Largest-ever study of US child health begins

[Project Grudge]

Source: Yahoo News

WASHINGTON – Scientists begin recruiting mothers-to-be in North Carolina and New York this week for the largest study of U.S. children ever performed — aiming eventually to track 100,000 around the country from conception to age 21.

"We are embarking on the road to discovering the preventable causes of the major chronic diseases that plague American children today," Dr. Philip Landrigan of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, one of the lead researchers, declared Tuesday.

Nearly a decade in the planning, the ambitious National Children's Study tackles a major mystery: How the environment — everything from a pregnant woman's diet to a child's exposure to various chemicals — interacts with genetics to affect youngsters' health and development.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/ap_on_he_me/med_children_s_study;_ylt=Aq1hRd43gnPEWU5kKsUGB2es0NUE

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It takes so much planning and so long to execute.....that I wonder how one can control for enough variables to make the study significant.

[Warpy]

1. 100,000 is a large enough sample

to turn up clusters of diseases related to identifiable risks.

[Tempest]

2. It's going to turn out to be a national embarrassment

For a so-called superpower.

Cuba has better health statistics than the U.S.

[raccoon]

6. Yep. Since the US has no national health plan. nt

[JDPriestly]

3. This is wonderful.

In Europe, every baby gets a baby-pass that records the history of the child's health. Every baby born in the U.S. should have a similar document. The information should also be placed in a database confidentially identified by name an identification number, but also anonymously recorded in a database to be used for scientific study. We have the means to do that. It would be so beneficial to children -- particularly in identifying the causes of such diseases as cancer and diabetes.

[Belial]

4. Yeah.. Confidential... Big Brother is Watching..

[phoebe]

5. usual questions - who benefits/why now/funded by

it never fails to amaze me how easy it is to for people to be propagandized by corporate and political interests, and yet just asking 1 to 3 simple questions can provide so many answers....