Workshop on dose-response relationships and policy, January 27, 2005

George V. Alexeeff, Ph.D.
Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
George V. Alexeeff is Deputy Director for Scientific Affairs of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in Cal EPA. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of California at Davis. He is also certified as a toxicologist by the American Board of Toxicology. After working for industry for several years, he joined the California Department of Health Services as a toxicologist. The health risk assessment area of DHS was transferred to Cal EPA in 1991. He assumed increasing levels of responsibility and became Deputy Director in 1998. He oversees a staff of 80 scientists (including physicians, toxicologists and epidemiologists) in evaluations of the health impact of pollutants and toxicants, including the ambient air quality standards, public health goals, and Proposition 65. Dr. Alexeeff has been performing public health research studies for the last 15 years. He has over 60 scientific publications particularly in the area of the health evaluation of diesel exhaust, acute risk assessment, and potential toxic effects from accidental chemical releases.

Daniel Axelrad
Policy Analyst
Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation, US EPA

John R. Balmes, M.D.
Professor
Department of Medicine, UCSF & School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Dr. Balmes is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where he is the Chief of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), Director of the Human Exposure Laboratory of the Lung Biology Center, and the Principal Investigator of the UCSF Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit. He is also Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley where he is the Director of the Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health and the Center for Excellence in Environmental Public Health Tracking. Dr. Balmes leads a research program involving the respiratory effects of ambient air pollutants. In his laboratory at UCSF, he conducts controlled human exposure studies of the acute effects of ozone and other pollutants. At UC Berkeley, he collaborates in epidemiological studies of the chronic effects of air pollutants. He has published over 160 papers or chapters on occupational and environmental respiratory disease-related topics with many of these dealing with the potential health effects of ambient air pollutants, especially ozone.

Timothy Barry, Sc.D.
Environmental Scientist
National Center for Environmental Economics, US EPA
For the past 15 years or so, Dr. Barry has been involved in developing and applying the methods and techniques of quantitative uncertainty analysis to ecological and human risk assessments conducted by the USEPA. His work has included both the development and implementation of statistical methods and computer software for the evaluation and characterization of uncertainty in risk assessment. Specific projects have included development and implementation of the Agency’s first hierarchical Monte Carlo analysis (2-D Monte Carlo analysis) of risks attributable to radon in community groundwater systems, key contributions to the Agency’s polices on Monte Carlo analysis and risk characterization, development and implementation of computer software for the evaluation of terrestrial and aquatic ecological risks for pesticide usage, statistical consultation on the Agency’s lead PBPK model, consultation on the assessment of risks associated with microbial contamination of groundwater. In addition, he has developed and taught more than a dozen multi-day technical courses on Monte Carlo analysis and its application to environmental risk assessment for the Super Fund Program, the Office of Pesticides, as well as Environment Canada, and ILSI.

Chris Bradfield, Ph.D.
Professor of Oncology
McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin
Dr. Bradfield received a BSc. in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California at Davis in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986. Dr. Bradfield is currently a Professor of Oncology in The McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, University of Wisconsin Medical School. His research focuses on dioxin/PCB toxicology, toxicogenomics, as well as the mechanisms by which higher vertebrates adapt to environmental insult. His awards include, a MERIT award from the NIH, A Pew Scholar Award in the Biomedical Sciences, A Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Scholar Award in Toxicology and The Achievement Award from The Society of Toxicology.

Joseph P. Brown, Ph.D.
Staff Toxicologist
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
Dr. Brown is responsible for assessing human health risks of air toxics in California air principally as mandated by the California Children’s Environmental Health Protection Act of 1999. Previously he assessed risks of various contaminants in drinking water including arsenic, trihalomethanes, chlordane, diethylhexylphthalate, heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide, lindane, MTBE and trichloroethylene. He has also been involved in other media assessments such as community pesticide exposure (malathion, metam) and sport fish contaminants (arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). Dr. Brown earned a Ph.D. degree in microbiology at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Trudy Cameron, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Environmental and Resource Economics, University of Oregon

Weihsueh Chiu, Ph.D.
Environmental Health Scientist
National Center for Environmental Assessment, US EPA
Weihsueh Chiu is an environmental health scientist in the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, National Center for Environmental Assessment. His specialties include health risk assessment, biological and statistical modeling, and data analysis, and is the Chemical Manager for EPA’s trichloroethylene risk assessment. He worked previously in EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation on both exposure assessment and the analysis of health effects from ionizing radiation. He earned a bachelors in Physics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University, and holds a certificate in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Prior to joining EPA, he worked at the U.S. General Accounting Office, where he conducted investigations for Congress on various risk assessment-related topics, including the defense against chemical and biological weapons and the health effects from Vietnam veterans’ exposure to Agent Orange.

Carl Cranor, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy, UC Riverside
Carl Cranor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, received an undergraduate degree in mathematics with a minor in physics (University of Colorado, 1966), a Ph.D. in Philosophy (UCLA , 1971), and a postdoctoral Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School in 1981. His recent work has been on philosophical issues that arise in the legal and scientific adjudication of risks from toxic substances and from the new genetic technologies, supported by NSF and the University of California. He has published numerous articles in these fields as well as authoring Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law (Oxford University Press, 1993, paperback 1997), editing Are Genes Us? The Social Consequences of the New Genetics (Rutgers University Press, 1994) and co-authoring the U.S. Congress' Office of Technology Assessment report, Identifying and Regulating Carcinogens (1987). His articles have appeared in such diverse journals as The American Philosophical Quarterly, Ethics, Law and Philosophy, The Yale Law Journal, The Industrial Relations Law Journal, Risk Analysis, Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, Risk, the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, Jurimetrics, Law and Contemporary Problems, Plant Physiology, the European Journal of Oncology Library, and the American Journal of Public Health. He has served on California's Proposition 65 Science Advisory Panel (1989-1992) and its Science Advisory Panel on Electric and Magnetic Fields (1999-2002), NSF peer review panels and an Institute of Medicine Committee on measures of population health. In 1998 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2003 he was elected as a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazinni.

Michael DeVito, Ph.D.
Branch Chief
Office of Research and Development, US EPA
Dr. DeVito received his Ph.D. in Toxicology from the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology in 1992. He was a post doctoral fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill with Linda Birnbaum. In 1995 he joined the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) at the USEPA. He is presently a Branch Chief in the Pharmacokinetics Branch of the Experimental Toxicology Division at NHEERL. Dr. DeVito's research focus has been to develop approaches to assess cumulative risk associated with exposure to multiple chemicals. These efforts have employed both empirical and physiologically based pharmacokinetic modeling approaches. The empirical approaches developed estimate a chemicals relative potency compared and test if mixtures of chemicals act in an additive manner. However, a chemicals potency to induce a toxic effect is related to both pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties, which may vary across species. In order to develop more accurate cumulative risk assessments more sophisticated models may be required that can incorporate species specific pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic information. We are attempting to develop physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models for use in cumulative risk assessment. These models may provide the framework to quantitatively describe why a chemical is potent and more accurately predict the interactions of the mixtures.

David Eastmond, Ph.D.
Professor
Environmental Toxicology Graduate Program, UC Riverside
Dr. David Eastmond is a professor in the Environmental Toxicology Graduate Program at the University of California, Riverside where he performs research and teaches in the areas of toxicology and risk assessment. For the current academic year, he is serving as a science advisor (Jefferson Science Fellow) in the US State Department in Washington D.C. Dr. Eastmond has performed many studies on benzene and its metabolites, investigating both the mechanisms underlying benzene’s toxic and carcinogenic effects as well as its hematotoxic and cytogenetic genetic effects in the blood cells of benzene-exposed workers. He has served on a number of scientific advisory committees at the state, national and international level. He recently completed serving as the president of the Environmental Mutagen Society.

John Faust
Staff Toxicologist
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA

David Gaylor, Ph.D., M.S.
Gaylor and Associates, LLC
Dr. Gaylor received a doctorate degree in statistics from North Carolina State University in 1960. He has over 50 years experience in the design, statistical analysis, and interpretation of toxicological studies for potential carcinogenesis, neurotoxicity, reproductive, and developmental effects from exposures to chemicals. Thirty-two of these years were at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, NTK, and the National Center for Toxicological Research, FDA. Dr. Gaylor’s research has focused on the development of methods for quantitative risk assessment for cancer and non-cancer health effects for exposures to potentially toxic substances. He has over 170 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 26 book chapters, and has made over 120 presentations at professional meetings. Dr. Gaylor is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, Society for Risk Analysis, and the Academy of Toxicological Sciences. He has an adjunct appointment as Professor of Biostatistics in the College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Dr. Gaylor has served on numerous national and international committees evaluating risk assessment methodology and the toxicities from short-term and long-term exposures to various chemicals for the National Academy of Sciences/National Research council, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Interagency Regulatory Liaison Group, California and U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies, International Life Sciences Institute, Health Canada, and the Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization.

Gary Ginsberg
Toxicologist
Connecticut Department of Public Health

Bernard D. Goldstein, M.D.
Dean
Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Goldstein is the Dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health. From 1986-2001, he served as the Director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, a joint program of Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)- Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He was Chair of the Department of Environmental and Community Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School from 1980-2001. Dr. Goldstein earned his B.S. degree at the University of Wisconsin in 1958 and his M.D. degree at New York University School of Medicine in 1962. He is a physician, board certified in Internal Medicine and Hematology; board certified in Toxicology. Dr. Goldstein is also past president of the Society for Risk Analysis, vice president of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), and a member of the NIH National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council (NAEHS). Dr. Goldstein was Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1983-1985. His past activities include Member and Chairman of the NIH Toxicology Study Section and EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee; Chair of the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Role of the Physician in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the National Research Council Committees on Biomarkers in Environmental Health Research and Risk Assessment Methodology and the Industry Panel of the World Health Organization Commission on Health and Environment. He is the author of over two hundred articles and book chapters related to environmental health sciences and to public policy.

Dale Hattis, Ph.D.
Research Professor
George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University
Dale Hattis is Research Professor with the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University. For thirty years he has been engaged in the development and application of methodology to assess the health, ecological, and economic impacts of regulatory actions. His work has focused on the development of methodology to incorporate interindividual variability data and quantitative mechanistic information into risk assessments for both cancer and non-cancer endpoints. Specific studies have included quantitative risk assessments for reproductive effects of ethoxyethanol, neurological effects of methyl mercury and acrylamide, and chronic lung function impairment from coal dust, four pharmacokinetic-based risk assessments for carcinogens (for perchloroethylene, ethylene oxide, butadiene, and diesel particulates), an analysis of uncertainties in pharmacokinetic modeling for perchloroethylene and an analysis of differences among species in processes related to carcinogenesis. Other major have included efforts to understand age-related differences in sensitivity to carcinogenesis and other effects. He has been reappointed as a member of the Environmental Health Committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board, and for several years he has served as a member of the Food Quality Protection Act Science Review Board. He has also served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Estimating the Health-Risk-Reduction Benefits of Proposed Air Pollution Regulations. He has been a councilor and is a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, and serves on the editorial board of its journal, Risk Analysis. He holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from Stanford University and a B.A. in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley.

Jennifer Jinot
Mathematical Statistician
National Center for Environmental Assessment, US EPA

Amy D. Kyle, Ph.D.
Research Scientist and Lecturer
School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Amy D. Kyle holds appointments as Associate Researcher and Lecturer in the Environmental Health Sciences Division at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her MPH and her PhD in environmental health sciences and policy from the University of California at Berkeley and her BA from Harvard College. Early in her career, she spent 13 years in public service in a variety of positions in environmental protection, natural resources management, and public health and retains a keen interest in improving public health practice. Her research focuses on translation of scientific results for policy and stakeholder audiences, development of methods to better represent scientific knowledge regarding relationships between environmental factors and health in policy contexts, integrated assessment of health and environment, and children's environmental health. She teaches graduate students in the various environmental health science disciplines about the role of science, as well as other factors, in policy. She works with a variety of non-governmental and public interest organizations; serves on the California Breast Cancer Research Council and the Committee on Emerging Contaminants of the National Academy of Sciences; and is an advisor to the Environmental Council of the States, National Drinking Water Advisory Committee, California Environmental Protection Agency, Division of School and Adolescent Health in the Centers for Disease Control, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and California Energy Commission.

Melanie Marty, Ph.D.
Chief, Air Toxicology and Epidemiology Section
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
Melanie Marty is chief of the Air Toxicology and Epidemiology Section at Cal EPA’ Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Dr. Marty supervises about 25 staff consisting of toxicologists, epidemiologists and physicians who develop the scientific documents relating to health impacts from air pollution which serve as the basis for regulation in the state of California. Dr. Marty’s section is responsible for the health-based recommendations for Ambient Air Quality Standards for Criteria Air Pollutants, health effects assessments of Toxic Air Contaminants, the risk assessment guidelines for stationary sources of air pollutants under the Air Toxics Hot Spots program (including cancer potency factors and acute and chronic Reference Exposure Levels as well as exposure assessment models), and development of criteria for indoor air contaminants. In addition, ATES staff have conducted a number of air pollution epidemiology studies. Dr. Marty also functions as the Departmental lead on children’s environmental health issues, and is currently Chair of U.S.EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee.

Tom McDonald, M.P.H., Ph.D.
Staff Toxicologist (Specialist)
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
Dr. McDonald currently works as a Staff Toxicologist (Specialist) in California Environmental Protection Agency’s (Cal EPA) Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in Oakland, California. His primary activities include development of children’s cancer guidelines, hazard identification and dose-response assessment of carcinogens, peer review, and technical support to the state’s science advisory boards and Attorney General’s office. Dr. McDonald’s current research interests include mechanisms of carcinogenesis, inter-individual variability, thyroid hormone disruption, and children's health. Since 1999 he has been studying the rising body burdens and potential health effects of the polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs). Dr. McDonald played an instrumental role in actions leading to the 2003 law, which bans two forms of PBDEs in California. He is the technical lead on a number of chemicals for the State including benzene and acrylamide. He is also the current President of the Genetic and Environmental Toxicology Association of Northern California. Dr. McDonald received his bachelor's degree in molecular biology and a master's degree of public health from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in environmental health sciences (toxicology) from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Before taking a position with Cal EPA in 1994, Dr. McDonald worked as a chemist for Chevron and as a postdoctoral fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Al McGartland, Ph.D.
Director
National Center for Environmental Economics, US EPA
Director, National Center for Environmental Economics and lead economist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Responsible for analyzing the economic and environmental effects of environmental policies, designing and analyzing emissions trading and other innovative pollution control schemes, and studying the relationship between our economy and environment. As the chief economist for the EPA, advises senior policymaking officials on the economics of environmental policies and translates economic research into policy contexts. Also advises on key science policy issues facing EPA. The National Center for Environmental Economics issues EPA’s Guidelines for Preparing Economic Analyses and conducts numerous studies to assess the benefits and costs of environmental programs. Center also conducts key research on environmental science issues, including the EPA’s publication of America’s Children and the Environment. Supports numerous interagency initiatives. Managing EPA’s environmental assessments of the Administration’s free trade negotiations. Prior to EPA, worked at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget. While there, reviewed environmental regulations and supporting analyses. Served as the economic advisor to the Chairman at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Previously a vice president at ABT Associates, Inc., a public policy and economics consulting firm. Received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland. Published in several journals, including the American Economic Review, the Canadian Journal of Economics, the Journal of Environmental Management, the medical journal, Lancet, the Northwestern Law Review, and the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Contributed to numerous books and reports on environmental economic issues.

Thomas McKone, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist & Adjunct Professor
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory & UC Berkeley
Thomas E. McKone is a Senior Staff Scientist and Deputy Department Head at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an Adjunct Professor and researcher with the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include the development and use of multimedia exposure models in health-risk assessments, chemical transport and transformation in the environment, and the health and environmental impacts of energy, industrial, and agricultural systems. Dr. McKone is active in other research, regulatory, and professional organizations. He has been a member of several National Academy of Sciences Committees and served six years on the EPA Science Advisory Board. He is past-president of the International Society of Exposure Analysis (ISEA) and has been on consultant committees for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Dr. McKone received his M.S. and Ph.D. in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Bart Ostro, Ph.D.
Chief, Air Pollution Epidemiology Unit
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
Dr. Bart Ostro is currently the Chief of the Air Pollution Epidemiology Unit, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA). His primarily responsibilities are to develop Cal EPA’s recommendations for state ambient air quality standards and to investigate the potential health effects of criteria air pollutants. His previous research has contributed to the determination of federal and state air pollution standards for ozone and particulate matter and he was a co-author of the EPA cost-benefit analysis that resulted in the federal ban of lead in gasoline. He recently served on a National Academy of Sciences Committee addressing issues concerning the quantification of the health benefits of reducing ambient air pollution and is currently a member of the U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board committee responsible for reviewing EPA’s quantification of health benefits. Besides his regular duties, Dr. Ostro has served as a consultant with several institutions including the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and with the several foreign governments including Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Chile.

Stephen M. Rappaport, Ph.D.
Professor of Environmental Health
School of Public Health, University of North Carolina
Prof. S. M. Rappaport received his Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He has been a Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of North Carolina since 1990. Prior to that time he was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley for 14 years. Since 1974, he has been active in research involving both environmental and biological monitoring. His current research focuses upon human dosimetry of various genotoxic chemicals, including benzene, styrene, naphthalene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and upon elucidating the human metabolism of these substances. He has also published extensively in areas related to the assessment of long-term exposures to chemicals for purposes of controlling workplace hazards and of investigating exposure-response relationships. He has more than 140 refereed publications and has collaborated extensively with investigators throughout the world in his research endeavors.

Deborah Rice, Ph.D.
Toxicologist
Environmental Unit, Maine Bureau of Health

Martha S. Sandy, M.P.H., Ph.D.
Senior Toxicologist
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
Dr. Martha S. Sandy is Chief of the Cancer Toxicology and Epidemiology Unit in the Reproductive and Cancer Hazard Assessment Section of Cal EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). Dr. Sandy’s Unit providesscientific support for listing chemicals as causing cancer under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65); develops guidelines for assessing risks of exposure to carcinogens, including dose response and exposure assessment;prepares guidance on cumulative impact assessment; and provides technical assistance toother programs in OEHHA, the Attorney General’s Office, and other California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA) departments in evaluating air, water and food contamination risks. In addition, the Unit provides scientific support to characterize the health and environmental risks posed by complex mixtures associated with motor vehicle fuels. Dr. Sandy earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences and Toxicology from the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining OEHHA, she served as the Director of the Molecular Biology Group at the Parkinson’s Institute, investigating biochemical and genetic susceptibility factors for Parkinson’s disease.

Allan H. Smith, Ph.D.
Professor of Epidemiology
School of Public Health, UC Berkeley

Martyn T. Smith, Ph.D.
Professor of Toxicology
School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Martyn T. Smith is Professor of Toxicology and Director of the Superfund Basic Research Program at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1980 from St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, London. He underwent a year of post-doctoral training in toxicology with Professor Sten Orrenius at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Upon returning to the University of London in 1981 he helped teach the first undergraduate degree in Toxicology and Pharmacology at the School of Pharmacy, University of London. Dr. Smith came to the United States in 1982 as an Assistant Professor of Toxicology at Berkeley. In 1987 he was promoted to tenure and became an Associate Professor. Also in 1987 he became Director of the NIEHS Superfund Research Program at Berkeley, a program with a $3 million annual budget. In 1992 he was promoted to Full Professor and in 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his outstanding contributions to the field of environmental toxicology. In 2000 he became a member of the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council of the National Institutes of Health. He has authored over 200 publications and has served as a consultant or grant reviewer to many institutions including various branches of NIH, the US EPA, the Leukemia Research Fund, and the UK Medical Research Council.

Ira B. Tager, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor of Epidemiology
School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Currently, Ira B. Tager is Professor of Epidemiology in the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. He has had a 30-year research interest in and experience with epidemiological studies of the effects of various environmental pollutants on respiratory health of children. His work focused largely on the effects of second hand tobacco smoke exposure on the development of respiratory function and asthma in children. For the past 11-years, he has conduceted research on the effects of long-term exposure to ambient ozone on the small airways function in college-age adolescents and the effects ambient pollutants on the long-term outcomes in children with asthma.

Duncan C. Thomas, Ph.D.
Professor and Director, Verna R. Richter Chair in Cancer Research
Division of Biostatistics, Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, USC
Dr. Thomas is Professor of Preventive Medicine, Director of the Biostatistics Division, and Verna R. Richter Chair in Cancer Research at the University of Southern California School of Medicine. He received his undergraduate degree from Haverford College, an M.S. in Mathematics from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University in 1976. His primary research interest has been in the development of statistical methods for cancer epidemiology, but he also has wide ranging interests in both environmental and genetic epidemiology. On the environmental side, he has been particularly active in radiation carcinogenesis, having collaborated on studies of cancer in residents downwind of the Nevada Test Site, uranium miners, medical irradiation, and the atomic bomb survivors. He was a member of President Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, as well as the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR V). He is Co-Director of the Southern California Environmental Research Center. He is also one of the senior investigators in the California Childrens Health Study, the only long-term cohort study of the chronic effects of air pollution in children. On the genetic side, Dr. Thomas has numerous publications in the area of statistical genetics, including the textbook Statistical Methods in Genetic Epidemiology (Oxford University Press, 2004) and is collaborating on family studies of breast, ovarian, colon, prostate and other cancers, insulin dependent diabetes, systemic lupus erethematosis, and other diseases.

Vanessa T. Vu, Ph.D.
Director, EPA Science Advisory Board
US EPA
Dr. Vanessa Vu currently serves as Director of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) Staff Office. She oversees three EPA external advisory groups which are composed of a distinguished body of scientists and engineers– the SAB, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), and the Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis (Council). These three advisory bodies conduct peer review and advise the Agency on broad scientific matters in science, technology, social, and economic issues. As Director of EPA’s Office of Science Coordination and Policy from 2001-2002, Dr. Vu provided leadership and direction for the management of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panel and cross-cutting science programs and science policies pertaining to EPA’s Endocrine Disruptors Program, Alternative Test Methods Program, and Biotechnology Program. From 1998-2001, she served as Associate Director for Health in EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, where she was responsible for directing a research program to develop and implement improved human health risk assessment methods and to provide management oversight of consensus health effects assessments of major environmental chemicals available on EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). As Director of the Risk Assessment Division from 1995-1998 and the Deputy Director of the Health and Environmental Review Division from 1992-1995 in EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, she directed a scientific review program for the evaluation of human health and ecological risks of new and existing commercial chemicals and the development of internationally harmonized toxicity test guidelines to assess for potential human health and ecological effects of environmental agents.

Nigel Walker, Ph.D.
Staff Scientist
Environmental Toxicology Program, NIEHS
Dr. Nigel Walker received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Liverpool in England in 1993 followed by postdoctoral training in environmental toxicology at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, MD. Since 1995 he has been at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina where is currently a staff toxicologist in the Environmental Toxicology Program. Dr. Walker has 12 years experience in research on dioxins and has over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and government reports in this area. Dr Walker co-authored two chapters of the current USEPAs health assessment document for 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and related compounds, that deal with the carcinogenicity and dose response modeling for dioxins. He is currently leading several initiatives of the National Toxicology Program (NTP) including the dioxin Toxic Equivalency Factor evaluation (a series of studies testing dose additivity of carcinogenicity for mixtures of dioxins), the NTP’s evaluation of nanoscale materials. In addition he chairs the NTP’s toxicogenomics faculty that is leading efforts incorporating toxicogenomics into NTP studies. He is an adjunct assistant professor in the Curriculum in Toxicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is currently President–Elect of the North Carolina Society of Toxicology.

Lori White, Ph.D.
Health Scientist
National Center for Environmental Assessment, US EPA
Lori White is a Health Scientist in the Environmental Media Assessment Group, a branch of the National Center for Environmental Assessment. The Environmental Media Assessment Group is responsible for preparing and publishing the criteria documents for the six major air pollutants (particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and lead) in support of National Ambient Air Quality Standard decisionmaking. The group is currently preparing the first external review draft of the Ozone criteria document. Dr. White is principal author of the dosimetry and animal toxicology chapters. The group has recently prepared the project work plan for possible revision of air quality criteria for lead.

Tracey Woodruff, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
National Center for Environmental Economics, US EPA
Dr. Woodruff is a senior scientist and policy advisor in the National Center for Environmental Economics in the Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation at the Unites States Environmental Protection Agency. She has done extensive research on environmental health issues, including health effects from air pollution, children’s health risks, and environmental health indicators. She also works on critical science policy issues at EPA. She has served as an epidemiological expert for EPA in preparation of the regulatory standards for particulate matter and ozone, and co-led the project producing the first national characterization of air toxics across the US. Her most recent work focuses on environmental health indicators for children, including initiating and leading EPA’s work developing measures to track children’s environmental health. This has lead to two reports, the second, “America’s Children and the Environment: Measures of Contaminants, Body Burdens, and Illnesses” was released in spring of 2003. She received her Ph.D. and M.P.H. in the environmental health sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed a Pew Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Health Policy Studies.

Lauren Zeise, M.S., Ph.D.
Chief, Reproductive and Cancer Hazard Assessment
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Cal EPA
Lauren Zeise is Chief of Reproductive and Cancer Hazard Assessment within the Cal EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. In that position since 1991, she has overseen a variety of the state’s cancer and reproductive risk assessment activities. Current work addresses cancer and reproductive risk methodologies and characterizations, establishment of baseline risks from gasoline use in California and guidance for evaluating cancer risks from in utero and childhood environmental exposures. Her group also conducts scientific evaluations mandated by California’s Proposition 65. Her research has focused on cancer risk assessment methodology and applications. Lauren currently serves on the EPA Science Advisory Board and has served previously as a member of various SAB and other EPA ad hoc advisory committees. Other service includes membership on various committees or working groups of the Agency for Research on Cancer, National Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Research Council (NRC), Consumer Product Safety Commission, National Toxicology Program, Office of Technology Assessment, and National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. She currently serves on the IOM Board of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and NRC Board on Environmental Sciences and Toxicology. She is a member, fellow and journal editor for the Society of Risk Analysis. She received in 1977 her M.S. and in 1984 her Ph.D. from Harvard University, where she also conducted postdoctoral research on risk assessment methodology.

Luoping Zhang, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Dr. Luoping Zhang received her Ph.D. in 1993 from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. She was earlier educated in China and received her M.S. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and her B.S. from Wuhan University, both in Wuhan. For the past 12 years, Dr. Zhang has been working as a Senior Scientist in Professor Martyn Smith's laboratory in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. Since 1992, she has coordinated a series of biomarker studies in China of workers exposed to benzene, butadiene, and trichloroethylene in collaboration with NCI and China CDC. Her major focus is to apply biomarkers, molecular cytogenetics, and new omic technologies to further understand the causes and mechanisms of leukemia and lymphoma caused by chemical exposure. Recent major findings revealed from these studies include: a) Benzene is hematotoxic in humans at lower concentrations than previously thought and it causes damage to the blood progenitor cells both in exposed workers and in treated human cells; b) Array based proteomics and transcriptomics applied to benzene-exposed workers and dioxin-exposed subjects provide new biomarkers; and c) Childhood leukemias diagnosed under age 14 can originate in utero and the common forms of childhood ALL (t(12;21) and hyperdiploidy) can be simultaneously classified by FISH (Fluorescence in situ hybridization). Dr. Zhang has been an innovator in developing a new FISH method that allows the simultaneous observation of the specific rearrangements of all 24 human chromosomes, such that all common genetic changes in the development of leukemia and/or lymphoma can be detected.

David Zilberman, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley
David Zilberman is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley. He holds the Robinson Chair, Direct of of the Giannini Foundation for Agricultural Economics, and the Co-Director of the Center for Sustainable Resource Development in the College of Natural Resources. David’s areas of expertise include the economics of risk and health, economics of technology and innovation, water and natural resources; agricultural and environmental policy. David is a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). He has more than 150 refereed journal articles, including Science, AER, Econometrica, and AJAE. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank, FAO, USDA, and the USEPA. His recent research project was on the economics of biotechnology and biodiversity in developing countries, and he is the co-editor of a forthcoming book "Agricultural Biodiversity and Biotechnology: Economic Issues and Framework for Analysis." He has been working on developing an economic framework, which relies on risk assessment models, and he applied this framework to problems of water quality, worker safety, and pesticide regulation.

Workshop on dose-response relationships and policy

Synopsis

Sponsors

Rationale

Presentations

PURPOSE AND PROCESS

CASE STUDY 1: BENZENE

CASE STUDY 2: OZONE IN AMBIENT AIR

CASE STUDY 3: NON-CANCER EFFECTS OF DIOXIN

Participant Biographies