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Our country has long made it a priority to protect our children’s health from environmental threats. We want surface water that is fishable, swimmable, and drinkable. We strive for air quality that allows all of us to more fully enjoy our environment. And we tightly control many dangerous chemicals such as heavy metals, pesticides, asbestos, and polychlorinated biphenyls to limit exposure and prevent accidents. As a result of efforts by citizens, environmental activists, government and business, we have made tremendous strides in children’s environmental health protection. We need to recognize and applaud that success!

But we also need to recognize its limitations.

• We are losing the battle for children’s health in several critical areas.
• We have effectively disconnected the environment programs from our children’s health.
• We have a cautious regulatory program that sets only minimum standards.

Viewed as a whole, there is a growing awareness that our current approach to addressing environmental threats is not up to the challenge when it comes to children. Indiana and U.S.EPA acknowledged the shortcomings and began aggressive efforts in 1997 to focus on the issue of children’s environmental health.

Our current approach to children’s environmental health protection needs to be revised in three ways.

• We need to translate into action more quickly the science of children’s environmental health especially in the critical areas of asthma, cancer, neurological and developmental disorders, and reproductive disorders.
• We need to reconnect our environmental programs with our health goals, especially our state children’s health goals, and adjust environmental activities to more closely achieve those goals.
• We need to go beyond minimum standards with a right-to-know approach that helps parents and the public understand the threats to children and take appropriate action. But under this right-to-know model, rather than having government in the middle of the communication, the organization that is involved in creating the threat needs to take on the responsibility to effectively communicate the nature of the threat to parents and the public and recommend realistic methods to address the threat. The government needs to monitor effectiveness of the communication and provide context and summaries for parents.

That is where IKE comes in. While much of the work of environmental protection occurs at the state and local level, there are no advocates focused intensively enough on children’s environmental health. National groups, especially the Children’s Environmental Health Network, have lead the way, but we need a regional and state advocate to bring about the needed changes. An advocate to overcome the institutional momentum. An organization that will build a coalition working on tangible and significant benefits for children’s environmental health. An organization that will reinforce existing children’s environmental health efforts and expand them to a new level that trusts the parents and public. Improving Kids’ Environment is the right group and the right time to bring about this change.