Meeting in Nairobi   Articles: Gas cooking in the home Newborns are More Susceptible to DNA Damage from Pollution than Their Mothers   South African kids face lead exposure            INCHES website moved to www.inchesnetwork.net   News Several INCHES members alongside with other NGOs participated at the EU conference under Dutch presidency on December 1-3 in Egmond, the Netherlands. This conference was planned as follow-up of the Budpaest conference. At the conference of the European Health and Environment Ministers in Budapest June 2004 the European Commission has also proposed an Environment and Health Action Plan for the years 2004 - 2010. This plan was criticized by several NGOs and also governments for lacking details and "actions". This critique was taken up by the Dutch presidency and a large meeting was organized on December 2nd /3rd in Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands. On the 1st Of december a well attended NGO-meeting was scheduled. At this meeting the NGOs tried to come up with some issues that had to be raised during the conference. This meeting was attended by several hundred participants representing national governments, EU commission and parliament, industrial and citizens' NGOs, and scientists. The core of the meeting was organized in 7 parallel workshops dealing with the topics: - Environment and Health Indicators - Human Biomonitoring - Research on E&H - Indoor Air - Communication with citizens - Training, education, and capacity building - Transport and Health NGO representatives, among them many from European ISDE or INCHES affiliates, actively contributed to the workshops and were successful in influencing the outcomes. The official outcomes were presented and discussed in a final session. The official outcome is expected to be mailed on CD ROM in short time. There will be some possibilities in the coming weeks to comment on the next steps of the EU Action plan. The EEN network will coordinate some of these activities.   Workplan with WHO In order to get official relationship with WHO we provided a workplan that detailed the activities we are planning to do in cooperation with WHO. It includes the EU-funded project on developing trianing material on children’s environmental health. It includes activities for HECA, where Peter van den Hazel is acting as co-chair of the steering committee at the moment. But it also relates to cooperation in organising meetings on children’s environmental health. The board of INCHES hopes that the official relationship status will be obtained in spring 2005.   Call for factsheets INCHES is calling all its members to send factsheets about any item on children’s environmental health. They could be in any language, ranging from lead poisoning, asthma, allergies, chemical, ventilation at school, etc. We are trying to build a very complete overview which we also share with the HECA network. So please send you electronic version or hard copy to the INCHES address: INCHES, pobox 163, 6950 AD Dieren, the Netherlands, or use this email of the update for your reply. Thanks very much in advance. Please try not to postpone your assistance as we would like to have a very substantial database of factsheets available ina couple of months for everyone.     City of Nairobi, Kenya, October 4 – 8, 2004: AAMMA as member of IPEN and INCHE S member participated in the Second Session of the Preparatory Committee for the Development of a Strategic Approach to Internationals Chemicals Management (SAICM PrepCom 2), organized by UNEP Chemicals (United Nations Environment Programme, Area of Chemicals). During this meeting different stakeholders reviewed current actions to advance the sound management of chemicals, identify gaps and propose concrete projects and priorities. As INCHES we are pushing children related issues.   Articles   Gas cooking in the home may raise young children's risk for respiratory illness, according to a study in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.        Researchers surveyed the parents of 426 children in two Hong Kong housing complexes, one of them located in an area with high environmental pollution. The children ranged in age from a few months to 6 years old. Parents were asked if they cooked with gas and whether or not they smoked. One in four of the children in the study had at least one confirmed respiratory condition. The most common conditions were allergic rhinitis, asthma, sinusitis, and bronchitis.                 After accounting for socioeconomic factors, the researchers concluded that there was a link     between gas cooking and respiratory illness among children living in the housing complex with otherwise low levels of environmental pollution.                                                  The study found that children from households where gas was used to cook meals two or three times  a day were six times as likely to have a respiratory condition as were children who lived in homes with no gas stove.                                                                          In homes were gas was used to cook one meal a day, children had a threefold greater risk of respiratory illness.                                                                              More frequent use of gas for cooking produces higher levels of nitrous oxide. Those levels, along with the fumes from the cooking process, build up in poorly ventilated kitchens, the study authors wrote.             New Study of New York City Residents Shows That Newborns are More           Susceptible to DNA Damage from Pollution than Their Mothers                 A new study of the effects of combustion-related air pollutants in New York City reveals that babies in the womb are more susceptible than their mothers to DNA damage from such pollution. Despite the  protection provided by the placenta, which reduces the fetal dose to an estimated one-tenth the dose of the mother, the levels of DNA damage in the newborns were similar to those found in their mothers.  The study was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a part of the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as a number of private foundations. The study was published in the June issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by NIEHS. The full report is available (pdf) online at http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ Results of the study, the first of its kind in New York City, were  released by the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, part of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia        University. These findings are especially notable since evidence from  previous studies of laboratory rodents suggests that the fetus is more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of the same pollutants than the adult.                                                             The study was designed to measure the effects of prenatal and maternalexposure to combustion-related pollutants, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), on DNA damage. PAHs are carcinogenic air pollutants that are released into the environment as a result of combustion from car, truck, or bus engines, residential heating, power generation, or tobacco smoking. According to the researchers, PAHs are able to cross the placental barrier. In the study, researchers collected blood samples from 265 pairs of mothers and newborns living in New York City. The mothers were         non-smoking African American or Latina women in Washington Heights, Central Harlem and the South Bronx.                                    The researchers then analyzed the samples for the presence of two key biomarkers -- carcinogen-DNA adducts, which are protein complexes formed when a chemical binds to molecules of DNA, and cotinine, a measure of secondhand tobacco smoke exposure, since the mothers were all nonsmokers. Previous research has shown an association between DNA  adducts and increased cancer risk.     Despite the estimated 10-fold lower dose of the pollutants to the fetus as compared to the mother, the researchers found that levels of DNA damage were comparable in newborns and mothers, while cotinine levels were higher in newborns than in mothers.                        The study findings are consistent with results of a prior study, conducted by the Center in Krakow, Poland. However, because pollutant levels are much higher in Krakow than in New York and other American cities, it was important to determine levels of pollutant-related DNA  damage in mothers and newborns at the lower concentrations seen in the United States.                                                         "These results raise serious concern," said Dr. Frederica P. Perera, director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health and the study team leader. "Fetal susceptibility to DNA damage from air pollution, including motor vehicle emissions and secondhand smoke, has important implications for cancer risk and developmental problems. And it underscores the importance of reducing levels of air pollution in our city."                                                          A previous study conducted by the Center, released in January 2004, found that the combination of high PAH-induced DNA damage and secondhand smoke, at levels found in New York City, reduces the birth weight and head circumference of newborns.                             This research is part of a broader, multi-year research project, "The Mothers & Children Study In New York City," started in 1998, which examines the health effects of exposure of pregnant women and babies to air pollutants from vehicle exhaust, the commercial burning of fuels, and tobacco smoking, as well as from residential use of pesticides and allergens.                                              Other co-authors of the study include Deliang Tang, Yi-Hsuan Tu, Linda Ali Cruz, Mejico Borjas, and Robin M. Whyatt from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, and Tom Bernert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention       South African kids face lead exposure Children in schools across South Africa have levels of lead in their blood associated with reduced IQ, hyperactivity, hearing loss and delayed puberty, the Medical Research Council (MRC) has found.                                                                                   The MRC examined the concentration of lead in the blood of grade one pupils in a cross-section of schools in remote rural towns, a lead mining town, a medium-sized city and the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.   "Blood lead levels are expected to decline somewhat as we move closer to 2006, when Parliament has declared that the use of leaded petrol will be phased out in South Africa," read the MRC's 2004 annual report.           The lead study also found that large numbers of children may be exposed to lead from paint used to decorate homes and schools.  A preliminary study of 60 suburbs randomly selected in Johannesburg  showed that more than half had one or more houses decorated with lead-based paint.                                                         "Addressing this problem is expected to be particularly challenging," read the annual report. The report said that for the most part, the environmental contribution to death and disease among children was preventable through appropriate environmental upliftment and poverty reduction initiatives.               In Africa it was estimated that around a third of the burden of death and disease was attributable to factors in the environment.                   These factors include poor housing, inadequate access to water and  anitation, exposure to smoke from the use of coal, wood and paraffin for cooking, exposure to chemicals - especially lead, mercury and pesticides - and unintentional injuries.                                             The report said that children were "uniquely vulnerable" to their living, learning and playing environments, and bore a disproportionately high share of death and disease.   In South Africa, children younger than 10 are about 20% of the population, yet bore 39% of the national burden of mortality. Diarrhoeal diseases and lower respiratory infections, which are well known to be associated with living conditions, continued to be among the top five killers of young SA children. Drowning, poisoning, traffic injuries and burns have also been shown to be among the major contributors to childhood deaths from unintentional injuries.                                                               Conferences:   Children's World Summit  UNEP is organizing the first Children's World Summit for the Environment in Japan from 26 to 29 July 2005 in conjunction with Expo 2005.  It will be hosted by the Aichi Prefectural Government, the City of Toyota and the City of Toyohashi.   If you have any question contact  Joyce.Sang@unep.org     International Children's Painting Competition  On the Environment Theme: Green Cities The  International  Children's  Painting  Competition on the Environment is organized  annually  by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the  Japan-based Foundation for Global Peace and Environment (FGPE). It has been held since 1990 and has received over 160,000 entries from children in over  100  countries.  The competition in 2005 is the fourteenth and will focus on the theme Green Cities.  It  will, for the first time, have a global competition as well as regional competitions and will be organized in cooperation with partners in the  regions.  Preliminary  selection will be done by UNEP Regional Offices and  their  partners  while  the  final selection will be done by UNEP, the Foundation  for  Global  Peace  and Environment (FGPE Japan) and Bayer. The three partners invite children all over the world to submit their paintings to  the  UNEP  office in their regions. Addresses of these offices, a world map indicating which region you belong to and the entry rules are below: Entry Rules: Who Can Participate? Children between the age of 6 and 14 years around the world. 1.    Paintings must be done on drawing paper under the size of 297 x 420 millimeters (approximately 11.7 x 16.5 inches). 2.    Write out the following in English block letters on the back of each painting. §     Full name §     Birth date including year §     Home address/phone number §     Name of a school and grade §     School address including country code name/phone number & fax number §     e-mail address (if you have) 3.    The Style of painting is free: crayons, colored pencils, water colors, etc. 4.    Paintings that have already been shown elsewhere or accepted for another contest will not be accepted. 5.    Paintings that show a particular person, an organization or a brand name will not be accepted. 6.    Do not include any word in the paintings. All  entries  should  reach  the  relevant  UNEP regional offices before 31 January 2005. Submitting Paintings by Internet: Paintings  can  also  be submitted via internet to children.youth@unep.org. Please visit www.unep.org/Tunza/paintcomp for more information or to submit your entry.