Collaborative on Health and the Environment -- eNewsletter : June 2006

Contents:

 SAVE THE DATE for the next CHE Partnership Call - July 20
 Invitation for CHE Partners to Join the CHE Asthma Call featuring Dr. David Schwartz, Director of NIEHS
 New CHE Resources
 CHE Working/Discussion/Regional Group Updates
 Tools/Announcements/Resources for CHE Partners
 CHE Science News
 New CHE Partners
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Dear CHE Partners and Friends:

A warm welcome to new Partners in the Collaborative on Health and the Environment. You have joined an increasingly international partnership of individuals and organizations dedicated to raising the level of public and professional dialogue about the impact of the environment on human and ecosystem health. CHE now has 2200 Partners in 27 states and 32 countries.

Partners share a basic agreement with the tenets of the CHE's Consensus Statement. And we share a strong commitment to "science and civility." We believe that what enables us to work well together is to stay focused on high quality science in dialogues characterized by mutual respect.

We hope you like the new format of our monthly newsletter. We’ve made it easier to read and visually more appealing. Please let us know if you have any suggestions for improvement or would like to see other specific content added.

Inconvenient Truths

I would urge all CHE Partners to consider seeing the new film by former Vice President Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. Even for those versed in Gore's subject, the science of climate change, the film is a remarkably powerful evocation of what climate change is going to mean for human health and the environment. The film also, in my judgment, has been a significant factor in the turning point in informed public opinion that has finally been reached in the United States on climate change. Gore's book by the same title holds the number three position among nonfiction paperbacks on The New York Times paperback best-seller list this week.

There are, as we know in CHE, other "inconvenient truths" about health and the environment that may be moving toward the same catalytic moment that has now taken place with respect to opinion on climate change. Many of us would argue that the science on endocrine disrupting chemicals, and the science on the health effects of chemicals more broadly, is an "inconvenient truth" deserving the same attention that the science on climate change is now receiving.

Another "inconvenient truth," many of us would suggest, is the solid science on the health effects of income disparities, and what that science suggests not only with respect to absolute poverty but with respect to widening disparities in income throughout social structures in countries around the world.

But there is also real hope. Monday's CHE Partnership Call Green Chemistry: Making it Real in the World, covered the extraordinary promise that Green Chemistry offers for a world where we build everything from pharmaceuticals to houses with chemicals formed from plants as feedstocks. Likewise, income disparities are not a force of nature. They are and always have been deeply influenced by social policies.

CHE is a place for science-based dialogue on some of the greatest "inconvenient truths" about health and the environment of our time. We welcome new CHE Partners from around the world.

Warm best,

Michael Lerner, CHE Partner


SAVE THE DATE for the next CHE Partnership Call - July 20

We hope you will join us on Thursday, July 20 at 9:00 am Pacific / 12:00 noon Eastern time for the next CHE Partnership Call. This call will focus on diabetes and metabolic disorders.

Confirmed Speakers:
* Dr. Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, Director, Science and Environmental Health Network
* Dr. David Carpenter, MD, Professor, Environmental Health and Toxicology, Institute for Health & the Environment, University at Albany, SUNY
* Dr. Greg Ferguson, Wellness Coordinator, Eastern Aleutian Tribes, Alaska

In order to join this call and receive dial-in information, please RSVP to Julia Varshavsky, CHE Program Associate, at: Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.
Invitation for CHE Partners to Join the CHE Asthma Call featuring Dr. David Schwartz, Director of NIEHS

All CHE Partners are invited to join a special CHE Asthma Conference Call titled NIEHS Research on Asthma, Pulmonary Health and the Environment: An Update and Discussion with NIEHS Director, Dr. David Schwartz, taking place Wednesday, July 19, at 10:00 am Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern time. For more information about this call and to RSVP, please email CHE Program Associate, Julia Varshavsky at: Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.
New CHE Resources

Newly Enhanced and Updated CHE Toxicants and Disease Database
We are pleased to announce the newly enhanced and updated CHE Toxicants and Disease Database, a scientifically based, web-interactive database summarizing the evidence of exposure to chemical contaminants and over 180 associated human diseases or conditions. We also have a spreadsheet version available in printed format or as an electronic file. The database can be seen at: http://database.healthandenvironment.org. For more information, please contact Eleni Sotos, CHE National Coordinator, at: Eleni@HealthandEnvironment.org. We hope you find the database useful and welcome your comments and suggestions.

New CHE Brochure
We are also pleased to announce our new CHE brochure. We have limited supplies, but will provide copies to those who need them. Please contact Frieda Nixdorf, CHE Administrative Specialist, at: Frieda@HealthandEnvironment.org if you would like to receive the new CHE brochure.

Last chance to receive copies of the CHE primer, Our Health and the Health of the Environment: How Are They Connected and What Can We Do to Improve Both?
We have just a few remaining boxes of this primer and we'd like to send them to you. The primer provides readers with key elemental principles of environmental health. Through the examples of asthma, learning disabilities and breast cancer, the primer explains what we are learning about the links between chronic illness, toxic chemicals and other environmental contaminants. The primer also gives examples of legislative and corporate policies aimed at improving our health and the health of the environment. To request your free copies of the primer, please contact Frieda Nixdorf, at: frieda@healthandenvironment.org.
CHE Working/Discussion/Regional Group Updates

* CHE’s Discussion Group on Asthma and the Environment (CHE Asthma) ~ coordinated by Christine Cordero, Community Health Program Coordinator, Center for Environmental Health, Christine@cehca.org, Polly Hoppin, Sc.D., Program Director, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, phoppin@envhealth.net and Susan West Marmagas, M.P.H., Director of Health Programs, Collaborative on Health and the Environment, Susan@HealthandEnvironment.org

Save the Date for a special CHE Asthma Conference Call - NIEHS Research on Asthma, Pulmonary Health and the Environment: An Update and Discussion with NIEHS Director, Dr. David Schwartz, taking place Wednesday, July 19, at 10:00 am Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern time. For more information about this call and to RSVP, please email CHE Program Associate, Julia Varshavsky at: Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.


* CHE New York - Working Group on Women’s Health and the Environment ~ coordinated by Mary Tyler Johnson, MPA, MPH, todtyler@gmail.com

The CHE Working Group on Women’s Health and the Environment held a very successful half-day event on June 14, 2006 in New York City. The event, sponsored by CHE New York, attracted a diverse audience of over 70 environmental and public health advocates, health care professionals, community groups, funders, city government representatives, and individuals in the Tri-State area.

Charlotte Brody, Executive Director of Commonweal, kicked off the event with an overview of women’s roles in the environmental health movement and discussed some of the ways women and girls are impacted by environmental contaminants. Dr. Janet Gray of the Environmental Risks and Breast Cancer CD project at Vassar College spoke about breast cancer risk with an emphasis on the interactive effects of multiple exposures. Dr. Frederica Perera of Columbia University’s Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) reviewed her research in the area of molecular epidemiology and discussed the links between exposures in the womb and later life disease, including asthma, cancer and neurobehavioral disorders. Dr. Pete Myers spoke about infertility and early pregnancy compromise and the need for more preventative and precautionary approaches to public health.

The event concluded with a dynamic discussion amongst attendees. Comments and ideas generated during this discussion will provide the basis for a plan to move the women’s environmental health agenda forward in the Tri-state area and nationally. Some key areas for further exploration include:
  • Compiling and translating the science on women’s environmental health for a variety of different audiences;
  • Engaging specific constituencies including city and state departments of health, medical professionals, media professionals, PTAs, daycare groups, etc.;
  • Building stronger relations with partners such as the Alliance for a Toxic Free Future;
  • Centralizing resources and creating a listserv of important scientific studies, events, information, speakers, etc.;
  • Developing and disseminating practical information.
Anyone interested in learning more about the CHE Working Group on Women’s Environmental Health or receiving the meeting notes should contact Mary Tyler Johnson at: todtyler@gmail.com.
Tools/Announcements/Resources for CHE Partners

Brain Tumors and the Environment: What's the Connection? -- June 24, San Francisco, CA
The National Brain Tumor Foundation invites you to join them for the first ever conference on brain tumors and the environment featuring leading scientists, researchers and patient advocates. For more information, visit: www.braintumor.org.

Community Research Collaboration: Teleconferences on Community-based Participatory Research -- June 29, July 20, August 16
The California Breast Cancer Research Program Community Research Collaboration (CRC) is offering these teleconferences to researchers, representatives from community organizations and community members across California, to provide participants with an overview of community based participatory research; inform them about funding opportunities for research available within the CRC program; and offer tools for creating successful CRC collaborations. For more information, visit: http://www.cbcrp.org/community/workshop.php.
CHE Science News



New CHE Partners

We welcome the many new CHE Partners who have joined since the last newsletter. To see the New CHE Partners and the growing list of all CHE Partners, please visit: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/base/partners-recent.

New CHE Logo

Thank you for taking the time to read the latest about CHE. As always, we welcome your feedback, suggestions or questions. Please direct them to Eleni Sotos, CHE National Coordinator, at: Eleni@HealthandEnvironment.org.

Best wishes,
Eleni Sotos, National Coordinator
and
Frieda Nixdorf, Administrative Specialist
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