ANHE

November 18, 2011
10:00 am Pacific / 1:00 pm Eastern 

Prenatal exposures to environmental contaminants have been associated with a wide range of diseases, both in the neonatal period and later in life. Animal and epidemiological studies are discovering links between endocrine disrupting chemicals and infertility. While research is uncovering the connections between environmental exposures and health problems, clinicians are beginning to incorporate this information into patient care.
 
·         Katie Huffling, CNM will present a prenatal environmental screening tool
·         Sandy Worthington, WHNP-BC, CNM, will discuss the Green Choices Project
·         Dr. Kirtly Parker Jones, MD will present information on counseling patients
 
Register on the teleconference website: http://www.healthandenvironment.org/wg_calls/9910
Contact Karin Russ, Reproductive Health Coordinator: karin@healthandenvironment.org

As we plan our work for the coming year, it will help to describe exactly what is important to us.  We've talked about the need to educate our fellow nurses on basic concepts of environmental health.  In order to impress on them the importance of the issue, without overwhelming them, let's focus on about a half dozen or so basic tenets of environmental health.  Please write a blog entry below with your input on what those top priority learning needs for nurses would be.  (I'll reserve my comments for now, to allow for a free range of ideas.)  Thanks!

The Maryland Nurses Association Environmental Health Committee is pleased to present:

Using the Evidence Base in Environmental Health for Nursing Practice

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

7:00-7:30 p.m. Eastern

Human health and the environment are interconnected.  Join us for an educational teleconference and discussion about online resources available to help nurses integrate environmental health science into nursing practice.  Please RSVP  to the email below, and a slide show will be circulated to all respondents.

 Teleconference number: 1-866-906-9888; Access code: 9709137

RSVP to Karin Russ, Nursing Outreach Coordinator at:  kruss003@son.umaryland.edu

Date: Thursday July 21, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific / 4:00 p.m. Eastern

RSVP for the call:
http://www.healthandenvironment.org/?module=articles&type=admin&func=new&ptid=57&callid=9743

A recent review published in Environmental Health Perspectives reports the
conclusions of an international workshop on the current science related to
early-life environmental exposures and mammary gland development. The
Mammary Gland Evaluation and Risk Assessment Workshop met in Oakland,
California, in November 2009. More than 60 international experts,
including biologists, epidemiologists, toxicologists, physicians, public
health officials, and breast cancer activists reviewed the evidence from
animal and human studies of environmental toxicants and breast
development. Workshop scientists concluded that chemical exposures during
critical periods of development may influence breast growth, ability to
breastfeed, and cancer risk.

Join CHE Fertility for this discussion, cohosted by CHE Cancer and CHE
Breast Cancer, of the current state of the science on environmental
exposures and breast health with article authors Ruthann Rudel of the
Silent Spring Institute, Suzanne Fenton of the National Toxicology
Program, and Susan Makris of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office
of Research and Development. The authors will present findings on some of
the chemicals that affect breast development, including bisphenol A (BPA),
atrazine, dioxin, PBDEs, PFOA, dibutylphthalate (DBP), and nonylphenol.
Drs. Fenton and Makris will delve into the regulatory implications of the
workshop findings.

Featured speakers will include:

* Ruthann Rudel, MS, Silent Spring Institute
* Suzanne Fenton, PhD, NIEHS, National Toxicology Program
* Susan Makris, MS, EPA, Office of Research and Development, National
Center for Environmental Assessment

This call will be moderated by Karin Russ, CHE Fertility National
Coordinator. It will last one hour and will be recorded for archival
purposes.

Speaker bios:

Ruthann Rudel, MS
-----------------
Ms. Rudel directs research programs on toxicology and exposure assessment
at Silent Spring Institute, an independent not-for profit environmental
research organization focused on women's health.  In this role she has
directed the Institute's Household Exposure Studies of endocrine
disrupting chemicals, which the journal Environmental Science & Technology
described as the “most comprehensive analysis to date” of exposures in
homes. Her toxicology research is focused on how chemical safety testing
can identify exposures that could increase breast cancer risk.  For
example, she developed a list of 216 chemicals that cause mammary tumors
in animal studies for a major review published in the journal Cancer, and
she recently completed a new review of chemicals that alter breast
development, possibly leading to increased susceptibility to cancer and
difficulty breast feeding.

Suzanne Fenton, PhD
-------------------
Dr. Fenton is the Group Leader for the Mammary Gland Development/Lactation
Biology Laboratory of the Reproductive Endocrinology Group at the National
Toxicology Program within the National Institutes of Environmental Health
Sciences. The Reproductive Endocrinology Group focuses on the role of
environmental chemicals in breast developmental timing as it relates to
puberty, increased susceptibility to breast cancer, and altered
lactational ability. Dr. Fenton’s major areas of research include studying
human disease using mice and rat models, translating internal dose in
animal models to known exposure levels in U.S. residents, investigating
the developmental effects of high use herbicides and their metabolites,
other compounds such as surfactants, phenolic compounds used in food
storage, and common lipophilic flame retardants and pollutants. Dr. Fenton
previously worked as a principal investigator at the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Reproductive Toxicology Division from 1998 to 2009.

Susan Makris, MS
----------------
Ms. Makris is a toxicologist for the National Center for Environmental
Assessment at the Office of Research and Development within the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.  Ms. Makris specializes in children’s
health risk assessment, particularly in the areas of congenital
abnormalities, developmental neurotoxicity and developmental
immunotoxicology. Her expertise includes lifestage-specific hazard
characterization of environmental toxicants, focusing on the
identification of critical windows of development for observed outcomes,
evaluation of differential exposure at individual lifestages, the
relevance and impact of lifestage-specific toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic
data, mode of action information, variability and latency of effects from
early lifestage exposure, and describing uncertainties. Ms. Makris’ recent
work focuses on the effects of chemicals on mammary gland development.

_________________________________________________________________________

Karin Gunther Russ, MS, RN
National Coordinator
Fertility and Reproductive Health Working Group
Collaborative on Health and the Environment

Mailing address:
1646 Dow Road
Freeland, WA 98249
Phone: 410-493-5940
karin@HealthandEnvironment.org
www.HealthandEnvironment.org

Collaborative on Health and the Environment Partnership call: Navigating the Science - Evaluating Research Quality
**************************************************************************
Thursday June 30, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific / 4:00 p.m. Eastern

Scientific evidence on the health effects of environmental contaminants continues to mount. The range of research available is, however, of variable quality and largely unfamiliar to health care professionals. Researchers at the University of California San Francisco's Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, along with multiple partners, have developed a methodology called the Navigation Guide that links evidence-based medicine and environmental health. As recently described in the journal Health Affairs, the Navigation Guide is a valuable tool to evaluate the quality of evidence and to support evidence-based decision making by clinicians, patients, professional organizations and governmental agencies.

The CHE Fertility & Reproductive Health Working Group will host this important CHE Partnership call on the development of the Navigation Guide and its practical applications.   The call will be moderated by CHE Fertility National Coordinator, Karin Russ, RN, MS.

Featured speakers will include:

* Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, Director, PRHE and Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and Pediatrics
* Jeanne A. Conry, MD, PhD, Assistant Physician-in-Chief for Kaiser Permanente's Sacramento Roseville Region
* Kristina Thayer, PhD, Acting Director, National Toxicology Program's (NTP)Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR)
* Kathryn Guyton, PhD, D.A.B.T., Senior Toxicologist, National Center for
Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development, U.S. EPA

Dr. Tracey Woodruff from UCSF will present the theoretical basis for the methodology. Dr. Jeanne Conry of ACOG District IX will explain how to use the tool to find the best available evidence to make clinical decisions and recommendations. Dr. Kristina Thayer of the NIEHS National Toxicology Program will describe the contribution of this methodology to the field of risk assessment. To round out the discussion, Dr. Kate Guyton of the US EPA will discuss the relevance of the Navigation Guide to policy making human health risk assessments of environmental chemicals at US EPA.

Please join us for this vibrant discussion on analyzing the weight of environmental evidence for appropriate decision making.

To RSVP for this call, visit:
http://www.healthandenvironment.org/?module=articles&type=admin&func=new&ptid=57&callid=9548