Putting children last

A few days ago a regional World Health Organisation (WHO) meeting was convened in Malta to prepare for a ministerial conference on environment and health, The Future for Our Children, being held in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, in June. The health experts at the Malta meeting were given the preliminary results from a comprehensive study on environmental threats to children's health, being conducted by the WHO and the University of Udine, Italy. The results show that brains of children in many parts of Europe are suffering greater damage from environmental risks than previously recognised - up to 30 per cent of urban children show high blood levels of lead in some countries.

Globally, the WHO says, 15 to 18 million children in developing countries suffer permanent brain damage from lead poisoning. Other threats to children's health include methyl mercury, dioxins, furans, PCBs, pesticides, nitrites and nitrates and benzene.

Roberto Bertollini of WHO said: "For too long, policy-makers have retrospectively pleaded, 'If only we had known earlier what we know now'." The WHO says the emphasis from now on should be on the precautionary principle, putting safety first.

The WHO says "the vested interests of industry and free trade" have worked against this approach so far.

A few days after the Malta meeting, delegates at a UN-sponsored conference in Montreal agreed that the United States and 10 other developed nations would be given exemptions allowing them to use the pesticide at least until the end of 2005. Developing nations have been given an extension up to 2015. This is going to delay the implementation of a deal to stop using methyl bromide, a pesticide known to destroy the ozone layer, the part of the atmosphere that protects the earth from ultraviolet radiation. According to the US Environment Protection Agency, in addition to its effect on the atmosphere, methyl bromide can result in central-nervous system and respiratory-system failure, as well as specific and severe harm to the lungs, eyes and skin of people exposed to high concentrations.

Despite all the fashionable slogans about putting children first, the vested interests of industry and free trade have prevailed again over the well-being of millions of children around the world, including in Malta and Gozo.