HOW TO CONTACT US We would love to hear from you. Write to us at: Child Health and Development Studies 1683 Shattuck Ave., Ste. B Berkeley, CA 94709-1611 Please include your address, phone number or email address. Or use the form below to send us an email now. First Name*: Last Name*: Email*: Address: City: State: Zip: Phone: * *Indicates required field. Please have other family members who have participated send us their info as well.

We have not talked with some of you for over 40 years. Now the Internet gives us the opportunity to tell you how important you have been to protecting the health of millions of people. The Internet also gives you the opportunity to contact us.

Please take a moment to:

• Accept our thank you
• Learn why it is so important for you to continue to participate in the CHDS
• Hear about new CHDS research and findings
• Send us an email or a note to update us on how we can reach you and your family (please see "How to Contact Us" to the right).

THANK YOU CHDS MOTHERS, FATHERS, SONS AND DAUGHTERS

BECAUSE OF YOU, YOUR DOCTOR KNOWS:

• Which medicines are unsafe for pregnant women and her baby
• Which life-saving medicines are safe for pregnant women
• Smoking during pregnancy can be harmful to the unborn child
• Polio vaccine is safe for pregnant women. This knowledge helped to eradicate this dread disease in the United States and elsewhere.
• Higher blood pressure in pregnancy creates a risk for the fetus. This helps the physician decide who needs special care to protect their baby.
• How children are expected to grow and develop. So, early signs of problems can be identified and permanent disabilities can be prevented.

BECAUSE OF YOU, YOUR DOCTOR MAY SOMEDAY LEARN:

• Whether it is possible to prevent infertility, asthma, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, and disabilities in the womb
• "Whether adult diseases begin in infancy, childhood or adolescence
• How the major diseases that cause premature death and disability can be prevented before they begin

TO DO THIS WE NEED YOUR HELP

No one else can replace you and your family in our current health studies. The reason is that your family graciously agreed to join our study 40 years ago. You can help us learn how early life, even before birth, affects health. With your help, we can discover how to prevent premature disease, disability and death, early in life. This is why some of you may be invited to participate in new studies or examinations.

If we contact you to ask for an update on your health or to join a new special study, please consider saying, "YES".

WHAT RESEARCHERS IN CHDS ARE STUDYING NOW

We are trying to answer some very important questions that only you can help us answer because you were participants in the CHDS 40 years ago. The answers to these questions are very important to protecting and improving the health of three generations: the CHDS parents who are entering their middle and older years, the CHDS "children" who are in the 30's and 40's and the CHDS grandchildren whose health may depend on the events that occurred when the CHDS children were in the womb. Here are some things we are studying:

• How having children affects the health of CHDS mothers as they age [1, 2]. [http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/breastcenter/artemis/200109/feature12.html].
• How events before birth and early childhood relate to health and well being over the lifespan of CHDS children, including mental health [3].
• Whether exposures to the environmental chemicals, DDT and DDE were higher for CHDS mothers born in California or in the Southeastern United States, and higher for African-American mothers [4].
• Whether exposure to environmental chemicals when CHDS mothers and fathers were young could affect their health in middle and older age [5].
• Whether exposure to environmental chemicals before birth could affect fertility [6], asthma, cancer or heart disease over the lifespan of CHDS children [http://www.niehs.nih.gov/dert/profiles/hilites/2003/ddt-dde.htm].
• Whether it is possible to identify which CHDS fathers will get prostate cancer in middle and older age by examining hormones and other markers in the blood of fathers when they entered the CHDS study in their 20's and 30's. This study is very important for understanding how to identify risk for prostate cancer risk early and also to prevent it.

To do these studies, we will continue to need your support and participation, as a member of the families who were a part of the original CHDS.

References in this Newsletter

1. Richardson, B.E., B.S. Hulka, J.L. David, B.J. van den Berg, R.E. Christianson, and J.A. Calvin, Levels of maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in pregnant women and subsequent breast cancer risk. American Journal of Epidemiology, 1998. 148(8): p. 719-27.
2. Cohn, B.A., P.M. Cirillo, R.E. Christianson, B.J. van den Berg, and P.K. Siiteri, Placental characteristics and reduced risk of maternal breast cancer. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2001. 93(15): p. 1133-40. [http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/breastcenter/artemis/200109/feature12.html.]
3. Brown, A.S., C.A. Schaefer, R.J. Wyatt, R. Goetz, M.D. Begg, J.M. Gorman, and E.S. Susser, Maternal exposure to respiratory infections and adult schizophrenia spectrum disorders: A prospective birth cohort study. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 2000. 26(20): p. 287-95.
4. James, R.A., I. Hertz-Picciotto, E. Willman, J.A. Keller, and M.J. Charles, Determinants of serum polychlorinated biphenyls and organochlorine pesticides measured in women from the Child Health and Development Study Cohort, 1963-1967. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2002. 110(7): p. 617-24.
5. Cohn, B.A., M.S. Wolff, P.M. Cirillo, R.I. Sholtz, R.E. Christianson, B.J. van den Berg, and P.K. Siiteri, Timing of DDT Exposure and Breast Cancer Before Age 50 (Abstract). International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, Vancouver British Columbia, July, 2002.
6. Cohn, B.A., P.M. Cirillo, M.S. Wolff, P.J. Schwingl, R.D. Cohen, R.I. Sholtz, A. Ferrara, R.E. Christianson, B.J. van den Berg, and P.K. Siiteri, DDT and DDE exposure in mothers and time to pregnancy in daughters. The Lancet, 2003. 361: p. 2205-2206. [http://www.niehs.nih.gov/dert/profiles/hilites/2003/ddt-dde.htm].