These resources offer information about children and the environment and practical advice for protecting children from environmental hazards in their daily lives.
We will update this section regularly and encourage readers to send us requests for further information. Please let us know, too, if you’ve come across information to share.
Our nation needs an active citizenry. It is the American way. Repairing our children's health requires all parents ot take on some active role. Throughout the book, Poisoned for Profit identifies non-governmental organizations which are changing public policy for the benefit of our children and ourselves.
Research and Public Policy
Beyond Pesticides provides a wealth of information in a variety of formats about the risks of insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and other toxic pesticides to human health and suggests alternatives to their use. It also provides insights into pesticide policies of government and industry. www.beyondpesticides.org
The Center for Children’s Health and the Environment at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City does research into environmental sources of childhood illness and ways to combat such illness through science and public policy. It offers a variety of practical information for parents and physicians. www.childenvironment.org
The Center for Health, Environment and Justice offers information on toxic substances and technical and organizational support to help communities deal with environmental threats to health. www.chej.org
Children’s Environmental Health Network is a national organization of physicians, scientists, environmentalists, community organizers and other citizens. It monitors the science and public policy aspects of children’s environmental health and proposes courses of action for individual citizens and communities, as well as national policy initiatives. www.cehn.org
Healthy Child Healthy World (formerly called Children’s Health Environmental Coalition), a national group formed by parents of sick kids, provides information about preventable childhood illness caused by exposure to toxics in the home, school and community, and what parents can do. Its HealthEHouse is an interactive website displaying the various rooms of a typical home, the possible contaminants lurking in each, and advice about simple ways to avoid or minimize risk. www.healthychild.org
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment, a leader in the emerging environmental health movement, is an international network of individuals and organizations working together to collect and advance knowledge about links between health and the environment. It pays special attention to children. www.healthandenvironment.org
The Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health does research to study the effects of environmental pollutants and their impact on infant and child health. The results help communities improve environmental health through science and public policy. www.ccceh.org
Environmental Health Sciences is a non-profit group that publishes free of charge Environmental Health News and Above the Fold online, both valuable summaries of new research articles and media stories with hyperlinks to the original sources. Users can go to stories about children’s health with a click. www.environmentalhealthnews.org
The Environmental Working Group is a Washington, D.C. based non-profit that investigates and publicizes environmental contamination, who is doing it, and what the consequences are. It collects and publishes online and in print a trove of information about how children are exposed to toxic substances and offers practical advice about what parents might do about such things as chemicals in cosmetics, flame retardants, playground equipment, food, and frying pans. www.ewg.org
Institute for Children’s Environmental Health works to create networks of organizations and individuals to promote a safer environment for children. It presses for precautionary action to remove products and processes that harm kids. Its website offers much useful information and links to many other sites. www.iceh.org
The Natural Resources Defense Council, a national non-profit research, lobbying and litigation group, maintains a very usable website devoted to the health of children. It monitors toxic dangers to kids and also keeps track of what the government is doing or not doing to protect children. www.nrdc.org/health/kids
Physicians for Social Responsibility, founded in the 1960s to address the medical consequences of nuclear warfare, now produces research, policy reports, and training materials to address other serious environmental threats. Its Boston chapter holds seminars across the nation to train pediatricians in children’s environmental health. www.psr.org
Science & Environmental Health Network is a consortium of North American environmental organizations and a leading proponent of the Precautionary Principle as a new basis for environmental and public health policy, to protect and prevent illness.
www.sehn.org
TCE Network, For families who discover the toxic solvent TCE in their water supply, contact www.cpeo.org, a network of families and scientists to share information and fight to remove the chemical from use.
Organizations Advocating for Solutions to Specific Childhood Illnesses
The Learning Disabilities Center of America provides support to children, teachers, and physicians who help children with learning problems. Its Healthy Children Project (www.healthychildrenproject.org/exposures) offers information about the link between toxics in the environment and those problems. www.ldanatl.org
Autism Research Institute, founded to conduct and sponsor scientific research, collaborates with the Autism Society of America, a parent advocacy organization, following the theory that autism is a whole body condition that is treatable. They offer the Defeat Autism Now project for parents and physicians. ARI maintains a website which offers advice and support to parents and information for physicians; and has published a manual for use by doctors for helping kids with autism. www.AutismResearchInstitute.com
Birth Defects Research for Children, a national nonprofit organization founded by a parent of a child with birth defects, offers free information, parent networking and birth defect research. It operates the only National Birth Defect Registry, which collects information on all categories of structural and functional birth defects as well as the health, genetic and environmental exposure histories of the mothers and fathers of the affected child. www.birthdefects.org
Families Against Cancer and Toxics (FACT), founded by parents of children with cancer, is both a network and a source of information and research news. www.familiesagainstcancer.org