Commentary

[Commentaries published here are the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinion of CHE.]

30 January: The Attack of the Flack: A PR flack funded by the tobacco and chemical industries takes a vitriolic swipe at CHE and its members.

9 January 2003. Do scientists with strong findings who conclude that more research is necessary without making precautionary recommendations simply serve the status quo? Peter Montague, editor of Rachel's News challenges the CHE community to think about this provocative question.

November 2002. In a series of essays published in San Francisco Medicine, scientists working with CHE explore aspects of the links between environment and health:

  Philip R. Lee, MD and Steve Heilig, MPH Environmentalism with a Human Face - A New Era of Collaboration on Environmental Factors and Health
  Ted Schettler, MD, MPH Changing Patterns of Disease: Human Health and the Environment
  Gina M. Soloman, MD, MPH Rare and Common Diseases in Environmental Health
  Larry B. Silver, MD The Comorbidity Pattern Found with a Continuum of Neurologically-Based Disorders
  Shelley A. Hearne, DrPH Modernizing Our Public Health Defenses to Better Fight and Prevent Chronic Disease and Related Enviromental Risks
  John Peterson Myers, PhD From Silent Spring to Scientific Revolution
  Steve Heilig, MPH Book Review
  CHE CHE consensus statement

June 2002. In an article first published in San Francisco Medicine, Dr. Philip Lee and Steve Heilig challenge clinicians to learn about the emerging science establishing links between environmental contaminants and human disease.

 

"How many clinicians are aware that environmental pollutants are increasingly implicated as causal factors in a growing list of diseases? How many inquire about such factors as part of taking a history or of diagnosis and treatment of such diseases?"

The answers to these questions are "few" and "fewer."

 

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February 2002. John Peterson Myers describes the revolution underway in scientific understanding of the links between contamination and health. As this revolution unfolds, "it is likely dramatically to alter our understanding of the consequences of pollutants for human well-being, and to require fundamental changes in how chemicals are regulated."

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