The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides funding for a wide range of research, including studies of how environmental factors affect human health. The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), an institute within NIH, supports efforts to understand how environmental exposures affect our risk of cancer, neurodevelopmental disorders, and many other diseases and disabilities.
Recent changes at NIH have included restrictions on vocabulary used in research and writing, and limitations on research results that can be submitted to scientific journals. In addition, key agency staff have been removed from their positions.
In this webinar, Dr. Linda Birnbaum will discuss the implications of these changes for environmental health. Dr. Scott Belcher will discuss the importance of federal research funding for on-going efforts to understand the effects of chemicals such as PFAS on human health. He will discuss the effects on individual research efforts of current or proposed reductions in federal funding.
This webinar will be moderated by Dr. Jerry Heindel, Director, Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruptor Strategies (HEEDS), a program of Environmental Health Sciences.
Featured Speakers
Dr. Linda S. Birnbaum is a toxicologist, microbiologist, and Scientist Emeritus and former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program, as well as a Scholar in Residence at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. As NIEHS director, Dr. Birnbaum oversaw research grants and shared the results of cutting-edge environmental health research with the public and policy makers. She also met with communities, including in Alaska, to better understand environmental health concerns and disparities. Throughout her career, Dr. Birnbaum has been particularly effective at bringing forward the mounting scientific evidence of harm of exposures to certain chemicals that are now ubiquitous in our products and environment.
Dr. Scott Belcher is a Project 3 Co-Leader and Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at North Carolina State University. Dr. Belcher is an endocrine toxicologist and an expert on the actions of endogenous hormones, endocrine disruptors, and other environmental toxicants. Through a combination of laboratory experiments, wildlife studies and community-engaged research, his laboratory research works to understand how very low concentrations of chemicals can adversely affect human health and the environment. Those research efforts focus on identifying adverse health impacts resulting from exposure to endocrine disruptors, toxic metals and per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFAS).
This webinar is hosted by the EDC Strategies Partnership, which is co-chaired by Sharyle Patton (Biomonitoring Resource Center), Jerry Heindel and Sarah Howard (Environmental Health Sciences' Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruptor Strategies, HEEDS), Génon Jensen (Health and Environment Alliance, HEAL), and Rachel Massey (Collaborative for Health and Environment, CHE). To see a full list of past calls and webinars related to EDCs and listen to or view recordings, please visit our partnership page.