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- Bergman, Åke, et al.
(author)
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Manufacturing doubt about endocrine disrupter science : A rebuttal of industry-sponsored critical comments on the UNEP/WHO report "State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2012"
- 2015
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In: Regulatory toxicology and pharmacology. - : Academic Press. - 0273-2300 .- 1096-0295. ; 73:3, s. 1007-1017
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We present a detailed response to the critique of "State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2012" (UNEP/WHO, 2013) by financial stakeholders, authored by Lamb et al. (2014). Lamb et al.'s claim that UNEP/WHO (2013) does not provide a balanced perspective on endocrine disruption is based on incomplete and misleading quoting of the report through omission of qualifying statements and inaccurate description of study objectives, results and conclusions. Lamb et al. define extremely narrow standards for synthesizing evidence which are then used to dismiss the UNEP/WHO 2013 report as flawed. We show that Lamb et al. misuse conceptual frameworks for assessing causality, especially the Bradford-Hill criteria, by ignoring the fundamental problems that exist with inferring causality from empirical observations. We conclude that Lamb et al.'s attempt of deconstructing the UNEP/WHO (2013) report is not particularly erudite and that their critique is not intended to be convincing to the scientific community, but to confuse the scientific data. Consequently, it promotes misinterpretation of the UNEP/WHO (2013) report by non-specialists, bureaucrats, politicians and other decision makers not intimately familiar with the topic of endocrine disruption and therefore susceptible to false generalizations of bias and subjectivity.
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- Fernandes, Michelle, et al.
(author)
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INTERGROWTH-21st Project international INTER-NDA standards for child development at 2 years of age : an international prospective population-based study
- 2020
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In: BMJ Open. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 2044-6055. ; 10:6
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objectives: To describe the construction of the international INTERGROWTH-21st Neurodevelopment Assessment (INTER-NDA) standards for child development at 2 years by reporting the cognitive, language, motor and behaviour outcomes in optimally healthy and nourished children in the INTERGROWTH-21st Project.Design: Population-based cohort study, the INTERGROWTH-21st Project.Setting: Brazil, India, Italy, Kenya and the UK.Participants: 1181 children prospectively recruited from early fetal life according to the prescriptive WHO approach, and confirmed to be at low risk of adverse perinatal and postnatal outcomes.Primary measures: Scaled INTER-NDA domain scores for cognition, language, fine and gross motor skills and behaviour; vision outcomes measured on the Cardiff tests; attentional problems and emotional reactivity measured on the respective subscales of the preschool Child Behaviour Checklist; and the age of acquisition of the WHO gross motor milestones.Results: Scaled INTER-NDA domain scores are presented as centiles, which were constructed according to the prescriptive WHO approach and excluded children born preterm and those with significant postnatal/neurological morbidity. For all domains, except negative behaviour, higher scores reflect better outcomes and the threshold for normality was defined as >= 10th centile. For the INTER-NDA's cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, language and positive behaviour domains these are >= 38.5, >= 25.7, >= 51.7, >= 17.8 and >= 51.4, respectively. The threshold for normality for the INTER-NDA's negative behaviour domain is <= 50.0, that is, <= 90th centile. At 22-30 months of age, the cohort overlapped with the WHO motor milestone centiles, showed low postnatal morbidity (<10%), and vision outcomes, attentional problems and emotional reactivity scores within the respective normative ranges.Conclusions: From this large, healthy and well-nourished, international cohort, we have constructed, using the WHO prescriptive methodology, international INTER-NDA standards for child development at 2 years of age. Standards, rather than references, are recommended for population-level screening and the identification of children at risk of adverse outcomes.
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