Almost Abandoned, Children's Health Study Is Funded

WASHINGTON — A massive study of the environmental and genetic factors that make American kids sick has been rescued from termination by a new infusion of cash.

A bill appropriating funds for federal agencies through the current fiscal year and earmarking $69 million for the National Children's Study was signed into law Feb. 15 by President Bush.

The study, which has never been fully funded, would have been abandoned this year under Bush's budget recommendation.

Its goal is to pinpoint causes of such conditions as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, autism, asthma, obesity, heart disease and schizophrenia by monitoring the environments and health of 100,000 children, beginning with each mother's pregnancy and ending at the child's 21st birthday.

Sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health, it has a projected cost of $3.5 billion.

Advocates say the cost is only about one-thirtieth of the projected benefit in such areas as avoided health care costs and increased productivity.

When the study is fully launched, planners anticipate tracking kids, their development and their environments in 96 counties, including Travis County in Texas and DeKalb, Fayette and Baldwin counties in Georgia.

"This is a giant step forward for our children," said Dr. Peter C. Scheidt, a National Institute for Child Health and Human Development pediatrician who directs the effort.

Scheidt said that with the new funding, the program will immediately request proposals from hospitals, local health departments, medical schools and other institutions for operating 15 to 20 new study centers.

Eventually, children from rural and urban counties, representing a wide range of ethnic, racial and economic backgrounds, are to be monitored.

Study centers will interview pregnant women, save tissue samples such as umbilical cord blood and hair from each child, periodically collect environmental samples like dust, air, and water, and monitor the growth and health of the children.

Although it was set up by Congress in 2000, the study has never been fully funded and has been in an extended planning phase for the past six years. In his budget recommendations for fiscal 2007, which ends Sept. 30, Bush said it would be terminated.

It was one of 91 government programs the president said were not achieving their objectives or were no longer needed and should be "zeroed out."

Advocates hailed this year's $69 million appropriation, which exceeds the total amount that has been spent on the project to date.

"This is a tremendous victory for America's children," said Dr. Leo Trasande, assistant director of the Center for Children's Health and Environment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. "We see this as a truly monumental moment."

On the Web:

National Children's study: www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov