‘Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup’ [Wendell Berry]

Jase and the girls went to the farm on the weekend (I stayed home and completed a presentation for the Australian Public Health Conference on the lack of protective policies in the area of children’s environmental health. Ironic!). When the girls emerged from the car just on sunset their fingers and nails were gruby, their hair was notty and wind-swept, and they were flushed with excitment and joy. Adiva offered me a huge bounty of organic cabbages, sweet peas, turnips and lettuces that she had wrapped up in the picnic blanket. She had proudly picked these with her friend Alf. If you want more information about the Organic Farm Share please click HERE. Otherwise, enjoy the photos. Nothing makes me smile more than children and organic vegetables…

Whatever came of violence, but more violence?

I was listening to B105 FM morning radio last week . The presenters of the show Labby, Stav and Abbie, were discussing research about the act of spanking (smacking) children. Abbie, being pregnant, said that she thought that smacking was an acceptable parenting practice – as did the research itself. Marjorie Gunnoe, from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan carried out the research, and said that ‘The claims made for not spanking children fail to hold up. They are not consistent with the data’. The research questioned 179 teenagers about how often they were smacked as children and how old they were when they were last spanked. Their answers were then compared with information they gave about their behaviour that could have been affected by smacking. This included risk behaviour such as early sexual activity, violence and depression, as well as some protective behaviors as academic success and ambition. The research suggested that those who had been smacked up until the age of six performed better in almost all the protective categories and no worse in the risky behaviours than those never punished physically. Teenagers who had been hit by their parents from age seven to 11 were also found to be more successful at school than those not smacked but fared less well on some negative measures, such as getting involved in more fights.

The release of this research then lead the way for parenting groups such as, Parents Outloud, to speak out, welcoming the research. Its spokeswoman, Margaret Morrissey, said in a media interview: ‘it is very difficult to explain verbally to a young child why something they have done is wrong. A light tap is often the most effective way of teaching them not to do something that is dangerous or hurtful to other people – it is a preventive measure. While anything more than a light tap is definitely wrong, parents should be allowed the freedom to discipline their children without the fear that they will be reported to police.’

Then psychologist and author of The Spoilt Generation: Why Restoring Authority will Make our Children and Society Happier, Aric Sigman, got in on the discussion. He told the Sunday Times: ‘The idea that smacking and violence are on a continuum is a bizarre and fetishised view of what punishment or smacking is for most parents. If it’s done judiciously by a parent who is normally affectionate and sensitive to their child, our society should not be up in arms about that. Parents should be trusted to distinguish this from a punch in the face.’

So what does our current laws say about spanking? Parents are allowed by law to mete out ‘reasonable chastisement’ on their children, providing smacking does not leave a mark or bruise. These limits were clarified in the 2004 Children’s Act.

While many organizations and individuals also came out deploring the research and its findings, the conversation on B105 got me thinking about a list I wrote in 2005 when I was pregnant with my first baby.

A year prior to writing this list I didn’t know I was going to be having children. I didn’t have any plans to have children but I didn’t rule it out either. I was 28 at the time, and to be honest, I had started to assume I would never have a life-long partner or children for that matter. After a string of romances with mainly musicians and artists, everything had always come to flailing end. As for having children, I thought that perhaps the time moment had passed.

But then out of nowhere: Kapow. Love. With a guy who did IT for a living and liked power tools. Strange. But so right. And then marriage.  Maybe we’ll have a baby, I thought. Instead we took ourselves overseas. Then after nearly a year of experiencing the world and eachother a baby came into our lives. Shock. Then the nausea, then the vomiting and then severe hyperemesis gravidarum. Hyperemesis by definition is a rare but extreme form of morning sickness characterized by prolonged violent vomiting (and rumoured to have killed Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre). It lasted for about 6 months of my pregnancy. At this time I finally emerged from my bed and began the process of making peace with what I felt more like a parasite than a baby. A counselor who had been with me throughout the pregnancy suggested I write a peacemaking list to my unborn baby.

I remember lying against a tree near the hospital and writing this list as I waited for my partner to come and get me. In truth I had sneezed, then wretched so violently, that I had wet my pants and he was on his way to bring me new knickers and pants.

Pregnancy taught me humility.

As a watched the leaves in the branches and sat in my wet knickers my list started like this: ‘I promise I will never hit (smack) you – ever’. Then I started crying.

And when I had stopped crying, I wrote more solemn intentions to the unborn but realer-than-real child of my imagination. Some of them I have already broken, most I can remember now, but the one that stuck with me is ‘I will never smack you’. Neither in discipline, nor in anger.

Why would I hit someone I love? Whatever came of violence, but more violence? I know this – I had worked in family violence for nearly 6 years. But then again it used to be acceptable to keep slaves, hunt down our indigenous peoples, shoot bushmen, wear leopards and rape your wife. We have moved on. Surely.

I remember being hit as a child. Incessantly ‘tapped’ on the hand by my teachers, the nuns, my father. I also remember being hit so hard my nose started bleeding. At school my arm had been wretched as I was hauled in front of the school for laughing during the Australian anthem. I was 6. Humiliated in front of my friends. Told I was a bad, bad girl.

What did it teach me? To be fearful of adults. Fearful of expressing myself. To be a ‘good’ girl. To be sneaky. To lie. To hide. Can a child differentiate between a tap on the wrist and abuse? I’m not so sure. I couldn’t.

I see parents horrified when their children hit or bite or scratch other children in the sandpit. We say ‘no’. We tell our children to share, care, to be gentle. Are we modeling this to them when we smack them? Tap them?

That children who are smacked performed better in life? In my field of work, I see more people than any other time in history taking anti-depressant medication, and others taking medication to manage anxiety. And that does not account for the tens of thousands who self-medicate with drugs both legal and illegal. Despite the health risks, thousands of Australians continue to smoke cigarettes. Obesity is at an all time national high. Divorce rate is over 50%. Our society continues to be plagued by intolerance, poverty, crime and violence. Our environment is crumbling. Is polluted. People are stressed, depressed and overwhelmed by insecurity and low self-esteem. Is this the best we can do?

Our current parenting practices do a poor job of developing human beings with healthy self-esteem. Parenting is focused on control and discipline. Reward and punishment. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We have the opportunity to move away from power struggles and to honour and celebrate the unique personalities of our children. It will take courage for the first generation of parents to stand up and say ‘yes, we can do better’ and be willing to say no to smacking, and move towards a new model of parenting.

And here is a more generalised policy about chemical exposures and human health….

Environmental Exposures and Human Health Policy [Draft]

The Public Health Association of Australia notes that:

1. We are living in a time of large scale and high volume industrial and manufactured chemicals. Global chemical production has escalated from around one million tonnes a year in 1930 to some 400 million tonnes being produced annually today.[i] Over 80,000 chemicals are now registered for use in Australia (40,000 industrial chemicals) and accessed via everyday consumer products ranging from foods and food packaging, clothing, building materials, water, cleaning products, personal care products.[ii] Yet 75% of these have never been tested for their toxicity on the human body or the environment.[iii]

2. The backlog of internationally untested chemicals is both an Australian specific and a global issue[iv]

3. People are affected by manufactured chemicals unequally:

• People of low socioeconomic status are more likely to be employed in occupations with higher levels of chemical exposure (e.g., mining, construction, manufacturing, hair solons, agriculture, certain service sector occupations) and to live in more highly contaminated communities.
• Women often have higher levels of many toxic and hormone-disrupting substances than do men.[v]
• Chemical contaminants are being passed on to the next generation, both prenatally and during breastfeeding. Many chemicals have been found in maternal blood, placental tissue, and breast milk samples from pregnant women and mothers who recently gave birth.[vi][vii][viii][ix]
• Children are uniquely susceptible and vulnerable to environmental hazards compared to adults (See PHSS Children’s Environmental Health Policy)

4. In utero and childhood exposures to environmental chemicals constitute a source of inequity between generations highlighting the need for significant ethical policy and regulations.[x]

5. Exposure to many chemicals has been linked to a range of diseases and impairments. These include asthma,[xi] [xii][xiii]allergies,[xiv] autoimmune diseases, cancers[xv][xvi]neurological impairment[xvii], birth defects and infertility.[xviii] 

6. Many of the diseases caused by manufactured chemicals can successfully be prevented, thus saving lives, enhancing the quality of life, reducing health care and education costs, and increasing national productivity.[xix][xx]

7. Evidence on individual and multiple environmental exposure effects on disease initiation and outcomes, and consequent health system and societal costs are not being adequately integrated into national policy decisions and strategies for disease prevention, health care access, and health system reform.

8.  Regulatory agencies in Australia do not have a clear picture of what chemicals Australian’s are exposed to and in what concentrations. This is due to limited research, data collection about chemical exposure and the regulatory framework which is based on a ‘proceed until danger is proven’ approach, rather than a precautionary principle.

9.  Australian specific evidence on inutero exposure, level of harm, and increased risk from chemical exposures is insufficient.

10. Governments and regulatory agencies across the globe, including Australia, are faced with the urgent task of prioritizing chemicals for regulation and eradication. This needs to be systematically co-ordinated.

11. Individuals and communities are not being provided all available information about chemical exposures they may experience, the cumulative effects of such exposures, and how to minimize harmful exposures. 

The Public Health Association of Australia affirms the following principles:

12. Australia is a signatory to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development which states;

“In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation, a statement known as the Precautionary Principle.”[xxi]

13.  Guiding principles for the Australian Charter for Environmental Health include the protection of human health. This is stated as ‘Protect human health by identifying threats posed by environmental hazards as early as possible and by introducing appropriate safeguards. Ideally these should be sustainable and cost-effective’.[xxii]

14.   That the health of children and young people is important to future generations and the future of the planet. Societies have a social and ethical responsibility to ensure that children can reach and maintain their full potential and be provided with a safe, clean environment.

15. To protect the Australian population from exposure to chemical exposures, the nation needs a comprehensive, cohesive policy agenda and regulatory framework based on prevention and a precautionary principle.

16. That there are many opportunities for harmful environmental exposures, ample opportunities also exist to intervene in, ameliorate, and prevent environmental health hazards. Governments, industry, the academic and medical communities, and individuals all have untapped power to protect the health of current and future generations of Australians and reduce the national burden of disease. 

The Public Health Association of Australia believes that the following steps should be undertaken:

17. A precautionary, prevention-oriented approach should replace current reactionary approaches to environmental contaminants in which human harm must be proven before action is taken to reduce or eliminate exposure. Though not applicable in every instance, this approach should be the cornerstone of prevention strategy that emphasizes primary prevention, redirects accordingly both research and policy agendas, and sets tangible goals for reducing or eliminating toxic environmental exposures.

18.  That this precautionary approach be adopted and incorporated at all levels of government as a primary guide to all policy development program implementation and decision-making including health and environmental decision-making.

19. This precautionary approach shifts the burden of proving safety to manufacturers prior to new chemical approval, in mandatory post-market studies for new and existing agents, and in renewal applications for chemical approval.

20. The Australian Government must set a priority process and commence the long overdue assessment of Australia’s existing chemicals. That the detection of a chemical in human umbilical cord blood is the most urgent and hence the most appropriate criteria on which to base regulatory prioritisation of chemical assessments. Chemicals that children are exposed to prenatally and being detected in newborn babies must be fast-tracked for immediate assessment and removal from the market.

21. Reform of reducing chemical exposure will need to encompass these essential changes:

• Require manufacturers to provide basic information for all chemicals used in products;
• Hold industry responsible for demonstrating the safety of the chemicals used in production;
• Promote safe alternatives to harmful chemicals;
• Make information about the effects of chemicals on human and environmental health publicly available;
• Immediately begin phasing out the most hazardous chemicals on the market.

22. Epidemiologic and hazard assessment research must be strengthened in areas in which the evidence in Australia is unclear, especially research on workplace exposures, the impact of in utero and childhood exposures, and exposures that appear to have multigenerational effects.

23. Public health messages must be developed and disseminated to raise awareness of chemical risks and that support people to reduce or eliminate exposures whenever possible. 

The Public Health Association of Australia resolves to undertake the following actions:

The Board, Branches and the Environmental Health and Child Health SIGs will:

24. Work in partnership with government and non-government organizations to develop and implement a comprehensive intersectoral national strategy to reduce the impact of chemical exposures on the health of Australians, especially children, the indigenous population, and people of low socioeconomic status.

25. Write to the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) enHealth, the Commonwealth and State/Territory ministries of health and the environment seeking support for substantial funding for research programs aimed at:

• understanding the causes of environmental damage to individuals;
• populations with an emphasis on vulnerable groups; and, ·
• identification and trialing of strategies that reduce environmental health risks

26. Advocate for the protection of children and other vulnerable groups from environmental health hazards and the inclusion of the welfare of these groups in health impact assessments and policy development on an on-going basis.

Over the past few months I have been drafting policy for the Public Health Association of Australia.

The rationale: we are birthing a generation of pre-polluted children. It’s that simple. Environmental toxicants such as methylmercury, brominated flame-retardants, dioxin, organophosphate pesticides, parabens, and other toxic pollutants are regularly detected in the blood and tissue of newborn babies, young children and women of reproductive age. While the long-term health effects of these toxicants are yet to be fully realized, what we do know, is that exposures to these toxicants have been linked with a range of ‘new childhood morbidities’  including intellectual impairments, allergenicity, neurological and behavioral disorders, cancers, congenital malformations, asthma, and preterm birth. Their presence therefore raises profound intergenerational ethical issues, not to mention cross-sectoral policy implications.

And while Australia has ratified a number of international agreements pertaining to chemicals and their regulation, such that we have some universally recognized concern for the future, it currently does not convert that concern into a recognizable moral imperative to legislate nor create a comprehensive framework for protecting children from toxic exposures. There is currently no specific legislation to protect children from environmental hazards, nor is there any national program, policy, agenda or organisation that specifically addresses children’s environmental health in Australia.

The question then is does how the public health establishment addresses these formidable challenges? Or anyone for that matter? Parents, grandparents, teachers, child care workers, psychologists, health practicioners, scientists…etc.

So I’m posting these draft policies so that you may utilise the content or references for your own use…to advance this cause…either personally or in your own organisation. Just make sure you reference  them correctly.

Children’s Environmental Health Policy

The Public Health Association of Australia notes that:

1. Children today live in an environment that is vastly different from that of a generation ago. Technological advances, new industrial processes, increased mobility, intensified urbanism, and changes in food processing, have radically increased the manufactured chemicals (contamination produced by human activity) to which children are routinely exposed. Over 80,000 chemicals are now registered for use in Australia (40,000 industrial chemicals) and accessed via everyday consumer products ranging from foods and food packaging, clothing, building materials, cleaning products, cosmetics, toys and baby bottles.[i] Yet 75% of these have never been tested for their toxicity on the human body or the environment.[ii]

2.  That children are uniquely susceptible and vulnerable to environmental hazards compared to adults is well documented.[iii][iv][v][vi][vii] Prenatal, newborn babies, and children are particularly vulnerable to chemicals due to their lower body weight, lower metabolic rates and fewer detoxifying enzymes that do not process or excrete toxins the way adults’ bodies do.[viii][ix] They digest more food[x][xi] and water,[xii] and breathe more than adults per kilo of body weight.[xiii] They have a higher skin surface area to body weight ration than adults, and their skin of children is more permeable resulting in enhanced absorption of chemicals.[xiv] Physiologically, children dwell closer to the ground exposing them to residues from gardens, car exhausts, flooring and carpets, and can experience sustained exposure due to their restricted mobility.[xv]

3. Exposures to environmental chemicals play a significant role in developmental and environmental illnesses that our children are now experiencing today including cancers, diabetes, asthma, generalised immune disorders, obesity, autism, asthma, and neurological and behavioural conditions.[xvi][xvii][xviii][xix][xx][xxi] Many of these diseases triggered by toxic chemicals are now understood to evolve through multistage, multiyear processes that may be initiated by exposures in infancy.[xxii]

4.  Babies are being born pre-polluted with a range of manufactured chemicals. Prenatal (inutero) exposure and the associated links to disease is widely documented.[xxiii]

5. It is recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), Canada, the USA and many other countries that environmental hazards to children are a significant global health problem. The WHO recommended more than a decade ago that when health risks from chemicals are evaluated, the special characteristics of infants and children must be recognized.[xxiv][xxv] The EU, Canada and the US are taking critical actions to address children’s chemical exposure.

6. Despite children’s extensive exposures and heightened vulnerability to environmental toxins, there is currently no coherent research or policy agenda in Australia which protects children from chemical hazards and ensures that Australian children will grow up in a safe, healthy, clean environment. There is also no national program or organisation that specifically addresses children’s environmental health in Australia. This leaves a gap which heightens the vulnerability of Australian populations, and children in particular, to chemical exposure.[xxvi]

7. Diseases caused by manufactured chemicals can successfully be prevented. This would save lives, enhance quality of life, reduce health care and education costs, and increase national productivity.[xxvii]

8. The current paradigm for risk assessment and risk management of chemicals in Australia places the chemical toxicant at the centre of the discussion (data about health effects, routes of exposure, mechanisms of action, permissible exposure level) rather than the child.

9. There is a compelling case for reviewing our approach to child environmental health in Australia, as reflected in governmental, professional and community-based policies and practices.

The Public Health Association of Australia affirms the following principles:

10. That every child has a right to an environment which is clean and safe.

11. That the health of children and young people is important to the health of future generations. Societies have a social and ethical responsibility to ensure that children are provided with opportunities that optimise their health and wellbeing.

12. That children must have protective and preventative policies and regulations in order to significantly reduce exposure and the burden of disease in Australia.

13. That children, not the chemical toxicant, must be at the centre of any risk assessment and risk management processes and policy development in Australia.

14. That Federal, State, Local government, private sector and industry need to work together to ensure that resources are made available, and used effectively, to address children’s environmental health.

The Public Health Association of Australia believes that the following steps should be undertaken:

15. That a thorough assessment of existing Australian policies take place, and take sufficient account of the many different types and levels of environmental risks to children, how these impinge differentially within the Australian child population (as a function of geography, socioeconomic position, ethnicity and other social-demographic indices) and whether such policies are being effectively implemented.

16. That a new paradigm for developing environmental health policy centered on the needs and exposures of children be established.

17. That this new child-centered paradigm in environmental health include the following:

• Develop structures that foster national interagency coordination and collaboration to review and coordinate regulation and policy on children’s environmental health.
• Review and evaluate current environmental legislation and regulations to determine if children are included and are adequately protected. Amend any environmental laws to require specifically that environmental standards incorporate consideration of children and other special subgroups.
• Ensure that children are specifically included in every new piece of environmental regulation and legislation.
• Develop new risk assessment models to incorporate the most sensitive populations.
• Increase research on paediatric environmental health to acquire more data on environmental hazards affecting children and to better understand exposure patterns.
• Require toxicity testing of chemicals to assess long-term effects of exposure in early childhood, and transgenerational effects.

That these starting points be accomplished through a variety of means including changes in legislation, regulation, and agency appropriations.

The Public Health Association of Australia resolves to undertake the following actions:

18.  Meet with the National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC), enHealth, the Commonwealth and State/Territory ministries of health and the environment and ARACY, in securing support for substantial funding for a Children’s Environmental Health Research Centre and Network for Children’s Environmental Health.

19. To work towards establishing a Research Centre specifically focused on children’s environmental health. That this Research Centre focus on:

• develop a cooperative agenda for children’s environmental health research in Australia;
• identify what we currently know about children’s environmental health in Australia i.e. where are the gaps in our knowledge;
• assess the environmental contribution of the burden of disease for Australian children;
• identify key priorities for children’s environmental health research in Australia;
• identify and trial strategies that reduce environmental health risks and optimise opportunities for health and well-being for Australian children;
• establishing a coherent strategy for environmental monitoring to determine the extent of exposure.

20. To work towards establishing a Network for Children’s Environmental Health consisting of researchers, clinicians, government and NGOs and consumers.

21. Work in partnership with government and non-government organizations to develop and implement a comprehensive intersectoral national strategy to reduce the impact of environmental hazards on the health of Australian children.

References

I’m back into the swing of life after rougue-travelling (and will be able to post more regular bloggs now). I am doing a workshop presented by the Southern Cross Catholic College P & F next week. It’s titled ‘What’s Toxic & What’s Not’ . Come along if you would like more information about what chemicals are in the body – and what should be there, how they get there, health impacts, chemical policy, the precautionary principle…and generally some critical tips for living more healthy in a toxic world. It will be a jam-packed night of exploring these issues.  These are the details:

Thursday 15^th September, SCCC Community Hall, 281 Scarborough Road, Scarborough 7pm – 9pm  (tea and coffee from 6.30pm)

Contact the lovely Deborah Fay for more information – deb@debfay.com.au

See you there, Sa xox