Collaborative on Health and the Environment

UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment Announces Visionary Leadership Awards

5/20/13: The UCSF PRHE program has announced Teresa Woodruff, President-elect of The Endocrine Society, Linda Giudice, President of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and Jeanne Conry, President of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will be awarded PRHE’s Visionary Leadership Award on June 14th at the start of The Endocrine Society Meeting in San Francisco. The award is given to visionary leaders working to improve reproductive health by preventing harmful environmental exposures.

CHE Quarterly Top 10 List

4/30/13: For our third quarterly Top 10 list, we again selected from several dozen candidate news articles, journal articles, policy decisions and reports that have had a significant impact or are likely to have a significant impact on thinking and action in the field of environmental health. We consider these selections to be the biggest contributors toward new insights, toward changing the conversation or expanding the scope of the conversation on a topic to a new audience or awareness, or toward defining a new trend. Comments are welcome.
See the list

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT

CHE regularly highlights the work of our Partners here in our Partner Spotlight.

The Rise of the US Environmental Health Movement: An Interview with CHE Partner Kate Davies, MA, DPhil

Kate Davies is in on the core faculty at the Center for Creative Change, Antioch University Seattle, and is a clinical associate professor at the School of Public Health, University of Washington. She is also the author of The Rise of the US Environmental Health Movement, the first book to offer a comprehensive examination of the environmental health movement with a focus on the ways toxic chemicals and other hazardous agents in the environment effect human health and well-being (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2013).

What first brought you into environmental health work?

In 1965, when I was 8 years old, my mother was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer. She was given less than a year to live. By some miracle she survived, only to be diagnosed with breast cancer some

20 years later. She survived this too, but in 1995 she developed a rare T cell lymphoma. She died in 2007, after fighting three different types of cancer for over forty years.

My mother’s illnesses influenced me profoundly. As a child, I wanted to become a doctor so I could make her better, but as the physicians failed to cure her, I became more interested in how cancer could be prevented. To find out more, I decided to study biochemistry. After completing a bachelor’s degree in 1978, I went on to earn a doctorate at Oxford University. During this time, I became convinced that toxic chemicals and radiation played a role in this terrible disease - a realization that led me to join the environmental health movement.

21 May 'Upset' emissions: Flares in the air, worry on the ground. "Upset? releases, often triggered by equipment breakdowns, are occurring more often than U.S. government reports reflect, impacting residents on the fence line of industry, The Center for Public Integrity found. Center for Public Integrity.

21 May Oklahoma devastated by second round of twisters. A powerful tornado roared through Moore, Okla., and south Oklahoma City Monday, killing at least 51 people and leaving rescue workers frantically searching for survivors Monday evening at an elementary school. Oklahoman.

21 May Deep sea mining: Economic bonanza or environmental boondoggle? After decades of dreaming and scheming, companies say they?re finally ready to start mining the bottom of the world?s oceans for valuable minerals. Christopher Werth reports from London on one company?s plans and how environmental scientists view the prospect of digging up the sea floor. The World.

21 May Shale fracking proves $30 billion-a-year boon to waste disposal industry. The explosive expansion of drilling of natural gas and oil wells in shale deposits in the United States and Canada using a directional drilling method dubbed ?fracking? may have spawned a $30 billion per year expansion of the waste disposal business. New Orleans Times-Picayune.

21 May Drop in US underground water levels has accelerated: USGS. Water levels in U.S. aquifers, the vast underground storage areas tapped for agriculture, energy and human consumption, between 2000 and 2008 dropped at a rate that was almost three times as great as any time during the 20th century, U.S. officials said on Monday. Reuters.

21 May Thames River waste repels Olympic rower. Andy Triggs Hodge, a gold medal-winning rower at the Beijing and London Olympics, stopped training on Britain?s most famous river when it turned out water wasn?t his biggest obstacle: raw sewage on the Thames was. Bloomberg News.

21 May Alien plant to blame for rhino 'pink lips.' The surprise discovery of rhinos with bright pink lips and swollen eyes in South Africa has raised alarm bells over the potentially destructive spread of an alien invader plant which can kill cattle and devastate the fields of peasant farmers. Durban Mercury.

21 May Pollution risks worse for developing world women. Environmental factors are responsible for 23 percent of the overall global disease burden, according to World Health Organization research. Addressing such pollution could save the lives of 6 million women a year. United Press International.

21 May Biofuels a boon for Brazil's rural poor. While biofuels have facilitated slow but positive change for farmers in Brazil, other countries have been less successful. The Guardian.

21 May US pesticide makers seek answers as bee losses sting agriculture. Agrichemical companies are taking initiatives to figure out why bees are dying off at a time when their best-selling pesticides are under fire from environmental and food activists who say it's the companies' chemicals to blame. Reuters.

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