Environmental Regulations Request on child deaths to be handed in today at BHRUT board meeting

 This is the BHRUT Environmental Regulations Request to be handed in the board meeting today.

Stop the Tesco Toxic Towers

A Community Campaign Group

c/o 120 Blythswood Road

Ilford

IG3 8SG

 

Dear BHRUT Environmental Information Regulations Department Request for information

We are concerned about High Rise residential flats being planned by busy roads across London. Sometimes developments are also in between busy roads and railway tracks. Both air and noise pollution are linked to serious illness. Sometimes these developments are designed with affordable housing in mind which suggests the families living in them have low incomes and therefore may suffer from poor diet. This is an issue as research suggests poor diet makes children more vulnerable to diseases.

So, although the information we request may be more expensive than that usually allowed, we argue that is in the public interest for it be released to an academic.

An example of medical information being given to an academic is when the Fire Brigades Union  sent medical information to an academic on behalf of their members. The study was dated January 2023, the press was titled “Firefighters far more likely to die from cancer and heart attacks than public” and is available at https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2023/01/10/firefighters-far-more-likely-die-cancer-and-heart-attacks-public  

Our expectation is that the illness and mortality data you hold will show worse health for children located close to roads which will inform public debate and policy making.

We can find no London studies linking the impact of noise, air, magnetic field and inadequate diet on child health. The data BHRUT holds could prove useful in discovering whether worse health child health outcomes are correlated to certain areas 

The Goldacre review at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/goldacre-recommendations-to-improve-care-through-use-of-data aims to drive innovation and improve healthcare through safer use of health data. We argue that the data BHRUT holds is likely to influence planning policy, in particular pollution hotspots where several pollution factors are located in one location, making the health risk of building there measurably worse than elsewhere.

The Mayor of London’s office uses modelled mortality rates for policy making purposes. We say the real data you hold will test how accurate the Mayor’s modelling is and will be more comprehensive covering other risk factors such as EMF, noise and poverty as well as air pollution.

We seek the following information.

1) The full postcodes of patients, both in-patients and out-patients aged under 18 who have been receiving treatment for the following conditions living within a London Borough

a) Cancer with a breakdown of types, for example
Leukaemia
Brain and spinal cord tumour
Neuroblastoma
Wilms tumour
Lymphoma (including both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin)
Rhabdomyosarcoma
Retinoblastoma
Bone cancer 
b) Otitis media
c) All Acute lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia and bronchiolitis.
d) Meningitis

e) Asthma

For the following periods:
23rd March 2020 to 22nd March 2021
23rd March 2019 to 22nd March 2020
These dates tie in with the year before and after the lockdown period.
2) Children who have died in your care either in hospital or at home as out-patients aged under 18 for the same time periods and same conditions with the full postcodes set out in 1 above. It is accepted there are confidentiality issues here, but when Councils are planning substantial housing developments close to roads it must be right to discover if there is a health risk to building homes in these locations. It is important to stress all the information we seek be given to an academic acceptable to you, rather than the signatories.

3) Stillbirths at your hospitals because air pollution has been linked to stillbirths.

4) Dates of admission and deaths in (1) (2) and (3) to discover if there is a correlation to high pollution days.

This information may be over the usual cost limits, but it is in the public interest for the it to be published. Information relating to the slight risk of blood clots from the AstraZeneca vaccine has led to changes in the use of the vaccine.

There is also evidence that suggests EMF may be linked to child cancer. This means some sites planned for development will have all four risk factors: traffic pollution, noise pollution, EMF and poor diet. The data BHRUT holds has the potential to inform public debate about whether it is responsible to build developments in such apparently toxic locations.

They are many articles linking child illness pollution one at

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-0...

says

“A meta-analysis by Boothe et al.31 assessing childhood leukaemia in relation to multiple pollutants found an increased risk for post-natal exposure but no association with pre-natal exposure. Most studies found an association with childhood leukaemia overall, but the association tended to be stronger when examining just acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) or acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) for specific pollutants32. “

An FT article by Eade Hemingway dated 23^rd June 2023 claims:

“In 2022, 10 times more eight-year-olds died in the most deprived decile compared to the least deprived.

We say it must be right to investigate where children are living as being a cause of this huge disparity of health outcomes.

Studies and articles follow:

1)” Childhood cancer and traffic-related air pollution in Switzerland: A nationwide census-based cohort study” Environment International published in Volume 166, August 2022, 107380

2) “More than 90% of the world’s children breathe toxic air every day “Published by World Health Organisation 29 October 2018. We quite “Air pollution also impacts neurodevelopment and cognitive ability and can trigger asthma, and childhood cancer.”

3) Air Pollution and Otitis Media in Children: A Systematic Review of Literature Published online 2018 Feb  downloaded from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5858326/#:~:text=There%20is%20an%20increasing%20body,risk%20of%20OM%20in%20children. The quote we rely on is “There is an increasing body of evidence supporting an association between higher ambient air pollution exposure and a higher risk of OM in children”

4) Noise Effects on Health in the Context of Air Pollution Exposure Stephen A. Stansfeld. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2015 Oct; 12(10): 12735–12760. Published online 2015 Oct 14.Published online 2015 Oct 14. The quote is:

“There is good evidence from large population studies that environmental noise from road traffic and aircraft is associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality independent of the association with air pollution. There may be both independent mechanisms and common mechanisms involving methylation for these associations of environmental exposures with health. Environmental planning and policy should take both exposures into account when assessing environmental impacts.”

5) Road proximity, air pollution, noise, green space and neurologic disease incidence: a population-based cohort study. Weiran Yuchi, Hind Sbihi, Hugh Davies, Lillian Tamburic & Michael Brauer Environmental Health volume 19, Article number: 8 (2020

“Emerging evidence links road proximity and air pollution with cognitive impairment”

7) Impact of nutrition on pollutant toxicity: an update with new insights into 6pigenetic regulation Jessie B Hoffman, Michael C Petriello, Bernhard Hennig Rev Environ Health. 2017 Mar

Ann N Y Acad Sci

7)  2017 Jun;1398(1):99-107. doi: 10.1111/nyas.13365. Epub 2017 Jun 2.

Protective influence of healthful nutrition on mechanisms of environmental pollutant toxicity and disease risks

Jessie B Hoffman 1 2, Bernhard Hennig 1

Our work has shown that diets high in anti-inflammatory bioactive food components (e.g., phytochemicals or polyphenols) are possible strategies for modulating and reducing the disease risks associated with exposure to toxic pollutants in the environment. Thus, consuming healthy diets rich in plant-derived bioactive nutrients may reduce the vulnerability to diseases linked to environmental toxic insults.

8) Air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: Strengths and limitations of an ecological regression analysis X. WU, R. C. NETHERY M. B, D. BRAUN

SCIENCE ADVANCES

4 Nov 2020

Vol 6, Issue 45

The Harvard study is one of several that suggest air pollution is affecting COVID-19 mortality.

9) US government research on EMF and cancer at

 https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/electromagnetic-fields-fact-sheet

The quote is: “Several studies have analyzed the combined data from multiple studies of power line exposure and childhood leukemia:

·        A pooled analysis of nine studies reported a twofold increase in risk of childhood leukemia among children with exposures of 0.4 μT or higher. Less than 1% of the children in the studies experienced this level of exposure (26).

·        A meta-analysis of 15 studies observed a 1.7-fold increase in childhood leukemia among children with exposures of 0.3 μT or higher. A little more than 3% of children in the studies experienced this level of exposure (27).

·        More recently, a pooled analysis of seven studies published after 2000 reported a 1.4-fold increase in childhood leukemia among children with exposures of 0.3 μT or higher…

10) “Impact of air pollution on children’s health” 7th December 2021 by Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, and Andy Ratcliffe, Executive Director of Programmes at Impact on Urban Health at 

 https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/childrens-health/125608/

The quote is: “Our newly published joint report, Clear the Air: Improving air quality to protect future generations and level up our communities highlights that 85% of people living in areas with illegal levels of pollution make up the poorest 20% of the UK population.”

11) Air pollution and neurological development in children 9th December 2020 by

Sandie Ha at

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33300118/

The quote is “Mounting evidence suggests that exposure to air pollution, both during pregnancy and childhood, is associated with childhood developmental outcomes ranging from changes in brain structures to subclinical deficits in developmental test scores, and, ultimately, developmental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders or autism spectrum disorders.” 

12) Air pollution and children by Larissa Lockwood

Head of Health and Air Quality, Global Action Plan & Jemima Hartshorn

 

 

Campaigner and founder, Mums for Lungs

 

https://urbanhealth.org.uk/insights/reports/air-pollution-and-children

 

The quote is:

Air pollution can impact on children before birth – research has found that pregnant women exposed to PM2.5 and NO2 air pollutants are more likely to have smaller, low birth weight children.

13) The quote is  “ In 2022, 10 times more eight-year-olds died in the most deprived decile compared to the least deprived.”

From “Is a healthy retirement only for the rich?” by Eade Hemingway in the FT dated 23^rd June 2023

Signatories to be listed on the stop the Tesco Toxic Towers Blog (names not addresses)

 

Bob Archer Secretary Redbridge Trades Council

Andy Walker

120 Blythswood Road Ilford IG3 8SG

Martin Goodesell : Secretary East London Community Unite

Susan Pashkoff: Chair East London Community Unite