According to the United Nations, 7 million children die each year as a result of the way the rich countries undermine social development in the poorest countries.
According to UNEP, 35,000 children are dying every day of environmental diseases which could be prevented for a cost no greater than that of the new Hong Kong airport. The daily toll of preventable child deaths in 1992 was around 40,000; 25,000 of these are from water-related illnesses.
In most highly developed countries, accidents have become the number one killer of children from a year old and upwards and there are reasons to suggest that, with the increasing demand for automation and sophisticated techniques, the number of accidents in childhood will continue to increase. Epidemiological understanding of the scale, nature, causes and consequences of childhood injuries and poisonings is constrained by the current lack of appropriate routine national morbidity data. Little Europe-wide research has been undertaken either on child injury prevention or on the economic gain that can be achieved by appropriate intervention.