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Note that the talk on Low-Level Chemical
Exposures: A Challenge for Research and Public Policy by Nicholas
Ashford, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of Technology and Policy, M.I.Twhich was
previously scheduled for this day, has been postponed. He is tentatively
scheduled to present on May 29, 2002 as a Special Session.
Communicating Risk Information to Change Behavior
in Disadvantaged Communities: The Role and Limitations of Science
Jennifer Charles, Esq.,
Environmental Justice Consultant J.D., M.S.W
Summary: In this talk, I will address the question, especially
directed to scientists whose work involves the risk assessment of hazardous
substances: why has risk assessment so often fallen short in the decision-making
process about environmental hazards that affect disadvantaged communities?
Not only will I consider the role and limitations of risk assessment science
as it is typically practiced, but also, drawing from my environmental-justice
practice, I will describe several case studies to illustrate how a community-based
approach may both help the community and enhance risk assessment by engaging,
assisting, and empowering members from the affected community.
Biography: A graduate of Smith College, the Smith School for Social
Work, and the Yale Law School, Jennifer Charles specializes in inter-disciplinary
approaches to the design and implementation of environmental risk management
initiatives, especially for disadvantaged communities. She blends her
experience in legal regulatory analysis with her analytical skills acquired
from the human-service profession to help citizens confront and deal with
urban environmental problems. Though formulating solutions to these problems
is an important component of her work, ultimately Ms. Charles' efforts
are designed to help disadvantaged people solve environmental problems
by using a community-based approach that also includes defining development
options for their communities.
Principal and founder of an environmental-justice practice, Ms. Charles
is currently doing work with the state of Massachusetts, the federal government,
and various NGOs, including Massachusetts Bays Coastal Zone Management,
the Silent Spring Institute, the New England Aquarium, the Massachusetts
Health Research Institute, the Boston Schoolyard Initiative, the Massachusetts
Audubon Society, the Massachusetts Military Reservation, and the Suffolk
County Conservation District. In Maine she has worked with the Casco Bay
Estuary Project to identify the health risks to and subsistence-shellfishing
issues for immigrant populations in the city of Portland. Ms. Charles
also provides pro-bono consultation to the National Park Service to help
the agency, in conjunction with local community partners, develop community
inclusive programming. An avid environmentalist and lover of the natural
world, Ms. Charles is an active member of the Mystic River Watershed Association.
Endocrine Disruptors and Low Doses: The Challenge to Traditional
Toxicology
Sheldon Krimsky, Ph.D.,
Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy, Tufts University, author
of Hormonal Chaos: The Scientific and Social Origins of the Environmental
Endocrine Hypothesis
Summary: The discovery that chemical-hormone mimics-endocrine
disruptors-alter fetal development has re-opened an old controversy over
the risk assessment of low-dose exposures to toxic chemicals. The endocrine
system of animals has been shown to exhibit non-monotonic dose-response
functions. Specifically, researchers have observed developmental effects
from endocrine disruptors at extremely low doses and no effects at higher
doses. Given that endocrine systems exhibit this non-linearity and non-monotonicity,
the finding of a no observed effect level (NOEL) at one concentration
cannot provide assurance that a similar finding will be observed at a
lower concentration.
Thus, we are faced with two disturbing realizations: (1) The guiding
doctrine of classical toxicology-that the dose makes the poison-must be
re-examined for its relevance to certain mechanisms of chemical action
involving hormonal systems. (2) The NOEL, which is widely used in characterizing
the toxicological properties of chemicals and in setting safe chemical
exposure levels, may not be applicable to endocrine systems.
My talk will address the empirical evidence for non-monotonic dose responses
in the endocrine system and the implications of these results for the
risk assessment of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Biography: Sheldon Krimsky is Professor of Urban and Environmental
Policy and Planning at Tufts University. He received his bachelor's and
master's degrees in physics from Brooklyn College (CUNY) and Purdue University,
respectively, and his master's and doctorate degrees in philosophy from
Boston University.
Professor Krimsky's research has focused on the linkages between science/technology,
ethics/values, and public policy. He is the author of six books, including
Genetic Alchemy: The Social History of the Recombinant DNA Controversy
(MIT Press) and Biotechnics and Society: The Rise of Industrial Genetics
(Praeger). He also is co-author of Environmental Hazards: Communicating
Risks as a Social Process (Auburn House) and Agricultural Biotechnology
and the Environment: Science, Policy and Social Values (University of
Illinois Press), as well as co-editor of a collection of papers entitled
Social Theories of Risk (Praeger). Professor Krimsky has published over
one hundred essays and reviews that have appeared in a wide range of books
and journals. His most recent book is Hormonal Chaos: The Scientific and
Social Origins of the Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis (Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2000).
Professor Krimsky served on the National Institutes of Health's Recombinant
DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) from 1978-1981. He was also a consultant
both to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems
in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research and to the Congressional
Office of Technology Assessment. In addition, Professor Krimsky participated
in a special study panel for the American Civil Liberties Union, whose
goal was to formulate a policy on civil liberties and scientific research.
Chairperson of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility
for the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 1988
to 1992, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Council
for Responsible Genetics and is a Fellow of the Hastings Center on Bioethics.
Professor Krimsky has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science for "seminal scholarship exploring the
normative dimensions and moral implications of science in its social context."
Over the course of his career, he has received research support from EPA,
FIPSE, NSF, NEH, and a number of private foundations.
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