Low-Level Chemical Exposures: A Challenge for Research
and Public Policy
Nicholas Ashford, Ph.D., J.D.,
Professor of Technology and Policy, M.I.T., and
Adjunct Faculty, Harvard University School of Public Health and
Boston University School of Public Health
Summary: There is increasing evidence that chemical exposure
levels once believed to be safe for humans-or thought to pose an insignificant
risk-are, in fact, harmful. While the connection between low-level chemical
exposures and diseases previously regarded as having little to do with
those exposures-like cancer, endocrine disruption, neurobehavioral disorders,
and chemical sensitivity-is beginning to become clear, the elucidation
of this link presents an enormous and urgent challenge for both scientific
research and policy-making-particularly in the current context of the
increasing concern about the health effects of low-level chemical exposures
expressed by environmental, health, and other governmental authorities
throughout the developed world.
In this presentation, it will argued that this pressing challenge compels
our society to change both (1) the way we design and interpret research
linking chemicals and health and (2) the solutions we create to address
chemically-caused injury. The new and emerging science that focuses on
low-level exposures to chemicals requires appropriate social-policy responses,
including regulation of toxic substances, notification of those exposed,
and compensation for and reasonable accommodation to those affected. Additionally,
both research and social policy need to be focused on two distinct groups:
(1) those individuals who could become chemically intolerant-and possibly
more susceptible to disease-as a result of an initiating exposure to a
chemical or a chemical mixture and (2) those individuals who have already
become chemically intolerant and are now sensitive or susceptible to chemicals
at low levels.
Biography: Nicholas A. Ashford is Professor of Technology and
Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches
courses in Environmental Law and Policy. He also holds adjunct faculty
positions at both the Harvard and Boston University Schools of Public
Health. Dr. Ashford received both a Ph.D. in chemistry and a J.D. from
the University of Chicago, where he also received graduate training in
economics.
Dr. Ashford served on the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory
Board, was a public member and the chairman of the National Advisory Committee
on Occupational Safety and Health, and also served as chairman of the
Committee on Technology Innovation and Economics of the EPA's National
Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. A fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he also serves
as an advisor to the United Nations Environment Programme. In addition,
Dr. Ashford is policy and regulation editor of the Journal of Cleaner
Production. He was recently appointed as co-chair of the U.S.-Greek Joint
Council for Technology Cooperation in the Balkans.
Dr. Ashford is the co-author, with Claudia Miller, of Chemical Exposures:
Low Levels and High Stakes (John Wiley and Sons, 1998). His research interests
include regulatory law and economics; the design of government policies
for encouraging both technological innovation and improvements in health,
safety, and environmental quality; pollution prevention and cleaner/inherently
safer production; the effects of liability on the improvement of product
and process safety; the health effects of low-level exposures to chemicals;
sustainability, trade, and the environment; labor's participation in technological
change; and environmental justice.
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