by Elise Miller, Director
“I happen to be a believer in the Precautionary Principle used appropriately, which I think really goes with the CHE definition…when you have a decent amount of (scientific) information that suggests that there may be harm, you don’t wait for certainty before action.”
This was not said by a seasoned environmental health activist nor one of CHE’s core advisors. Instead, this cogent comment was made on a CHE national partner call in March by Linda Birnbaum, PhD, MS, the highly respected Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Birnbaum has received numerous awards for her scientific research and is the author of more than 700 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, abstracts, and reports. On that same call, she underscored health concerns associated with endocrine disrupting chemicals and cumulative impacts. She also praised CHE for translating the emerging environmental health science for diverse constituencies.
In short, Dr. Birnbaum’s statements on this CHE call captured the extraordinary shift we are seeing in the thinking and actions of some people at the highest levels of government. Twenty-first century environmental health science is being taken more seriously than ever in circles that only a few years ago would have ignored or downplayed the significance of this research. And without doubt, CHE partners have played a role in making that happen.
For example, leading CHE partners reached influential audiences with the publication of a major national biomonitoring report, Mind, Disrupted: How Toxic Chemicals May Affect How We Think and Who We Are. This report was released in conjunction with a Senate hearing on chemical policy reform in February. The New York Times, Forbes, and over 20 other media outlets picked it up (see: www.disabilityandenvironment. org). The Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative (LDDI), one of CHE’s major working groups, partnered with the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center (CBRC) and leading national environmental health organiza¬tions to undertake this study.
For more details about Mind, Disrupted, follow this link: http://www.minddisrupted.org/index.php
CHE partners also recently weighed in on the obesity epidemic. In a letter drafted by CHE to First Lady Michelle Obama, a dozen prominent researchers and health professionals expressed their appreciation for Mrs. Obama’s leadership on reducing the prevalence of obesity and underscored the need to address more systemic factors beyond lifestyle changes that emerging science suggests contribute to obesity, including exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals known as “obesogens.”
Other CHE working groups have been very active, including members of CHE Cancer, who are preparing to respond to the release of the President’s Cancer Panel report on environmental contributors to cancer later this spring. The Electromagnetic Field (EMF) working group has had robust listserv exchanges as more and more science on the impacts of EMFs on health emerges.
The Mental Health working group published two new downloadable resources (see: http://www.healthandenvironment. org/working_groups/mh) regarding associations between pesticide exposures and mental health disorders. CHE has also launched a new working group on autism and is helping develop the agenda for a science symposium on environmental contributors to autism that will dovetail with the Autism Society of America’s annual meeting in July.
Also of note, CHE’s Initiative on Children’s Environmental Health is organizing a one-day symposium on pediatric integrative health with the Whole Child Center and University of California, San Francisco. The conference will feature notable speakers from a wide range of fields relevant to children’s health. It will be held on October 1, to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in San Francisco.
More behind the scenes, but no less significant, has been an overhaul of the CHE Fertility and Reproductive Health working group online library. This effort has made hundreds of articles and other resources more accessible and searchable (see: http:// www.healthandenvironment.org/ working_groups/fertility). Much of the CHE website has been updated, and CHE has just launched a blog and a Facebook page (visit: http://www. healthandenvironment.org and click on those new features).
I will end by noting that, in addition to these specific actions, core advisors and staff of CHE continue to wrestle with some deeper questions about enhancing and sustaining human and ecological health. Perhaps one question that is most often at the heart of our discussions is how to best articulate a systems model of health—one that includes a range of interacting factors impacting health over the human lifespan—so that we can implement more effective, upstream interventions and improve the resiliency of current and future generations. With our plans to look more carefully at cumulative impacts on health, climate change, and healthy aging, we hope to uncover more clues that will help us address that question and many others.
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment is grateful for generous support from Cedar Tree Foundation, Community Funds, Inc, John Merck Fund, The Johnson Family Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Passport Foundation, V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, Wallace Genetic Foundation, an anonymous foundation, and individual donors.
