A giant US study on children's health might be orphaned, researchers fear

[Guest guest]

A giant US study on children's health might be orphaned, researchers fear

By , Globe Staff | March 27, 2006

The 100,000 children who are supposed to be in the study have not even been conceived yet, but scientists have been preparing for their birth for six years. Congress voted in 2000 to create the biggest pediatric study ever to showcase a new commitment to children's health, and the researchers planned to follow the children from the womb to their 21st birthdays to find the roots of diseases from autism to asthma.

But, before scientists could recruit their first mother-to-be, the White House proposed eliminating the $2 billion National Children's Study altogether. Seven senators have called for the study to be saved, but analysts say it's an uphill fight at a time when overall spending on medical research could be frozen for the second straight year.

The uncertain fate of the Children's Study is putting the spotlight on a field where researchers feel they're still battling for respect. Despite political rhetoric about the importance of children, pediatric research accounts for only about one-ninth of federal research funding even though people under 18 represent a quarter of the population.

''Lots of us do research on a shoestring with funds and time borrowed from all kinds of places," said Dr. Grossman, director of developmental pediatrics at the University of land School of Medicine. ''It reflects the general tendency in our society to give children short shrift."

Of course, adults get sick and die more often than children, which helps explain why adult diseases get more attention. But officials at the National Institutes of Health have acknowledged that, until the mid-1990s, they, too, often regarded children as ''miniature adults" rather than people whose fast-changing physiology requires targeted research.

Congress created the Children's Study as part of a broader effort to concentrate on children's health amid rising rates of childhood asthma, obesity, and diabetes and growing concern that the next generation could be the first to be less healthy than their parents.

Advocates compare the Children's Study to the Framingham Heart Study, which revolutionized understanding of heart disease by following generations of ordinary Framingham residents. The Children's Study, which would include research sites in Bristol and Worcester counties, was designed to answer even broader questions such as: Do babies born through fertility treatments run a higher risk of birth defects? Are breastfed babies less likely to be obese? Does exposure to violence make children more violent? How does poverty affect children's health?

''We have the opportunity to make some major advances in knowing how to prevent major illnesses," said Dr. Schonfeld of Cincinnati Children's Hospital, a member of the study advisory committee.

However, the very size and ambition of the project has stirred resentment among some pediatric researchers who fear it will drain resources from other pediatric studies. Many, including Grossman, had mixed emotions when the White House proposed last month to stop the research.Whenever I have heard about the National Children's Study and the tremendous amount of resources being allocated to it, I think of so many other areas of research that would do so much good and are getting so little funding," said Dr. Woolf, director of research in the department of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Children's Study officials believe that, in the long run, their work will increase research funding by raising the profile of the entire field. But they understand why outside researchers would be nervous: In its first six years, the Children's Study spent $50 million in planning, but next year researchers want $69 million to begin field work -- a sum equal to 2 percent of the entire pediatric research budget.

''For this study to go forward, it has to receive new money" from Congress, said Schonfeld. ''It cannot compete with existing resources."

Dr. Scheidt, director of the Children's Study, has long suspected that a budgetary moment of truth like this would arrive. Previously, the agencies behind the study -- the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency -- covered the planning costs out of existing budgets. But next year the pricetag is too high for the agencies to absorb.

Now, he said, Congress needs to decide how much it really wants the study. So far, the Senate appears sympathetic, overwhelmingly passing a nonbinding resolution in March calling for an additional $7 billion for education and health programs, which would include medical research. In addition, South Dakota's senators, Thune and Tim , led seven senators in appealing to the Senate Budget Committee to save the Children's Study.

However, a 100-member conservative group in the House, the Republican Study Committee, wants to cut the National Institutes of Health budget by 10 percent rather than simply freezing the budget at last year's levels as the White House proposes.

As a result, analysts say advocates for the study will have difficulty getting funding restored. ''I think the Children's Study is going nowhere, especially with the amount of money that's required now," predicted P. Gitterman, assistant professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has studied trends in pediatric research.

No matter how the budget is resolved, study leaders have pushed back recruitment of participants until 2008, although Scheidt told researchers to go forward with their work in case funding is restored.

''It's kind of like what my friend called surfboard management. You don't know when the wave is going to come," he said.

*********************I never endorse anything or anyone. Opinions expressed in what I send out may not be shared by me. Everything that I send out is for informational purposes only.Thanks,Val Dodd-SarafYour partner in healthy living!www.JP4HealthyLife.comJuice Plus+ reduces oxidative stress, strengthens your immune system, reduces DNA damage, improves circulation, and reduces key risk factors associated with coronary heart disease.Have you taken you fruits and veggies today???