Children from FEMA trailer park battle serious health problems: anemia, behavior, rhinitis: formaldehyde

[Guest guest]

Another example of how environmental pollutants induce traits associated

with ASDs:

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.. 41% of children younger than 4 were diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia.

.. 55% of elementary-school-aged children had a behavior or learning problem.

.. 42% of children were diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, known as hay

fever, and/or upper respiratory infection.

.. 24% had a cluster of upper respiratory, allergic and skin ailments.

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Children from FEMA trailer park battle serious health problems

By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-24-children_N.htm

NEW ORLEANS --- Children of displaced families from Hurricanes Katrina

and Rita have serious health and mental ailments, a new study says.

The report, released Monday by the New York-based Children's Health

Fund, reviewed medical records of 261 children who lived in a federally

funded Baton Rouge trailer park until early summer. It is the first

in-depth review of children's medical and mental health after the

catastrophic storms in 2005 that displaced thousands of families

throughout the Gulf Coast.

After Katrina, the Children's Health Fund, a non-profit group that

provides health care to children, dispatched mobile clinics across the

Gulf Coast, including one outside Renaissance Village in Baton Rouge,

then the largest Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park in the

region. The Children's Health Fund used medical data gathered from that

clinic to conduct the survey, says Irwin Redlener, president of the

group and the study's author.

One of the most alarming findings: 41% of children younger than 4 were

diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia, more than double the rate of

children living in New York City homeless shelters, Redlener says.

" This is a very big problem that has not been focused on at all in the

Gulf Coast, " Redlener says.

Other findings:

.. 55% of elementary-school-aged children had a behavior or learning problem.

.. 42% of children were diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, known as hay

fever, and/or upper respiratory infection.

.. 24% had a cluster of upper respiratory, allergic and skin ailments.

Heidi Sinclair, a Baton Rouge pediatrician who helped run the Children's

Health Fund clinic there, says she saw disturbingly high rates of

respiratory problems and skin rashes among children. She said that when

she began testing for iron-deficiency --- a condition that can lead to

fatigue, attention-deficit disorder and skin ailments --- she thought

the machines used to test were malfunctioning because the rates were so

consistently high.

" The main problem is there's been such a lack of stability, " Sinclair says.

This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would

launch a long-term study of children who resided in federally issued

trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi, hundreds of

which were found to have high levels of toxins, such as formaldehyde.

Renaissance Village was emptied this summer, and the children and their

families relocated to permanent or other temporary housing. There are

still at least 9,300 families in trailers and 1,600 in hotel rooms

across the Gulf Coast, according to FEMA.

The children in the Children's Health Fund study are probably some of

the sickest of the estimated 30,000 children living in trailers and

temporary housing in the region, Redlener says. Many other displaced

children could experience similar symptoms, he says.

" This is the first wave of data, and it's extremely alarming, " he says.

" Who knows what's happening to kids we're not seeing? "

*LAWMAKER:*

FEMA trailer maker knew of formaldehyde

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-07-09-trailers-fema_n.htm>

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