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Dear CHE Partners and Friends:
As an international partnership devoted to the environmental health sciences, CHE is fundamentally about good science and good people. In both regards, CHE has had the great good fortune to have Dr. Philip Lee as our Founding Chair.
Some CHE Partners might not know just how fortunate CHE has been to have Phil's counsel and leadership. A recent two-day tribute at the University of California, San Francisco medical center reminded some of us of who Phil really is and what he has accomplished.
The event commemorated the renaming of the University of California School of Medicine Institute for Health Policy Studies after Phil Lee. This great honor was given to Phil not only because he was a founder of the Institute for Health Policy Studies, but also because of his outstanding record as a physician, a national leader in health policy, and the mentor of literally hundreds of younger people who went on to roles of leadership and other useful services.
Phil was born in San Francisco in 1924 and did his medical training at Stanford, starting a lifelong association there. During 1963-65, Phil served as Director of Health Services for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
In 1965-69 and again in 1993-97, Phil served as United States Assistant Secretary for Health - the only man to hold this senior medical position in the U.S. Government twice. In the first eight months of his tenure in 1965, more than 80 landmark bills were passed, including Medicare and Medicade. He also led the effort to establish the National Center for Health Services Research, now the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Phil became Chancellor of the University of California San Francisco in 1969. The Institute was the first health policy unit in an academic health sciences center to bring together multidiciplinary teams to study complex health issues. He was the founding president of the Health Commission of San Francisco in 1985-89.
The list of Phil's contributions is vast. At the inaugural celebration for the Phillip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, there were testimonials from leading philanthroposts, academics, government officials, and many others. CHE Founding Partner Sandra Hernandez, President of the San Francisco Foundation, was one of many who rose to pay her tribute to Phil's mentorship.
As the celebrations continued, we realized that there are probably at least a hundred people in responsible positions in the health community who considered Phil Lee their personal mentor.
But in addition to his leadership in academics and government, and his extraordinary gifts as a mentor, Phil has had one other rare quality -- the willingness to speak boldly about issues that affect pubic health. It is that courage -- the willingness to follow good science where it leads, with a combination of civility and clarity -- that we have sought to emulate in CHE under Phil's leadership.
We are honored to work with Phil Lee and we want all interested CHE Partners to know about CHE's Chair, a most remarkable friend and extraordinary man.
For those who might wish to know more about Phil and the newly renamed Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, see:http://www.ihps.medschool.ucsf.edu/News/index.aspx
Steve Heilig and Michael Lerner
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Resources from the October 3 CHE Partnership Call
Resources and an MP3 recording from the October 3 CHE Partnership Call with Sandra Steingraber about her new report on premature puberty in U.S. girls are now available. Resources from the October 11 CHE Partnership Call on nanotetchnology will soon be available at: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/news/calls.
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Working and Regional Group Updates
CHE Fertility/Early Pregnancy Compromise Working Group (CHE Fertility) ~ coordinated by Julia Varshavsky, CHE Program Associate (Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org)
Please join us for the next CHE Fertility teleconference on ovarian function, women's health and environmental factors, scheduled for Wednesday, November 14 at 9am Pacific / Noon Eastern. This call is part of the UCSF-CHE 2007 Fertility Summit review of new science series.
Pete Myers, PhD, CEO, Environmental Health Sciences, will be the moderator for this call.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Dr. Patricia Hunt, Meyer Distinguished Professor, School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University
- Dr. Pauline Mendola, Branch Chief, Infant, Child and Women's Health Statistics, DHHS/CDC/National Center for Health Statistics
To join this call and receive dial-in instructions, please email Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.
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CHE's Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI) Working Group ~ coordinated by Elise Miller, MEd, Executive Director, Institute for Children's Environmental Health (emiller@iceh.org)
LDDI's Fall 2007 Teleconference Series "Priming for Prevention" The first three calls of this seven-part series have taken place and were well attended. Recording links, presenters' materials and additional details are on line at: http://www.iceh.org/LDDImeetings.html. Two more calls are scheduled for October:
"Matrix of Other Emerging Research"
Wednesday October 17th
2:00 p.m. Eastern/11:00 a.m. Pacific
Featured Presenters:
- Yvonne Fry-Johnson, MD, Chief of Maternal and Child Health at the National Center for Primary Care: "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Developmental Disabilities"
- Virginia
Rauh, ScD, Professor of Public Health and Deputy Director of the
Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Columbia
University Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health: "Effects of
Prenatal Exposure to the Organophosphate Pesticide Chlorpyrifos in the
Urban Environment"
- Irva
Hertz-Picciotto, PhD, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and
Preventive Medicine, University of California, Davis, California: "The
CHARGE Study: Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment"
Call in number: 1-800-615-2900 (Toll Free in USA and Canada) or 1-661-705-2005 (for callers outside USA and Canada). Participant Access Code: 164622#
"More Emerging Research"
Wednesday October 31st
2:00 p.m. Eastern/11:00 a.m. Pacific
Featured Presenters:
- Tom Zoeller, PhD, Professor and Chair of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Biology Department: "Classes and Consequences of Thyroid Disruptors"
- Sandra Steingraber, PhD, Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies, Ithaca College: "Consequences of Early Puberty in U.S. Girls -- Implications for Learning"
LDDI's scientific consensus statement is in its final stages of drafting and will be circulated for signatories by the end of October and released at the International Neurotoxicology Conference in San Antonio, TX November 11, 2007 when LDDI will also be holding a pre-conference strategic planning session.
LDDI partner, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD) Environmental Health Initiative continues to host teleconference calls the second Tuesday of each month. For more information, please visit: http://www.ehinitiative.org/Projects/tele_con.htm
LDDI partners, the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) and AAIDD have helped spearhead a letter writing campaign as part of a national initiative urging retailers and manufacturers to stop carrying and producing baby bottles containing Bisphenol A, which has been linked to cancers, developmental disorders, early onset of puberty and reproductive problems, among other serious health impacts. The first letter is to Wal-Mart, the second letter is to other major retailers of baby bottles, and the third letter is to baby bottle manufacturers. For more information, contact Maureen Swanson at: mswanson@ldaamerica.org.
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CHE's Working Group on Electromagnetic Fields (CHE EMF) ~ coordinated by Nancy Evans, Health Science Consultant (nancywrite@comcast.net) and Cindy Sage, Sage Associates Environmental Consultants (sage@silcom.com)
On September 17, 2007, The European Environmental Agency endorsed the findings of The BioInitiative Report and its urgent call for strengthening safety standards to protect public health. This endorsement follows closely on the German government's warning to citizens to avoid Wi-Fi networks in homes, schools and other public spaces. Link to the story from the Independent or read the translation of the original document.
Two new studies report increased cancer risk from cell phone use: the French Interphone study (See Microwave News September 19 (www.microwavenews.com) and a study by Swedish researcher Lennart Hardell and colleagues published in the September issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
All of this research has been widely reported in the EU and UK media, including a lengthy story in the International Herald Tribune on September 23; however, mainstream U.S. media continue to ignore the science. Earlier this year, The Columbia Journalism Review took American print media to task for failing to report on research showing evidence of serious health effects, including brain tumors, from cell phone use.
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Tools, Announcements and Resources for CHE Partners
New environmental health resources database now available
The Institute for Children's Environmental Health is pleased to launch a searchable database of resources on environmental health for various audiences: http://www.iceh.org/cgi-bin/searchresources.cgi. Visitors can also simply click on "Resources" on our home page: http://www.iceh.org.
We realize that many fine resources and websites with information on environmental health already exist. Some of these resources are intended for scientists or lawmakers, some for health care providers or public health officers, and yet others are targeted at parents or consumers. It can be difficult to match up the right resources with the right audiences.
To address this, we have designed this new database so that users can select not only the medium (books, journals, videos, etc.), the environmental/toxics issues and the health issues of interest, but the target audience as well. Once users make specific selections, links to online resources are provided.
In addition, because this resource benefits parents, researchers, policymakers, consumers and others, we encourage all you, our partners, to: 1) provide a link to the database on your websites; and 2) to help us continue adding new resources.
If your organization would like to recommend a resource, please send information to Nancy Snow at ICEH: nsnow@iceh.org. If your website or other resource is already listed, we invite your feedback and ask that you please let us know if you make any changes or updates.
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Health & Environment Alliance (HEAL) conference papers on climate change and health
On October 2nd, the Health & Environment Alliance held a conference on "Climate change and the challenges for public health: priorities for EU Action" in Brussels. The conference, co-organized with the European Public Health Alliance, aimed to highlight the public health issues around climate change with a focus on adaptation strategies and on exploring how the healthcare sector can limit carbon emissions. Two interventions were made through video conference to reduce the carbon imprint of the event. A report from the meeting, background material and presentations are available at: http://www.env-health.org/a/2637.
EuroNews television featured the seminar, including an interview with Genon Jensen, HEAL Executive Director. She described how health could benefit from strong adaptation measures to control climate change. EuroNews, which goes out in seven European languages, was covering the theme of climate change and public health in Europe for the first time. They acknowledged that the HEAL meeting was the first in a series of four on the theme.
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EU uses environmental health grounds to revise pesticide law
This month the European Parliament has an opportunity to vote for a clean up of pesticide use. In a plenary vote, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will be asked to agree or reject a ban on the sale of pesticides with known harmful effects and to decide whether pesticide use should be prohibited in areas where children spend most of their time. The two key votes are part of a comprehensive revamp of the way pesticides are used and approved for sale in the European Union. In September, cheers went up when the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety voted in favour of banning pesticides that are hazardous to nervous and immune systems. The move demonstrated that Parliament is taking into account increasing scientific evidence that pesticide exposure, even at low doses, is a threat to people's health and to the development of children's brains.
The Health and Environment Alliance has also been supporting a ban on the spraying of pesticides in schools, nurseries and day care centers and will soon launch a postcard campaign urging pesticide reform that will take the most dangerous pesticides off the market and make children's spaces pesticide-free. For more information please contact monica@env-health.org.
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The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know
New report from the Breast Cancer Fund, written by Sandra Steingraber
Girls
get their first periods today, on average, a few months earlier than
did girls 40 years ago, but they get their breasts one to two years
earlier. Over the course of a few decades, the childhoods of U.S. girls
have been significantly shortened. Continue reading...
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CHE Science News Headlines
Most of these articles have been gleaned from Above the Fold.
Long-hidden dangers?
Washington Post, Rick Weiss, 9 October 2007
A new study has found a significant link between women's exposure to DDT as young girls and the development of breast cancer later in life. Continue reading...
NAS Report offers new tools to assess health risks from chemicals
NIEHS Press Release, 9 October 2007
Determining how thousands of chemicals found in the environment may be interacting with the genes in your body to cause disease is becoming easier because of a new field of science called toxicogenomics. A new report issued today by the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) recognizes the importance of toxicogenomics in predicting effects on human health and recommends the integration of toxicogenomics into regulatory decision making. The NAS report was commissioned by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a leader in the development of toxicogenomic technologies. Continue reading...
Exposed: the poisons around us
San Francisco Chronicle, Steve Heilig, 7 October 2007
The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power By Mark Schapiro. Continue reading...
The hidden menace of mobile phones.
London Independent, 7 October 2007
Research into the link between regular handset use and disease reveals the risks rise significantly after 10 years, despite official assurances that they are safe. London Independent. Continue reading...
Can science really save the world?LondonObserver, Robin McKie and Juliette Jowit, 7 October 2007
Endless treaties to cut carbon emissions and halt global warming have failed to turn the tide of pollution. Now scientists want to intervene on a planetary scale, changing the very nature of our seas and skies.
Continue reading...
Breast Cancer and Your Environment: What can you do to protect yourself from breast cancer?
MSN.com, Francesca Lyman, 19 September 2007
There may be no two scarier words for women than breast cancer. The
most common invasive malignancy among women around the world, breast
cancer's rates during the last several decades have nearly tripled in
the United States. Today, this cancer is the leading cause of death in
U.S. women in the prime of their lives-between their late 30s and early
50s. Continue reading...
Environmental Exposures and Gene Regulation in Disease Etiology
Environmental Health Perspectives, TM Edwards and JP Myers, September 2007
Health or disease is shaped for all individuals by interactions between their genes and environment. Exactly how the environment changes gene expression and how this can lead to disease are being explored in a fruitful new approach to environmental health research, representative studies of which are reviewed here. Continue reading...
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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 Program Director, at: Eleni@HealthandEnvironment.org.
Best wishes,
Eleni Sotos, MA, Program Director
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