1. Welcome from Michael Lerner
2. CHE Partnership Call - Environmental Health and the New Congress - January 17
3. UCSF-CHE Environmental Reproductive Health Summit, January 28-30
4. Working and Regional Group Updates
5. CHE Science News Headlines
6. New CHE Partners
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Dear CHE Partners and Friends:
On January 8, Pete Myers led his EnvironmentalHealthNews.org daily summary with an important new study, "A Population-level Decline in Serum Testosterone Levels in American Men," in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, by Travison, TG, AB Araujo, AB O'Donnell, V Kupelian, JB McKinlay.
EHN summarized the report: "Since the late 1980's, testosterone levels have declined on average 1.2% per year in Massachusetts men, or 17% overall. The pattern is consistent with other long-term trends in male reproductive health, including decreases in sperm count and increases in testicular cancer, hypospadias and cryptorchidism. The study controlled for the normal decline in testosterone levels that takes place as men age, as well as potential confounding variables like smoking and obesity." For more information on this, visit:
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/reproduction/2006/2006-1210travisonetal.html.
If you follow the link above to Myers' www.OurStolenFuture.org, there is a beautiful summary of the article, and a link to Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, where there is a powerful editorial entitled: "Secular Decline in Male Reproductive Function: Is Manliness Threatened?"
The decline in human fertility is only one of hundreds of changes in human health that is increasingly linked to environmental contaminants. But it has an undeniably powerful effect on our imaginations, as we begin to link the searingly painful experience of friends who find they cannot have children to national and international trends in fertility.
The apparent decline in both male and female fertility will be the subject of the upcoming UCSF-CHE Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health and Fertility. You can read more about this below.
We hope as many CHE Partners as possible will join us for this important conference. We will report on the proceedings to all CHE Partners.
With best wishes for the new year,
Michael Lerner
Founding CHE Partner
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2. CHE Partnership Call - Environmental Health and the New Congress - January 17
Join us for the next CHE Partnership Call -- Environmental Health and the New Congress -- scheduled for Wednesday, January 17 at 9am Pacific / 12noon Eastern time. This call will last one hour, and will be recorded for documentation purposes.
As the new Congress begins in January, CHE will take an opportunity to discuss upcoming health and environment issues in Washington, DC. This call will include briefings from three leading policy experts in DC to discuss toxics/chemicals policy, climate change and environmental policy, and public health.
Susan West Marmagas, MPH, Director of Health Programs for CHE, will moderate this call. Pete Myers, Ph.D., CEO of Environmental Health Sciences, will provide a brief science update.
We will have featured presentations from:
* Andy Igrejas, Director, Environmental Health Campaign, National Environmental Trust
* Susan Polan, Ph.D., Associate Executive Director, Public Affairs and Advocacy, American Public Health Association and
* Karen Wayland, Ph.D., Legislative Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
Please RSVP to Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org to receive call details and information. For more information about this call, visit: http://healthandenvironment.org/articles/partnership_calls/851.
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3. UCSF-CHE Environmental Reproductive Health Summit, January 28-30
UCSF - CHE Summit On Environmental Challenges To Reproductive Health And Fertility, January 28-30, 2007 at UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco, CA -- 20.5 AMA PRA Category CME
Alerts:
- For the purpose of recertification, the American Nurses credentialing center accepts AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM issued by organizations accredited by the ACCME.
- Special Interactivity Feature. Bring your laptop! Summit participants with Wi-Fi capable laptops will be able to connect to a Summit blog to register thoughts and questions as an alternative/additional way to join session dialogue, real time. Summit session moderators may monitor the blogosphere to incorporate commentary and queries real-time where possible and as appropriate. CHE and UCSF are committed to civil, constructive blogosphere discourse, and this opportunity to record participant input.
Find program, registration and more info at: www.ucsf.edu/coe/prhesummit.html.
At this conference:
- Discover why environmental health science is critically relevant to reproductive and developmental health.
- Join multidisciplinary stakeholders in a pioneering, national conference to explore and set new directions.
Preeminent researchers will present overviews of the science on environmental contaminant impacts on male and female reproductive health and fertility/pregnancy, including focus on:
- Periconceptional/fetal origins of adult and pubertal disorders; and developmental health
- Adult exposures of concern
- Contaminants of concern
- Gene-environment interactions
- Critical research directions
Multidisciplinary topics include:
- Translation of research data to the clinic, wider public health and policy, and disease prevention
- Patient advocate and community health concerns
- Integration with health professional education
- Federal environmental reproductive health priorities
This summit is designed for clinical researchers and clinicians/health professionals (in practice or in training); scientists; allied and public health professionals; policy makers, government; leaders from patient advocacy, women's health, community and worker health, environment, reproductive advocacy, and environmental justice; and environment/health funders.
This is not a typical data presentation conference, but rather an unusual "hybrid," trans-discipline effort to raise awareness and promote collaboration as we convey broad overviews and perspectives on science linking environmental contaminants with male and female reproductive health and fertility compromise.
We've planned plenty of time for interaction and discussion. Plenary "town hall" discussions, concurrent sessions, and break-out groups will focus on: translation of research to clinical care and wider public health/policy; environmental health in health professional education; critical research directions and cross-discipline collaboration to advance environmental reproductive health understanding; the nexus between reproductive health advocacy/justice and environmental and worker health/justice; and next steps for various stakeholders.
Participation is expected from a wide range of environmental reproductive health stakeholders, including clinicians/health professionals; physician-scientists; allied and public health professionals; basic and environmental health scientists; community and worker/labor groups; infertility, women's health and reproductive health support organizations; and health and environment policy makers and funders. We hope to encourage all of these stakeholders to become better informed and to work in concert to promote enhanced environmental reproductive health research agendas and education.
Co-Chairs: Linda C. Giudice, MD, PhD, MSc, Professor and Chair, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences; Founding Director, Program in Reproductive Health and the Environment, UCSF, and Philip R. Lee, MD, Founding Chairman, Collaborative on Health and the Environment; Chancellor and Professor (Social Medicine) Emeritus, UCSF; Former US Assistant Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare.
Summit Funding Partners: Adeza Biomedical, Center for Environmental Health, Collaborative on Health and the Environment, The Compton Foundation, Fred Gellert Family Foundation, The John Merck Fund, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, New York Community Trust. Some Summit faculty travel support has been provided by US EPA Reproductive Toxicology Division.
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4. Working and Regional Group Updates
CHE's Asthma Working Group (CHE Asthma) ~ coordinated by Polly Hoppin, Sc.D., Program Director, University of Massachusetts, Lowell (phoppin@envhealth.net) Susan West Marmagas, MPH, Director of Health Programs, Collaborative on Health and the Environment (Susan@HealthandEnvironment.org) and Christine Cordero, Community Health Program Coordinator, Center for Environmental Health (christine@cehca.org)
* The next CHE Asthma Quarterly Call, will take place on Wednesday, January 24 at 9am Pacific / Noon Eastern time, and will cover asthma onset and chemicals in the environment, and will include presentations from Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, Science Director, Science and Environmental Health Network, and Megan Sandel, MD, MPH, Pediatrician and Researcher, Boston Medical Center, Pediatric Primary Care. This call will last one hour. If you are interested in joining this call, please email: Julia@HealthandEnvironment.org.
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CHE's Working Group on Parkinson's Disease and the Environment (CHE-PD) ~ coordinated by Jackie Hunt Christensen, Minnesota State Coordinator, Parkinson Action Network (jackiehc@gmail.com) and Elise Miller, M.Ed., Executive Director, Institute for Children's Environmental Health (emiller@iceh.org)
* The facilitators of CHE-PD work group are excited to announce that our first call of the year will feature a presentation by Dr. Ray Dorsey from the University of Rochester. The call will take place Friday, January 26 at 9am Pacific/12noon Eastern time. **His talk will be EMBARGOED (that is, kept confidential) until after the article that he will discuss with us is published in the journal Neurology on January 30.** The article deals with data analyzed by Dr. Dorsey and others which predict that rates of PD will double by the year 2030. Dr. Dorsey will speak for about 15 minutes, and then we will have 15 minutes of Q&A.
This call is open to CHE-PD participants. For information on how to join the working group, visit the CHE website, www.healthandenvironment.org. If you have questions, please contact Jackie Hunt Christensen at: jackiehc@gmail.com.
* CHE-PD co-coordinator Jackie Hunt Christensen will be leading a breakout session entitled "PD and the Environmental Advocacy 101: What do lead, pesticides and lab rats have to do with me?" at the upcoming Parkinson's Action Network Forum. For more information on the PAN forum, which is being held at the Washington Plaza Hotel, Washington, DC February 11-13, 2007, visit www.parkinsonsaction.org.
* CHE-PD will be holding a consensus conference on environmental factors in PD and other neurodegenerative diseases in Sunnyvale, CA, June 26-28. This unique and historic event will bring together a group of 50 researchers, clinicians, patient-advocates, representatives from national organizations and communications experts. Together, these individuals will begin to identify the areas of research where there is relative certainty, where connections are likely, and which areas are cause for concern. Following this invitation-only meeting, a scientific consensus statement with documentation will be circulated for signatures from members of the academic community. A more general statement will also be developed for the PD community and the general public. CHE Partners will be encouraged to use these statements to affect policy changes, funding increases and new research opportunities. For more information, contact CHE-PD Jackie Hunt Christensen or Elise Miller.
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Collaborative on Health and the Environment Washington (CHE-WA) ~ coordinated by Elise Miller, M.Ed., Executive Director, Institute for Children's Environmental Health (emiller@iceh.org)
* The Research and Information Working Group has posted 18 health fact sheets for Washington State based on the environmental health science presented on the Working Group’s web site at: http://washington.chenw.org/RIgroup/ch_intro.html. These fact sheets are downloadable for use by any interested parties.
* Our fourth annual environmental lecture series, “Our Health, Our Environment,” will be held at Town Hall Seattle this winter. The opening speaker on January 24 will be Dr. Terry Collins, who will discuss green chemistry. For more information, please visit: http://washington.chenw.org/lectures.html.
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5. CHE Science News Headlines
Most of these articles have been gleaned from Above the Fold.
Narcolepsy May Be Caused By Environmental Exposures
Science Daily, 2 January 2007
In a possible contradiction to common belief that a person's body mass index, immune responses and stressful life events are factors that may cause narcolepsy, a comprehensive review published in the January 1st issue of the journal SLEEP finds that, as with other diseases characterized by selective cell loss, narcolepsy may be caused by environmental exposures before the age of onset in genetically susceptible individuals. Continue reading...
Variable Factors Determine 'Safe' Toxin Levels
Daily Bulletin, 31 December 2006, Jason Pesick
How much of a dangerous chemical is safe to drink? The answer to that question is something two states - California and Massachusetts - don't agree upon. A new study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists has put California on the defense for its reliance on an older, smaller-scale study. Continue reading...
Obesity Battle Starts Young for Urban Poor
The Boston Globe, 29 December 2006, Stephen Smith
By the time they reach the age of 3, more than one-third of low-income urban children are already overweight or obese, according to a study released yesterday that provides alarming evidence that the nation's battle of the bulge begins when toddlers are barely out of diapers. Continue reading...
Study Links Pesticide to Learning Disorder
Palm Beach Post, 25 December 2006, John Lantigua and Christine Stapleton
A study by Columbia University scientists has established a link between learning disorders in children and a pesticide that has been used extensively on sweet corn, one of Palm Beach County's major crops. But local and state agricultural officials say the insecticide, chlorpyrifos, does not pose a threat to consumers because it does not leave dangerous levels of residue on the corn. The principal danger may be to families living and working around where the corn is grown who could be affected when the insecticide is applied or the corn picked. Continue reading...
Lead Exposure and Cardiovascular Disease – a Systematic Review
Environmental Health Perspectives, 22 December 2006, Ana Navas-Acien, Eliseo Guallar, Ellen K. Silbergeld and Stephen J. Rothenberg
A systematic review of all observational studies of lead and cardiovascular disease concludes that lead exposure can cause high blood pressure. The evidence also suggests -- but is insufficient to prove -- that lead exposure causes cardiovascular mortality and other health problems, as well as heart rate variability. The authors conclude that occupational lead exposure standards should be lowered immediately. Continue reading...
Lottery in a Make-up Bag
Canberra Times, 21 December 2006, Rosslyn Beeby
They're the world's most popular Christmas gifts, with global surveys predicting festive season sales of perfumes and cosmetics likely to rise by more than 20 per cent this year. That's a handsome profit for a global industry worth $255billion. Australian men now spend $488million on personal grooming products, with women spending more than double that amount on a battery of cosmetics, perfumes, hair care, manicure and tanning products. But there's a battle being waged over the environmental and health impacts of synthetic chemicals used in beauty products and toiletries. Continue reading...
Hereditary Toxins Spur Scientific Concerns
Women's eNews, 19 December 2006, Molly M. Ginty
Synthetic chemicals that pervade the environment and the bodies of mothers and their children are attracting scientific inquiry. Next year, two major studies may help peg how exposure to these pollutants is related to disease. It starts in the first weeks of life. As the umbilical cord sends nutrients to the fetus, pumping 300 quarts of blood per day, it also delivers what nature never intended: synthetic chemicals that may wreak havoc with development and cause health problems later in life. Continue reading...
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6. 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.
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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, Program Director
and
Frieda Nixdorf, Administrative Specialist
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