State officials select School of Public Health experts to guide biomonitoring program
September 12, 2007
With four environmental health experts recently appointed to a nine-person Scientific Guidance Panel, the UC Berkeley School of Public Health is poised to make a strong contribution to the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program, which monitors the presence and concentration of designated chemicals in Californians.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Thomas McKone, adjunct professor of environmental health sciences, to the panel in late August. McKone’s research interests include risk assessment methods, health tracking, and environmental and occupational radioactivity. He has worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 1996, where he currently holds the positions of acting department head and senior scientist. McKone is also working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Science to evaluate the health impacts of industrial releases into the air, water, and soil.
Schwarzenegger also appointed Asa Bradman, associate director for the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS), to the panel last month. Bradman focuses on environmental exposures to pregnant women and young children. At CHAMACOS, he helps direct multiple biomonitoring and exposure studies investigating the relationship of environmental exposures and health in children living in the Salinas Valley, California. Bradman is also a member of the International Society for Exposure Analysis and the American Public Health Association. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Council for the National Center for Healthy Homes and the California Childcare Health Program Advisory Board.
On August 31, California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez (D-Los Angeles) announced the appointment of Michael Wilson, assistant research scientist at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, to the panel. Wilson researches and practices in the areas of chemicals policy and occupational health and safety. In his doctoral research, Wilson obtained the first worker exposure data to volatile organic compounds in the vehicle repair industry, which shed light on exposures related to the first-reported cases of hexane-induced peripheral neuropathy in this industry. His work illuminated larger policy challenges facing California and the United States regarding the design, use, and regulation of chemicals in processes and products.
Richard Jackson, adjunct professor of environmental health sciences and health policy & management, was appointed to the Scientific Guidance Panel by California State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) in early July. Jackson’s research interests include health policy as it is shaped by housing, transportation, agricultural, environmental, and economic policy and specific effects of toxic chemicals on health, especially that of children. Jackson, a pediatrician, is on the board of directors of the American Institute of Architects. He also recently became the academic lead for the School of Public Health’s Dr.P.H. Program.
The Scientific Guidance Panel assists the Department of Health Services and California Environmental Protections Agency by providing scientific peer reviews and making recommendations regarding the design and implementation of the biomonitoring program that will provide data to help scientists, researchers, public health personnel, and community members explore linkages between chemical exposures and health. The recently created California program is the first of its kind in the nation.
