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Interview with CHE Partner, Richard Joseph Jackson, MD, MPH
 Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
Former California State Health Officer and Director of the CDC National Center for Environmental Health
What first brought you into the environmental health movement?
I grew up in the Newark, New Jersey area. My grandmother Devine told me stories of her friends who died of cancer after their jaws disintegrated from painting radium on watch dials in nearby East Orange. My mother pointed out neighbors who came home covered in dye from working in local chemical plants.
Nutley, my home town, was also filled with chemical odors from a nearby Roche subsidiary. Driving to my cousins' house in Jersey City through the "meadows" we would shut the car windows as we passed enormous piles of yellow stuff that smelled like rotten eggs. For my first summer job I was working as a shipping clerk in a compression molding plastics plant. On one of the hottest Jersey dog days; gas fumes issued from a nearby stack that smelled like an acid. I found I was coughing heavily for the next 18 months as I crammed in all my pre-med courses. I was one of seven kids and we did not complain about things. To live in NJ was to experience chemical immersion.
What is the primary goal/mission of your organization/project?
I was fortunate to spend 15 years working on environmental public health issues in California and 10 years with CDC in Atlanta. The ultimate goal of our work is -- yes, to learn about causes of illness and outbreaks, and yes, to advance knowledge, but most of all it is about prevention-- protecting our children and grandchildren, of this country and of the world. I have spent the last year at UCB recharging my intellectual and psychic batteries after a stint in Sacramento. The time has been terrific and I have learned so much, especially from the young people. I have also had a chance to learn the history and context of many of the battles I have been in, and to think about "what's next". It isn't quite clear, but one thing is certain, the environmental public health trajectory of the last few years needs a "booster stage", new partners, new thinking, and better constituencies.
What have been the most significant obstacles and successes you have encountered and achieved in this work to date?
Biomonitoring of the US population has been a huge step forward. We need to escape from the stagnation of the "risk assessment" paradigm and move to rethinking the whole approach to chemicals and how we explain this to ordinary folks. We need chemicals, of course, so let's pick the ones least toxic (let's face it, water, oxygen, calcium, peptides are our friends). Let's produce as much of the safe stuff and as little of the hazardous stuff we possibly can -- we are smart enough to do this. When we need to make hazardous stuff, let's keep it away from and out of people, especially out of breast milk and our children's bodies. So, we need to biomonitor and we need to benchmark and demand body burden reductions, just the way we mandate "fleet standards". Yes, it will take time, this is generational, but we need to move in the health direction.
What is the number one change you would like to see for the future of environmental health?
Hard question: folks who know me know that I am obsessed with urban planning as a public health issue. This ties into the ultimate issue of public policy in my opinion, what we are doing to the planet's atmosphere. It strikes me that what is good for our children (safe homes and neighborhoods, present parents, increasing developmental autonomy, decent food and lots of walking, biking and running), is what is good for our nation (peaceful co-existence and reduced atmospheric carbon loading), is what is good for our planet and our future. The planet doesn't need our species, but we certainly need the planet.
What or who continues to inspire you in your work?
Our young people, including my sons. I have had so many mentors who have been great and generous friends that I dare not list names, but every day I meet a student who has worked in the Peace Corps, or who is coming back from refugee camps, or is helping with community organizing in a poor neighborhood. I am saddened by the mess that my generation is now making of this great country, often feel helpless about it, but am re-energized as I meet these fine future leaders.
Any comments/suggestions for CHE itself?
CHE fills a critical need at a time of genuine threat and urgency. Thank you for your leadership. Top
Originally posted: 14 September 2006
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