Guest guest Posted August 26, 2006 Report Share Posted August 26, 2006 Pollutant damages child immunity 26 August 2006 Michael Reilly Magazine issue A banned pollutant may be damaging children's immune systems before they can properly develop, new research reveals A banned pollutant may be damaging children's immune systems before they can properly develop. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have long been known to cause a variety of illnesses, from skin irritation to cancer. Now a study suggests that the chemicals, which were commonly used in electrical equipment and heavy machinery until the 1970s, are also causing immunodeficiency in children living in the Faroe Islands. Carsten Heilmann of the National University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues measured the response to tetanus and diphtheria vaccines of 119 healthy Faroese children aged 18 months and 129 7-year-olds. They found that a high concentration of PCBs in the children's blood correlated with a reduced antibody response to the vaccines. Every doubling of PCB levels reduced the diphtheria antibodies in 18-month-old children by about 25 per cent. In the group of 7-year olds, tetanus antibodies were down 16.5 per cent (PLoS Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030311). ... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9860-pollutant-damages-child-immunity.html "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo. Get your email and more, right on the new .com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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