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Plenary
Opening
Plenary
Sunday Evening, October 12, 2008
California
Perspectives on Environmental Policy and Protection
California
has often been the proving ground for new environmental policies and
approaches, from motor vehicle emission reduction programs to Prop
65 warnings. The large and diverse population and economy has led
to novel approaches to environmental quality, public health issues
identification, and environmental protection. The Conference Opening
Plenary showcases three aspects of California’s progressive
efforts in environmental health and protection: The State’s
perspectives, beliefs, concerns, and approaches to dealing with Climate
Change; the evolution of chemical policy through the State’s
Green Chemistry Initiative; and the awareness of biological pathways
receptor exposures through the Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring
Program.
Presentations
(Click here for speaker bios)
Climate
Change
Mary
D. Nichols, Chairman, California Air Resources Board
This presentation will explore the impacts of land use, growth and
transportation on efforts to control climate change. It will look
at the need for communities throughout California to re-think decades-old
planning and land use protocols if we are to have success in controlling
and reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions.
Green
Chemistry
Maureen
F. Gorsen, Director, California Department of Toxic Substances Control
Every day,
news reports warn us that the consumer products, children’s
toys, jewelry, pet food, and other common goods may be unsafe or could
contain hazardous chemicals. The public assumes that the government
tests products for chemical safety, but that is not true for most
items.
Consumers, businesses,
and manufacturers often lack information about chemicals in supply
chains and finished products. These information gaps prevent the free
market from working properly to stimulate the development of safer
substitutes. Green Chemistry is a way to make products using less
toxic materials, less energy, and less waste—by design. Renewable
feedstocks, recycling, sustainability, and other life-cycle attributes
are incorporated into the design of new products and processes. This
“cradle-to-cradle” approach of Green Chemistry means fewer
hazardous substances along with improved air quality, cleaner drinking
water, and a safer workplace.
The California
Biomonitoring Program
Mark
Horton, MD, MSPH, Director, California Department of Public Health
Scientific studies have identified a multitude of environmental chemicals
as toxic to humans, but with few exceptions, relatively little is
known about the presence or levels of these chemicals in people or
the extent to which they contribute to risks of disease. We do know,
however, that exposure to many chemical substances is widespread.
The California Environmental Contaminants Biomonitoring Program was
created through shared vision and broad stakeholder collaboration.
It is based upon scientifically sound methods to facilitate the development
of information about chemical exposures. The program will determine
baseline levels of environmental contaminants in a representative
sample of Californians, establish temporal trends in contaminant levels,
and assess effectiveness of public health and regulatory
programs to reduce exposures of Californians to specific chemical
contaminants.
Plenary
Monday, October 13, 2008
Environmental
Health Policies – How Societies Decide What to do About Problems
Unearthed by Epidemiologists and Exposure Scientists
Environmental epidemiologists and exposure scientists tend to assume
that excessive exposures that occur to only a small proportion of
the population are not as important as exposures that are widespread.
They follow the utilitarian principle of the “most good for
the most people at the least cost”. Yet most citizens support
the “duty ethics” rule that the majority has the duty
to protect the minority from unfair exposures regardless of cost.
Such clashes of ethical worldview and stakeholder interest have no
technical solution and ultimately require a political solution.
This
plenary will examine how environmental epidemiologists and exposure
scientists can influence who will be the local and global “winners
and losers” by packaging information in an informative and philosophically
neutral way to increase the chance of comprehensiveness in the ultimate
policy discussions. It will look at environmental exposure and health
problems around the world; how ethical frameworks and methods, such
as cost benefit analysis, influence the policy discussion; and how
to assure that relevant stakeholders are at the table as these problems
are prioritized and solutions chosen.
Convener:
Raymond Neutra, M.D., Dr.P.H., Chief emeritus, Division of Environmental
& Occupational Disease Control, California State Department of
Public Health
Presentations
(Click here for speaker bios)
Poisoned
for Pennies: Costs, Benefits, and Chemicals Policies
Frank Ackerman,
Ph.D., Director of Research and Policy Program, Global Development
and the Environment Institute, Tufts University, USA
It is often claimed that cost-benefit analysis is
needed to determine whether proposed environmental policies are affordable.
Such analysis, however, is both impossible, because crucial benefits
have no meaningful prices, and also unnecessary, because most policy
proposals (with the possible exception of climate change measures)
are very inexpensive. Empirical examples include US policy toward
arsenic, the debate over atrazine, and the new European chemicals
policy.
Science
and Policy: An Advocacy Coalition Perspective
Paul Sabatier, Ph. D. and Chris Weible, Ph. D.
This
presentation compares two conceptual frameworks which analyze the
role that science plays in the policy process: a) a “civics
textbook” view and b) an “advocacy coalition” perspective.
The civics textbook view is derived from classical democratic theory
which says that elected officials are responsible for determining
the value premises upon which policy is based, while scientists are
responsible for establishing the factual premises. Unfortunately,
many of the premises upon which the textbook is based have proven
to be incorrect quite often. The advocacy coalition framework builds
upon the criticism of the non-neutrality of many scientists, and assumes
that many will be members of advocacy coalitions. Filtering of information
is common and beliefs change only very slowly.
The presentation
will close with a typology of policy subsystems developed by Chris
Weible: unitary, adversarial, and collaborative, including the differences
in political constraints and the use of scientific information across
the three types.
Decision
Analysis Under Uncertainty: to help the dialogue between stakeholders
with different interests and ideologies
Detlof von Winterfeldt, P.D., Professor, School of Policy, Planning,
and Development Director, Homeland Security Center for Risk and Economic
Analysis of Terrorism Events University of Southern California
How certain must
one be of how much exposure and disease before different stakeholders
would decide to move from the status quo to cheap and expensive exposure
mitigation? How decision analysis can help stakeholder policy dialogue
from an informed point of view.
Closing
Plenary
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The Rise
and Fall of Environmental Health Issues – Provoking Innovation
in Environmental Health Sciences
A major challenge in the management of environmental
health issues is prioritization and resource allocation. Traditionally
a ‘central’ government or system has been responsible
for identifying and prioritizing environmental health issues. This
system, typically regulatory, has been the driver for which issues
are prioritized, acknowledged, and addressed by the public, industry,
politicians, and others. This process also determined how resources
were allocated to these issues for research and advocacy. Increasingly,
however, other drivers – well-funded foundations, strategic
activism, and celebrities, for example -- are playing a greater role
in how environmental and public health issues rise to prominence and
receive attention. The challenge of harnessing this new momentum to
effect a net improvement in human and environmental health is the
focus of this session. The plenary will include three presentations
followed by audience discussion to provoke innovative thinking in
addressing environmental health issues.
Convener:
Tina Bahadori, Managing Director
American Chemistry Council Long-Range Research Initiative
Presentations
(Click here for speaker bios)
Ecological
Health Paradigm, Vectors of Interest, and Influence of Issue Market
Forces on Public Health Protection
Michael
Lerner, President. Commonweal
The science is clear that some chemical contaminants
degrade human and ecosystem health. An historic struggle is underway
to achieve a global precautionary approach to chemical management.
The global environmental health movement integrates market campaigns,
media strategies, policy initiatives, constituency development and
other approaches. Specific issues compete for funding, attention,
and allegiance. Low-dose effects on fetal development, the ecological
health paradigm of health, biomonitoring, and the promise of green
chemistry are four key science and technology issues driving the field.
Activating
Research and Putting Research into Action: California Breast Cancer
Research Program
Marion
(Mhel) Kavanaugh-Lynch, Director, California Breast Cancer Research
Program (CBRP)
Disease-specific research can be criticized for its
singular body-part focus. It can serve as an illustrative example
of global issues. In this presentation, the process and results of
a multi-year plan to develop an initiative on disparities and environment
in breast cancer will be presented. The advantages and challenges
of channeling resources into such an initiative, and the potential
for impact outside breast cancer will be discussed. And we will explore
the question where do we go from here?
Through
the Cacophony: Enabling Improved Public Health
Gina
Solomon, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
The fundamental purpose of environmental health research
is to provide information so that people can make better choices about
their health and the environment, and to provide a scientific basis
for improved public policy. Scientists and public policy experts are
generally focused either on investigating environmental agents, or
on investigating diseases. Connecting the ends of the exposure-disease
spectrum is the ‘holy grail’ of environmental health research.
New scientific tools that better connect “upstream” markers
of exposure and biological perturbations with “downstream”
health effects are a key area of investigation. Yet these new tools
must be deployed on the foundation of a strong public health system.
