The Blacksmith Institute has released a new report on the world's most polluted places and there are, unfortunately, a lot of sites in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union on the list.

That's the bad news. The good news is that seven of the eight pollution clean-up success stories that Blacksmith cites are also in Russia.

Pollution takes a huge toll on the world's children, causing high rates of birth defects and infant mortality, high rates of asthma, cancer and other diseases, impairing brain... more

Warning: This is going to be one of those soapbox posts. So if you don't want to read a rant about food that can harm your kids, it's time to click elsewhere.

Whew! I feel better already.

Last week, the eminent British medical journal The Lancet published a study by British researchers that linked a very common food preservative to hyperactivity in children. They found that, when combined with certain common artificial colorings, the preservative, sodium benzoate caused children to lose focus and become hyperactive.

Why am I writing about this... more

As I noted the other day, the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has declared September 9 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders awareness day. So I suppose that it is entirely fitting that, this past week, Minnesota Public Radio ran a six-part series on FASD, entitled "Fetal alcohol syndrome: The invisible disorder".

The Minnesota Public... more

As I noted the other day, the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has declared September 9 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders awareness day. So I suppose that it is entirely fitting that, this past week, Minnesota Public Radio ran a six-part series on FASD, entitled "Fetal alcohol syndrome: The invisible disorder".

The Minnesota Public... more

Worries about pre-natal exposure to alcohol hover over just about every adoption from Russia. We worry about how much the birth mother drank, and at what point during her pregnancy. We worry about the trauma children suffer as a result of being exposed to an alcoholic parent. We worry about how lasting, and how severe, the effects of that alcohol consumption will be on our children. For many parents, the worry and uncertainty is too overwhelming. They simply walk away from considering Russia as an adoption destination.

On Sunday, September 9, the National... more

Late last evening, I got hit with that question that no adoptive mother wants to hear from a medical professional: "Does he have a history of …..?"

It felt so ridiculously helpless to say "I don’t know". The doctor is looking for answers as to how we wound up in the emergency room, and all I could manage was "I don't know".

Last year, my little guy got stung by a bee. It made a welt on his leg that was uncomfortable for a few days, but that was it. Yesterday, just after we returned home from a great Chinese dinner, he got stung again. One welt... more

As you might have guessed from my previous two posts on the work of Professors Robert McCall and Christina Groark, I find the work being done at St. Petersburg's orphanages by these University of Pittsburgh professors fascinating.

They've quantified the basic environment in many Russian orphanages and then they set out to see what changes were possible... more

The other day, I told you about how two professors from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education came to be involved with Russia's orphanages. Now, I'd like to tell you what they have achieved through their work.

Their goals were two-fold: make care more consistent and more responsive. They had found that the average child in a Russian baby home could expect to encounter as many as 100 caregivers during his or her time there. Most of... more

The English-language news channel Russia Today put up an interesting piece this morning on an orphanage in Moscow devoted to children with HIV and AIDS.

In case you are not familiar with Russia Today, it is an offshoot of the RIA-Novosti news agency. Like its parent organization, it covers breaking news, politics, business and human interest stories in Russia and other Eastern European and Central Asia countries. It also is taking full advantage of the Internet: It recently established its own channel on... more

Fifteen years ago, two professors from the University of Pittsburgh were invited to go to Russia by city government officials in St. Petersburg. The Soviet Union had dissolved, and with it, a lot of government support for child welfare initiatives. What policies, what services should we put in place, the city fathers asked the academics?

But while Robert McCall and Christina Groark, respectively a professor... more