"After 14 years, NIH Cancels National Children’s Study"

"Its magnitude was ambitious and unprecedented: The National Children’s Study promised to follow 100,000 American children from before birth to the age of 21. Researchers sought a better understanding of autism, obesity and cancer by tracking links between children’s environments and their health outcomes. Since 2007, Congress has appropriated about $1.3 billion to fund planning and research; millions went to four research centers in the St. Louis region alone.

But the project never moved beyond its pilot phase, and the National Institutes of Health has now confirmed that it never will. After delays and a review of the study’s feasibility, the director of the National Institutes for Health, Francis Collins, announced that no further data would be collected, and the study’s program office in Washington, D.C. will be dissolved.

Dr. Louise Flick of St. Louis University, who served as principal investigator for research in St. Louis during the pilot program, said the study had the potential to track how things like air pollution, chemicals and housing impacted children’s health on a national scale. In 2012, data collection in St. Louis shifted from local universities to a private research organization, NORC at the University of Chicago."

Durrie Bouscaren reports for St. Louis Public Radio December 16, 2014.